Where apostrophes come to die.

FIC: DOGS/REBORN - Sunscorched

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:33:36 GMT

Title: Sunscorched
Fandom: DOGS/DOGS: Bullets and Carnage & Katekyo Hitman Reborn
Rating: R
Pairing: Squalo/Badou
Disclaimer: NOZZINK IS MEIN!
Feedback: Would be lurvely.
Notes: I can't believe how long this got, and how out of control my love for this pairing is getting. Written for optimus_fridge, whom I would not have this crossfandom crack addiction without. Very definitively written to "No Key, No Plan" by Okkervil River and "Oh Blah Wee" by Via Audio.

The sun stings at his eye, hurts and dizzies him, and goddamn if Badou doesn’t feel like something damp and fungal that’s crawled out from under a log for the first time. The rucksack over his shoulder is depressingly light for something that contains all his worldly possessions [and it’s ironic how many of his worldly possessions are made to burn].

He has second [third, fourth, fifth] thoughts, so he rings the doorbell to spite himself. Three times. As he’s going for the fourth the door swings open angrily, and Badou knows in that moment he would have turned around and left if it had opened any other way.

“Shut up, what do you-”

The truly amazing thing is that, even though it’s been months since Squalo last saw him, the other man’s annoyed expression seems to breach any distance, as if Badou has been playing ding dong ditch on him for weeks straight. It’s more comforting than it sounds [and Badou doesn’t dwell on that].

Squalo seems to take in Badou’s rucksack, his slept-in-a-bus-for-a-few-days rumpled clothes, and his sun-strung squinty-eyed discomfort all at once.

“Wipe your shitty feet,” sighs the white-haired man. Badou lifts a heavy, untied boot and does so, on Squalo’s immaculate tan trouser leg.

The cry of rage and the crunch of gravel as his back painfully hits the ground aren’t anything like the sweetest of music, but Badou can’t dance anyway.

-+-+-+-

He spends two days straight sleeping in Squalo’s bed, alone. When he wakes up, he isn’t surprised to find his rucksack heavily gone through. The ticket stubs from every mode of transportation he’d taken to get here are spread out on the floor like a hole-punched map.

When Squalo comes in and sees Badou sitting up against the headboard chain-smoking steadily, he looks disconcerted first and guilty second, but snaps, “No smoking in the bedroom. You’re gonna make everything fucking stink.”

“Kiss my ash.”

“Ha ha. I’ll cut you. Put it out.”

Badou takes one last long drag, exhaling the smoke slowly, savouring the sharp nicotine taste, all edges and delicious bite down his throat. After stubbing the cigarette out on the expensive mahogany bedside table, he smiles pleasantly, wriggles down into the soft linens. “Come back to bed, baby, I wanted to cuddle.”

The older man makes an odd noise, crosses his arms as he looks away, expression pinching. “I could’ve flown you straight here, you stupid asshole.”

“Didn’t know I’d end up here,” rasps Badou distantly, his eye closing again. He’s too tired to discern whether it’s a lie or not.

“You’re a fucking irresponsible, idiotic retard-”

“And you’re a fucking terrible host. You could’ve warned me that the toilet fights back. I’ve never been so waterlogged.”

“Shut up, you could’ve just- called or-”

“Did somebody make breakfast? I’ve got a rumbly in my tumbly like you wouldn’t believe, friend.”

Squalo makes an aggravated sound, kicks the nearest available object in frustration. It happens to be Badou’s rucksack, which then shoots and kills Squalo’s ceiling fan, stopped short from the floor all tangled up in its own wires.

There’s silence.

“Guess I forgot to put the safety back on after that last rest stop,” says Badou thoughtfully [if a bit shakily]. “Breakfast, then?”

Squalo takes a slow, even breath, counts to ten [though ten hundred wouldn’t be enough]. “We can get some on the way.”

-+-+-+-

Bare feet up on the dashboard, Badou smokes out the window of the rental car [fake names are so fun to make up, thinks Badou, or rather, I. P. Freeley]. The past five days on the road have been an exercise in discretion [too much unstable ground to tread on, too many cracks in the dried dirt of their lives].

The Italian countryside goes by, beautiful and brown in the dry heat of the summer. Badou isn’t sure he could handle the surface in spring bloom, as the soft, natural yellows and tans already burn his retina raw.

There are no shadows here, and he feels terrifyingly exposed [feels, maybe, his wounds finally beginning to air out].

Badou wonders why Squalo’s volatile boss seemingly has no need for him any longer. He doesn’t ask, though, because Squalo doesn’t ask why Badou isn’t trailing behind a red-eyed suicide punk, following him into the dark.

Despite having morals fitting slack and unrestricting like an old threadbare jumper, Badou will pay courtesy for courtesy.

They pass a series of low-hanging telephone wires. Badou lifts two fingers in front of his eye, snipping them like scissors. Cut the cord, he thinks. Communications are down, and it turns out we don’t need them anyway. Let the wires writhe and spark out, and let the world be wonderful and silent.

Just because Squalo is wearing dark shades doesn’t mean Badou can’t tell when he’s watching him.

-+-+-+-

“That’s fucking disgusting. You’re fucking disgusting.”

They’re sitting side by side on a motel bed, watching TV, long legs stretched out in front of them. Badou had placed an ashtray between them. However, it was not collecting ash, but the peeled-off skin from Badou’s nose.

Badou looks at Squalo innocently as he claws industriously at the bridge of his nose. “Hmmm?”

Mouth thinning into a line, Squalo cringes away from him. “Cut that shit out! Augh! It’s all- curling- eugh-”

The redhead smirks, leaning over Squalo’s bare chest and scratching at his nose with both hands. The flakes of dead skin fall like tiny, revolting snowflakes. Squalo howls with horror, frantically patting himself off, and then pulling Badou over him and subsequently onto the floor.

Badou laughs and laughs and laughs, which irritates the older man. Squalo rolls himself off the bed, landing heavily on the other man [immediately regretting it; it’s like a pile of ash and bones and obnoxious, donkey-esque laughter].

For a while, they grapple and roll on the floor like kids, banging into end table legs and a rusted-shut mini-bar. When his dirty tactics and boney knuckles appear to be losing, Badou tries to scrabble away. A small snort of amusement escapes from Squalo accidentally. He pulls Badou back by his hair, a full-fledged grin breaking out on his face at the indignant yelp.

Sprawled against the foot of the bed, he secures a tight hold around Badou’s waist. The redhead is still laughing, struggling, when Squalo sweeps the red-orange hair to one side, ducks his head and drops a biting kiss to the pale, pale skin.

The younger man freezes a little, and Squalo appears to take the lack of a broken nose as an okay. He kisses and bites up and down the side of Badou’s neck, tasting long drives and cigarettes. Badou feels a hand skimming up under his t-shirt, exploring and re-discovering hungrily [it’s been so long since Squalo’s been able to find wine good enough for this to happen].

Thoughts clouding [communications down, blackout in the control tower], Badou allows himself to be pulled to his feet, for his t-shirt to be stripped off and tossed aside. Squalo’s mouth burns a trail up from Badou’s collar bone, licks between the other man’s lips. The swordsman kisses like he fights, all expert technique and parries met with fervor, and Badou swears to fuck there must be some kinda pheromone or something responsible for all this.

Without ever noticing when it happened, Badou is sitting on the foot of bed, Squalo pressed against his back again and biting hard at his jaw, his hand slipping down the front of Badou’s jeans. “I want you,” breathes Squalo, and Badou groans, his own hand searching.

Squalo doesn’t notice when their soft panting is overtaken by a much louder panting. He actually only picks his head up from mauling the redhead’s throat when he hears someone who is definitely not Badou going “Oh, you’re my daddy, you’re, oh, oh, oh.”

Badou finalizes the order of the porno film with one last ‘select’ on the remote, and uses Squalo’s dumbfounded distraction to escape his grasp. He quickly pulls on his t-shirt, steps into his boots, and runs a hand through slightly mussed hair.

“Have fun,” says Badou. “I’m gonna get some smokes. Don’t stain my side of the bed.”

Just after the door clicks shut behind him, Badou hears the remote break into fifteen pieces against it.

-+-+-+-

The dust whirls up around him, and the wind blows his hair just enough for it to be a nuisance. Badou leans against the hood of the rental car and watches the soft yellow cornfields dance in the breeze, mesmerized. In a farm house a few feet away, someone shrieks in horror as his acquaintance cuts off their arm with a broadsword.

It’s a little bit, he thinks as he takes a drag, like an old Western gone bad. Silverhand Squalo and the Cancer Stick Kid.

Hey, he’d watch it.

Two bloodied fingers touch his hip. Badou smiles.

“Gusher?” he asks.

“Unfortunately. You stole shampoo at that last motel, didn’t you?”

“What makes you think I’m that fuckin’ tacky?”

“How many did you take?”

“Nine. How much for the lecherous old fucker?”

“Thirteen.”

Badou gives a low whistle. He’s beginning to understand why people join the mafia. Squalo reaches up, pushes that nuisance hair out of Badou’s sun-blinded eye, smearing blood on his cheekbone. “I’m spending it as I see fit. We’re getting accommodations that don’t cater to rats. And a good bottle of wine.”

Dropping his cigarette to the dusty road, Badou grinds it out with his heel and tries to hide his grin.

-+-+-+-

Call it a hidden talent in plain sight, but Badou has always been good at lighting shit on fire.

They stand in front of the quickly burning villa of the Recently [Aided in Being] Deceased, everything sparking and lighting up in the summer heat [as dangerous as whole can of gasoline; not that Badou didn’t use that too, of course]. When it’s all burned to ash, Badou imagines the countryside swallowing the wreckage of the house up.

Arsonist and lover of scenic routes, Badou Nails. It sure is a crazy fucking world.

“We should get out of here,” says Squalo, but they don’t, staying until the last support beam gives out and crumbles in a gust of smoke.

-+-+-+-

They’re in a ditch, waiting for the sirens to stop blaring. Badou is more than a little drunk, and needs to be elbowed four times in the ribcage to quit cackling to himself.

When the shriek of the law is far away, and the night-time sounds of the outskirts filter back in, Badou takes a few moments to just breathe in. His mind light and bubbly as all the hard liquor they had steadily blown their cash on [and oh, the stars were almost too bright to look at without that thin veneer of alcohol].

“Too close,” says Squalo, breath warm against Badou’s cheek.

“Not close enough,” rasps Badou, absently tangling his fingers in white hair.

The crickets chirp around them unnoticed.

-+-+-+-

“Is it working yet?” complains Badou listlessly, hanging out the window and twisting the keys in the ignition again. The engine makes a noise akin to a dying water buffalo. “You don’t know what you’re doing, do you. You definitely fucking have no idea.”

“Shut up,” grits Squalo from beneath the hood. Badou notes with some amusement that he’s being very careful to try and keep himself clean of oil and grease. “You don’t even know how to drive and you’re criticizing me?”

“It’s taking you for-fucking-ever!”

“Do you have somewhere to be?”

The wind ruffles Badou’s long bangs, and he grins. “Nope. But goin’ nowhere and not going anywhere are two different things, man. Very different things.”

“Are you finished?”

“Not even close. Bet you’ve heard that a lot, huh?”

“Shut up. I fucking hate you. Try it again.”

Badou does, and the car’s engine gives a couple false revs, then starts with a growl. The redhead laughs, honking the horn. Squalo slams the hood closed again, and seems to radiate smugness as he comes around to the driver’s side, presumably about to shove Badou’s stupid ass over and get in-

-when Badou guns it.

The car only speeds just far enough to make Squalo think he’s really going to be oh my jesus fucking god stranded, and then stops. The older man comes panting and swearing up to the driver’s side, yanking open the door and pulling the hysterically laughing chain-smoker out of the driver’s seat.

Squalo pulls the cigarette from between Badou’s lips and throws it to the hot asphalt, pressing Badou up against the car. “Going back without me?”

“Who says I’m going back?”

Something changes in Squalo’s face, so subtle it’s almost unseen. “There’s a lot of Italy you haven’t seen yet,” he comments, almost offhandedly.

Badou searches his face for just a moment, murky green eye flickering.

Slowly, he mutters, “Not just Italy.”

“Spain,” says Squalo, almost involuntarily. “France. England. Alaska.”

“Alaska?” rasps Badou, arching an eyebrow.

“You might not burn like a little bitch there,” shrugs Squalo.

Badou turns his head up a little, towards the sky. And he thinks, he’s ready to feel the warmth of the sun on his face, and come up out of the muck.

“Fuck Alaska,” he says, lips quirking into a crooked smile. “How about Hawaii?”

FIC: DOGS - In the House of the Lord, No Less

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:30:22 GMT

I entirely forgot to ever post this on here. Written for the DOGS kink meme, which could really use some writers EH EH.

I am also disgustingly proud of myself for finally fixing all my tags. LOOK HOW NEAT AND ORGANIZED THAT SHIT IS. LOOK!!

Title: In the House of the Lord, No Less
Fandom: DOGS/DOGS: Bullets and Carnage
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Bishop/Badou
Disclaimer: NO! NO! NO!
Feedback: Would be appreciated, as I don't write smut often.
Notes: For the anon request of Bishop/Badou - crossdressing.

"Are you almost fucking done?" grumbles Badou, twitching. "My ass is fucking cold." Ash falls from the end of his cancer-stick like tiny dirty snowflakes [not yellow snow, he thinks with an absent grin, 'coz it ain't like that goddamned dog Haine's around].

Before the ash can spiral more than a hair's breadth past the redhead's chin, the Bishop's hand snatches out and catches it. So as not to stain the frilly, delicate lolita dress he's putting his last adjustments on, of course.

"Your bottom is cold, my optically challenged friend," hums the Bishop with a wealth of good humour [a subtle tinge of anticipation], "because you need to sit like a delicate young lady. Tsk, your dress is all rumpled up around you." The other man kneels, and slender fingers pull gently at the fabric to settle it.

"Fuck off, you pervert, I'm not a delicate fucking-"

"Ah ah ah-?"

Badou falls silent, bristles. His cigarette protrudes from his lips straight up into the air on an angle, almost petulantly.

"There we are," sighs the Bishop, satisfied with how the dress is falling around the redhead's narrow hips. However, his hands continue their traveling and exploring. They slide up the tightly pulled corset, along the various small frills and ribbons. Badou Nails is a lanky, awkward creature; long and thin like a colt, stubbornly wirey despite all his half-ass attempts at beefing up [Mihai and his tapes, yeah fucking right, bet the old fuck did 'roids]. Its true; he is not beautiful to look at, by any stretch of the imagination. But these wisps of soft fabric hide his protruding bones, his burns and scars, and force him to straighten his shoulders.

The change is subtle, and can barely be seen, so it's just as well that the Bishop is blind.

Badou's breath hitches quietly in the church as the blonde man's hands dip south again. Instead of the lingering touch down his thigh he was expecting, both his legs are picked up into the air, and his dress is yanked straight, out from where it was crumpled behind him. He's righted again before he has time to swear [which is saying a lot for the Bishop's freakish retard-blind-senses-shit].

"Now you're sitting like a real lady," purrs the Bishop happily, a beaming smile on his face.

Seething, colour rises to Badou's face, because christ, as if it isn't horrifying enough to be talked into this gay-ass shit, his street cred'll be blown if this ever fucking gets out, and it ain't even like he likes this shit, he doesn't feel sexy or liberated or whatever the fuck it is the drag queens wail about, he feels uncomfortable and humiliated and-

-horny as goddamned hell, because there's that hand on his thigh he was looking for previously.

"About fucking time," Badou snorts, letting his long legs fall open as the Bishop's hand ventures underneath the hem of the dress, snakes through the ruffles. His smile is sharp [sharper than a clergyman's should be], pressing into Badou's neck.

"Simpering little girls don't curse like sailors with tourettes syndrome," chides the Bishop softly.

"They also-" the redhead lets out a slightly shakey breath as the Bishop's hand is suddenly wrapped warmly around his cock and stroking in slow, heavy motions. "They also don't have what you're fondling right now. In a church. God, you're fucked up."

"You're in taffeta."

"Just shut the hell up."

"My night, Badou," sing-songs the Bishop. "So delicate young laides are not to swear."

For the third time, the redhead has to quell a rising urge to strangle the older man. It's slightly easier this time, though [handjobs make lots of things easier to let go]. He closes his eye, focuses on the pleasure, because it'll be worth it if he can hold his temper; it always is.

"Fine," he grits.

Their agreement is simple, because they are simple men. They're finding it harder [yeah, ha-fucking-ha, boner jokes] to stick to their original plan. Just Sundays stopped being enough. When Wednesdays were tacked on, it seemed to only fan the flames [of eternal damnation or passion, it's up for debate].

These days, Badou shows up at the church whenever he damn well feels like it. Their other rules have stayed in place; no matter how many times a week, a day, they always take turns letting one another explore what other Things They Like. Whether it means spanking or breathplay, or Delicate Young Ladies [with dongs].

These days, Badou's stopped wondering where the hell the Bishop buys gothic lolita dresses that expertly fit tall, awkward creatures, with terrible posture and unapologetic scars.

Presently, a panting Badou is drawn almost tenderly into the other man's lap, his legs spread wide to either side of the other man. The sensation of the satin frills sliding further up the sensitized skin on his thighs makes him shiver, makes him buck into the blonde's hand.

"If you," he breaths, and he hears a zipper going down between them, feels fingers running down the slope of his lower back and then lightly along the inner curve of his ass. The edge Bishop's glasses bite into the top of his jaw as the other man laves his tongue up the side of his throat. Badou has to start over, because shit if his brain hasn't fucking shorted out from hormones and eagerness for a good fuck. But- "If you call me a naughty girl, at any point in time, I'll fu- I'll snap it off and jam it in the offertory."

"Don't be such a naughty girl," chirps the Bishop immediately.

He then promptly slides his fingers into Badou's mouth, to cut off the explosion of swears.

FIC: DOGS/REBORN - Affair in Venice

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:05:59 GMT

Title: Affair in Venice, Act I Scene I
Fandom: DOGS/DOGS: Bullets and Carnage & Katekyo Hitman Reborn
Rating: R
Pairing: Squalo/Badou
Disclaimer: NO! NO! NO!
Feedback: Please, no. It's not my fault. heyheywhat is a mind-washing soul stealer.
Notes: I KNOW, OKAY. I KNOW.

The wind is cool on his naked shoulders, but he still feels like he's burning up. Badou paces the balcony absently, trailing ash irritably onto the fine stone as his thoughts tumble in his mind [stumble first and then tumble, wine soaked as they are].

It's not as if he's a fucking queer. Not that there's anything wrong with them- takes all kinds, everyone marches to the beat of their own drum [or the beating off of another dude]. He's not hard up either, not really, and if he was there's a stash of porn under his mattress that required much less effort.

But maybe it isn't the extra set of balls hanging around that's really bothering him. Maybe it's that, of all the fucking guys in the world, Badou is attracted to a cocky mafia asshole like him [the pronoun sticks in Badou's mind awkwardly, but jesus he guesses there's a first time for everything, and since he didn't go to university he has to get his sexual experimentation done somewhere anyway]. Yeah, maybe what's really bugging him is the asshole's personality, the stupid confident swagger, the retarded shouting he always did. And fuck, what the hell was with the dumbass long hair? Badou's hair wasn't exactly fucking army-approved, but that shit was down to the older man's ass, it probably got caught in doors and clogged drains like no fucking tomorrow [obnoxious assholes with white hair, why was he always surrounded by obnoxious assholes with white hair?].

The problem is, concludes the redhead irately, that he doesn't know the problem. He doesn't know what malfunctioned in his brain, what neuron misfired, and landed him in Venice, half-naked on Squalo Superbi's balcony.

A sudden gloved hand on his shoulder makes him jump. "Aren't you getting cold?"

"I'm fucking getting hypothermia, whore," Badou snaps back as he recovers, and another hand curls around his bare hip. It's a hand that had been dipping progessively lower earlier in the evening, until Badou had decided he severely needed a fucking smoke. It's a hand with a mission, firm and possessive.

Badou decides to blame the sudden colour he feels in his face on the wine. It doesn't work.

"You're the one who kicked me out," he reminds the older man.

He feels more than sees Squalo shrug. "No smoking in the bedroom."

"You didn't need to put me outside like a goddamned dog!"

"You didn't need to decide to have a smoke while we were in the middle of things."

The redhead flushes harder, remembering the frantic kissing, the shirts being stripped off hastily, the intense and wonderful heat they'd found together. But when Badou had begun to feel scalded, had begun to feel he'd let this Italian asshole do just about anything to him, he'd panicked.

"I always need a smoke," he mumbles, taking a drag as he does. Squalo chuckles, and Badou fights impulses to both punch him in the crotch and to kiss him senseless.

"Well your smoke break is fucking over," says the other man, voice rich with amusement [and something else oh god Badou was burning up maybe he had a fucking fever or something]. He pulls Badou with him, by the arm, not the hand, because they aren't queer [and because Squalo hasn't asked about that scar, yet].

Before the door to the balcony has even clicked shut, their mouths are back on eachother, and Badou puts all his frustration and nervousness into the act, kissing hard and open-mouthed. The firm, unforgiving angles of Squalo's body thrill him with their newness, and the experience Squalo had bragged about was evident in his manipulation of the spots on Badou's neck that were most sensitive. The press of that wet, hot tongue and those damnable teeth couldn't have been anything but expert [although Badou would rather have his other eye stabbed out than ever admit that to the douchebag].

When they part for air, just at the foot of the bed, Squalo drawls a bit breathlessly, "I suppose I can't convince you to use the listerine first, charcoal breath?"

"No, you can't," replies Badou, pushing him back down onto the bed and crawling over him. Mouth descending, his fingers tangle in Squalo's hair, pulling, wanting, embracing the scorching heat because fuck it he'd always loved going down in smoke and flames.

FIC: DOGS - Lost Boys and the Living Dead

Fri, 30 May 2008 21:36:24 GMT

Title: Lost Boys and the Living Dead
Fandom: DOGS/DOGS: Bullets and Carnage
Rating: R
Pairing: None.
Disclaimer: I don't even own a dog, much less DOGS.
Feedback: Sliiide to the left, sliiide to the right, feeback now y'all, one hop this time DUN! one hop this time DUN!
Notes: More personal head-canon about L'Histoire de Badou Nails. A sequel to In a Coffin Marked Return to Sender.

Cross posted at dogs_manga and bulletsxcarnage.

He is told he has ten minutes. Ten minutes to pick up his life and shove it into a garbage bag so graciously provided by their [no, no, there is no their anymore, just his] landlord.

Badou is exactly ten years old, but as he enters what used to be a haven, he feels ten hundred. It’s a feeling that doesn’t ever go away.

The landlord’s eyes bore holes into his back as he picks his way through the shards of shattered glass and wires [formerly known as the television] the stains that Badou spent half a day scrubbing before he just couldn’t [blood, most of it his- theirs]. The three pieces of furniture in the flat, the couch and the mattress, had been gutted, their springs bare and ugly like intestines.

There are boxes on the floor [redundant; everything is on the floor]. They used to be filled with articles, photos, scribbled notes, information. Instead of just taking what they needed [but why would such terrifying beasts ever do anything minimally, with so much power?] they had ripped apart, destroyed the contents every single one of these boxes, even after they’d found what they had come for [all massive height and black hoods, smelling of damp and aggression and the lower strata].

The photo of Mimi and Badou, scabby kneed and grinning in their baseball jerseys, at their first game. The first story Badou ever wrote in class [starting out with six spelling errors in a sentence that had only five words]. His brother’s vast collection of photos, his published articles.

It was this last one that caused most of the trouble. And now Badou thinks; he should have known, when he saw the boxes being duct-taped shut and his brother’s loping, easy scrawl proclaiming DEATH IF TOUCHED (BADOU), because brothers didn’t hide good things from each other. He should have known when he smelt damp and aggression and the lower strata on his brother’s worn clothes [but he’d just tossed the shirts in the laundry and bemoaned the fact his brother was a domestic failure].

A knife is one of the few things left whole, in these ravaged remains. A knife Badou will not touch, because it makes his shabbily bandaged right hand and his still scabbing, infected eye burn and twist.

In the end, he drops the garbage bag onto the floor.

The only thing he takes is his brother’s pack of cigarettes.

-+-+-+-

There are hundreds of them. Kids like him, without a home or someone to care if they lived or died.

Stopping to sleep in a turned over, abandoned ice cream truck, he meets another boy, who is all fair hair and nervous smiles. They have no common language. The boy speaks only Russian; Badou possesses only English and French [already fading from disuse, lacking a brot- someone to speak it with].

However, the most important things [the only important things] are easy to communicate without words. Sometimes, without even gestures. Hunger. Thirst. Need to sleep. Are you hurt. Quiet, bad people coming.

Unfortunately, the Bad People of this city are like dogs [bloodhounds], and they can smell you out, no matter how quiet you are. Within six days of their encampment in the broken down ice cream truck, they are discovered. The men smash bats into the metal underside of the truck, claw the two frightened boys out, throw them down onto the hard pavement.

Within seconds, they almost physically cringe back from Badou. “Christ, fuckin’ forget that one. He’s damaged. Ugh, look at it. Probably diseased.”

Another man laughs, high and reedy, “Kid, you should get that looked at!”

Discarded, laughed at, and subsequently ignored, Badou is glad for his disfigurement for the first time.

But the fair Russian boy with the nervous smile- he’s too petite, too pretty like a girl, with his bright curls and his [two] clear gray eyes.

Badou stumbles to his feet and runs, leaving the alley behind just as the first terrified, pained scream rings out. They’ll probably be coming for a while, as long as the boy’s voice holds out, anyway.

He shuts his eye, wishes he could shut his ears, his mind. The most important things are communicated without words.

-+-+-+-

Rifling through a dumpster for something to keep him warm [because there is no cold like the winter of the Underground], Badou realizes his hair has grown longer. Back before [before his life had been invaded, before half the world vanished from view] he’d been growing it out. He’d wanted to look like one of his favourite rock stars, who played a sick metal guitar and flung his long locks around and around as he did.

Now, it’s almost exactly how long he wanted to grow it out to, just brushing the middle of his chest. But instead of feeling elation, he feels distinctly filthy. The long hair is matted, knotted impossibly in some places. It’s twiggy and occasionally hiding actual garbage, scraps of candy wrappers and bits of plastic, glinting in the streetlamps like a magpie’s nest.

That night, curled up with five other lost boys for warmth, Badou comes to the conclusion his hair isn’t the only thing that has grown. His legs are longer now, lanky and coltish, and he is the tallest boy in the huddle. He feels a sharp spike of fear, because it’s already hard to find enough food to keep going and if he’s bigger, he’ll need more and-

-and Badou doesn’t realize he’s crying until the boy next to him, with deep sunken eyes and coal-black, scruffy hair, shushes him gently. He wipes the tears from the redhead’s eye with smudgy fingers, then gently takes his hand and leads Badou away from the circle. The boy’s manner dictates he is older, perhaps not by many years but by much experience. He has a patchy rucksack from which he pulls a surprisingly clean roll of medicinal bandages.

Slowly, with small fingers that shouldn’t be nearly so expert, he begins to bandage up Badou’s face, covering up the festering wound.

“Always cover up your scars,” says the boy firmly, encompassing so much in five words. He then goes on to ask, quietly, “Does it hurt?”

Chest still jumping with small sobs, Badou replies, “All the time.” He’s not sure if the other boy is talking about his eye or not. “All the goddamned time.”

-+-+-+-

But the camaraderie of children only lasts so long.

As they get older, these urchins of the street, they turn inwards, meting out the frustration of daily life on each other. It becomes too risky to put your trust in someone, anyone, because they can and will turn on you [just as you would on them].

The worst, Badou thinks, isn’t even that. More often then not, kids are disappearing [like sheaves of paper from ripped-apart boxes]. He’s nearly fifteen, now, and he’s made and lost more friends than he can’t keep track of. Sometimes he misses the coal-headed boy, who is now all shadows in his mind. He hasn’t seen him around in a while. He doubts he will ever again.

That is what, perhaps, is more horrible than the back-stabbing; the total vanishing. It’s becoming an all-too familiar taste in his mouth, which he now tries to scald off with the taste of smoke. He replaces his need for contact, for love, with the need for nicotine.

Once he does that, his first kill is almost too easy.

He doesn’t know who the other boy is. He’s bandier, and has ruddy-looking skin, pock-marked with acne. They’re out back behind a bakery, at the end of the day, when all the stale, left-over bread is tossed into the dumpster [dumpster dining, the finest of inner-city banquets].

Badou hasn’t eaten in two days, and he hasn’t had a smoke in one. At this point in time, he blames his curious refusal to back down to the other boy on the hunger [one day, he’ll know better, and one day, he’ll curve this to his advantage].

They grapple, break, and grapple again, until they crash to the filthy ground. Badou feels a frantic desperation starting to rise in him that he hasn’t felt before, not ever in his life. There is no graceful circling, only lashing out again and again; there are wild punches exchanged and teeth bared [like the animals they fucking are, the animals they’ve been reduced to]. But five years on the street has left Badou smarter, wiser, and above all a dirtier goddamned fighter. Badou rams a knee into the boy’s solar plexus, then his crotch.

Pock-marks goes down, but this strange, gnawing spark of insanity spurs Badou on to go down after him [and his first maniacal cackle ever rips out of his throat, claws out like a demon from hell and echoes off the alley walls].

Only when he stops smashing his fists into the other boy’s face, long minutes later, does it occurs to him that he’s been laughing [is still laughing]. The two eye patch straps cutting across his face are damp with sweat. He looks from his split, oozing knuckles to the bloody, caved in face of the older boy. It wasn’t an attractive face to begin with, and Badou has not helped matters much.

Though it doesn’t really matter if the boy’s supermodel dreams are crushed, because said boy isn’t breathing anymore.

The bread ain’t bad.

-+-+-+-

There is nothing that’ll make you look more goddamned hideous, he thinks, than the fluorescent glow of overhead lights in a public lavatory. Particularly the extra-dingy ones crammed in the backs of clubs as afterthoughts [all that alcohol, so few potted plants].

Eighteen and approaching something like street-weathered, Badou should know. He’s been sleeping nightly in such places, his head pillowed ever-so delicately on the side of a urinal [yes yes, that’s how you catch diseases, but he’ll smoke them out if he does]. Time is fluid in places like these; he comes in at the beginning of the week, immerses himself in a world of smoke and strangers and thudding bass lines, and stumbles out into the artificial glow of the city around the beginning of the next.

Prodding at dark rings forming under his eyes, Badou grins into the mirror, skeletal and stained. He doesn’t know what day it is, and he doesn’t care. All that matters is that he has enough cash on him to last him a few more nights, a few more packs of smokes, a few more bags of pills or weed or powder or motherfucking horse tranqs [really now, he’s not particular]. The last job he had paid relatively well, for once.

He finds it funny, half of the time at least, that he should end up in a business so similar to his [belated?] brother’s, yet the polar opposite. Where his brother’s articles and photos strived for truth, Badou’s were an exercise in deception, fraudulent and petty shallowness. He merely stirred the pot, whichever damn pot he came across; ‘How can he run a mob when he’s into coy Filipino boys? Why is she so well respected in politics if she puts, of all things, an eggplant up there?’ As if these questions had anything to do with, well, anything.

A blast of music assaults him as a young woman sticks her head in the lavatory door. She has violently blue hair [not all over, Badou knows]. He can’t remember her name. Sandra? Something with an S. “Gonna hide in here all night, tall and smoky?”

Badou shrugs, splashes some water on his face, mumbles something derogatory. The blue-headed girl laughs, but it’s not a happy laugh. Or maybe it is, and he doesn’t recognize it.

He can’t recall what that kind of laughter sounds like anymore.

In a few minutes, he’ll go out into the throng of bodies, their comfort only secondary to the dark and the smoke, and try to remember.

-+-+-+-

Another club, another night, but gone all wrong.

Crouched outside against the wall, boney ass on the cold pavement, he can’t stop laughing. There are police sirens blaring and people screaming. Some asshole lit a fire in a trash can, and the flames illuminate the chaos, orange glow flickering.

Hunched over and cackling to himself, nobody’s bothered with him. He knows he must look like some brainless junkie, stirred into frenzy by all the excitement. He knows anybody who saw what really happened can’t exactly talk about it. He knows corpses can’t identify a tall, thin red haired man, with a gimp eye and a nicotine-sharp grin, who couldn’t stop laughing [couldn’t stop killing].

His sides ache, and he puts his head down, long arms pulling his knees to his chest. Trying to focus on reigning himself in [christ he needs a smoke christ he needs a fucking smoke], he listens to the soothing sounds of bodies thrown heavily against the sides police vehicles, the nonsensical jabber of the people still half-fucked out of their minds on drugs, the screech of cars pulling away, the-

“Hey.”

-someone speaking in front of him. Badou looks up, and the eyes that bore down into him are as red as the smoldering ends of a cigarette.

“Gotta smoke?” he croaks automatically.

“No,” responds the stranger monotonously, and shit if he isn’t a pale-ass zombie motherfucker. He speaks slowly, uneasily, as if he isn’t used to it. “But we can get some on the way.”

Badou’s fingers twitch, and he feels like he still can’t get enough oxygen to his brain. “The way to where?”

The guy from beyond the crypt just jerks his chin towards the club, recognition of Badou’s performance [we’re here all week ‘till they gun us down]. “There’s a job you can help me with.” He pauses. “Good money, I guess.”

That seals the deal [some cash to smoke away always does]. Badou holds up a hand, expecting a tug up to his feet. But the other man just sort of stares at it for a moment, an awkward expression on his face. Finally, after a few long seconds, a flawless pale hand clasps his jaggedly scarred one, and helps him up.

What the hell, thinks Badou, trailing after the ember-eyed stranger.

It’s not like his life’ll change or anything.

FIC: DOGS - prompt request fulfilled

Sun, 04 May 2008 05:24:35 GMT

Title: Until Death Do You Part [and Thank Christ for That]
Fandom: DOGS/DOGS: Bullets and Carnage
Rating: Hard R.
Pairing: Haine/Badou
Disclaimer: I've never seen those DOGS before in my life, I don't care who they bit.
Feedback: THE POPTARTS OF THE GODS!!
Notes: Written for arrankaara, who is fucking LURVELY and has been so very nice in waiting for this. WHAT A GAL.

Posted at dogs_manga.

Badou realizes he’s fucked for life the day Haine shoots Johnny Depp seventeen times in the head.

The American actor doesn’t scream, but the smattering of a would-be audience in the cinema does. Within moments, the theatre is empty; the sound of feet running on floors sticky and disgusting with fuck-knows-what still hanging in the air.

“I forgot how much you dislike Johnny Depp,” says Badou.

Haine grunts.

Badou hopes he has time to finish his popcorn before the goddamned cops show up.

-+-+-+-

It’s not that Haine is a bad partner. On the contrary, he’s probably the best partner Badou could ask for. He’s a fucking great shot [and an even better meat shield]. The albino is calm and cool when Badou is in stage four of pants-pissing [urination overdrive engaged]. Badou handles their public relations because he can talk to girls without ripping off their arms and beating them over the head with them. Haine handles being a Creepy Pigment-less Motherfucker and all the duties specified therein.

Really, they’re probably good for each other in some fucked-up version of the tiny-bird-in-alligator’s-mouth [and man, he wishes there were something the fuck else on his television than the discovery channel and fucking static]. But things are starting to get out of control.

He’s in Buon Viaggio, slumped on the bar top and bitching his heart out, when his partner shows up and point-blank commands him [in that goddamned fucking obnoxious-ass monotone] to come.

“What the fuck?” snarls the redhead, cradling his cup of shitty coffee to his chest. “Suck my fucking cock, I’ll fucking come then.”

Haine’s un-brows knit in vague annoyance. “I guess I can. You’re pretty fucking quick to shoot your load, right?” Kiri makes no attempt to hide her snort.

Badou’s face contorts. “Not as quick as you.”

“Well, it’s understandable. You’re better at it. You do suck more cock than I do.”

“You goddamned-” Badou makes an irritated noise, cutting himself off. “You didn’t tell me we had a fucking job today.”

“Yes I did.”

“No you fucking didn’t.”

“Yes I did.”

“Fucking liar! You didn’t tell me shit. Go fuck yourself.”

“You have two minutes to finish your coffee before I shove it up your ass, Badou.”

And shit-fucking-damnit, but Badou finds himself choking down the sludge a la Styrofoam cup and standing up.

Trying to ignore the chorus of female cackling, he leaves his pride on the stool.

-+-+-+-

There’s a lot of disturbing shit Badou’s been noticing, lately.

For one, Haine apparently moved in while he wasn’t paying attention. Badou wasn’t aware of it until, perhaps, a month and a half later after the fact. It hit him not long after an entire clip of bullets hit Johnny Depp’s magnified forehead, when he rolled off his mattress and found Haine standing in his kitchenette, staring at an egg like it contained all the mysteries of the world.

When Haine noticed Badou’s, sleepy, shambling form, he said, “Oh, good,” handed the egg to him like a runner’s baton, and slunk off towards the bathroom.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Badou had mumbled groggily at Haine’s back.

“Incubate it and hatch a motherfucking chick. What the shit do you think?” And Badou’s bathroom door had closed behind the albino.

He’d spat in Haine’s omelet, but the fact was he’d still made it.

-+-+-+-

“I hate you,” Badou rasps, sobering up rapidly, to his very earnest dismay. The woman Haine had chased out- literally, at gunpoint- was still screaming as she descended the stair case of Badou’s building. He can hear her swearing, and feels oddly proud that a woman he’d picked up has such a foul fuckin’ vocabulary.

It’s not enough to cheer him and his neglected libido up, though.

“I haven’t gotten laid in forever,” he whines petulantly, shrugging off his coat and letting it fall, y’know, wherever. “She was just plastered enough to fuckin’ agree. I hate you, you fucking cockblock.”

Haine mutters something, goes back to the couch to watch TV like shooting at Badou’s infrequent one-night-stands is normal.

And Badou recognizes that it is, and that’s why he hasn’t gotten laid in forever.

“Wanna get a pizza?” mumbles Haine.

“I wanna get some pussy,” replies Badou, trying to hold onto the last embers of his anger.

The other man gives him a sloe-eyed look, then shrugs amiably, reaches for the phone. “What’s the number for that Chinese place again?”

Badou laughs so hard he has a severe coughing fit. When Haine asks if he has a pussy hair in his throat already and sets him off all over again, he thinks; maybe he can deal with a little celibacy.

-+-+-+-

Haine tosses Badou a brand new pack of cigarettes, and the redhead catches them automatically, withdraws one with quick, twitching fingers and pockets the rest. The albino crosses through the guts and the blood, those fucking retarded rhino-fuck boots slapping wetly on the cement. He produces a lighter, flicking the catch, and Badou slouches towards the flame of sanity. The movements are almost rehearsed, fluid and graceful.

Their eyes are locked, not daring to give each other the once over. Badou knows he doesn’t because Haine’s wounds will close up anyway, and it makes him sick to his stomach to see how much Haine can bleed without dying. He’s not sure why Haine doesn’t check him over. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t give a shit [maybe it’s because he does].

Taking a drag, Badou thinks; two suicide punks, four guns, three eyes, and so many fucking issues Dr. Phil would probably explosively crap his pants hearing a third of them. Yet they have just brought down twenty-six able-bodied men, in less than fifteen minutes, neat and quick and efficient.

Badou hears a pained gasp to their right, and he amends; twenty-five men dead, and one mortally wounded. Haine nods minutely at him, moves away like a pale shadow. The redhead inhales deeply on his cigarette, closes his eye, hearing the shot before it even happens. When it does, the lone bang of the gun is almost soothing [job well done, boys, time to go home and wash the blood from your face].

They leave in silence, but walk just a little closer together than when they came.

“Would you ever work with anyone else?” Haine asks, abruptly.

Badou purses his lips around his cigarette. He knows they operate so well together it’s embarrassing [clockwork toys for girls and boys]. He knows they might as well sign up for matching motherfucking spandex outfits; think up some sexy catch phrases. He knows they’re the goddamned Bennifer of mass murder.

However, he ignores all these facts, exhaling a jagged line of smoke. He rasps dismissively, “I dunno. Whatever.”

But Haine still smirks like a fucking asshole.

-+-+-+-

It’s four in the fucking morning, and Badou can’t stop swearing. He also can’t stop bleeding. This is unfortunate for Haine’s wardrobe [as if that leather-daddy shit he’s got going on ain’t unfortunate enough].

“Shut up, we’re here,” growls Haine, bodily shoving open the heavy doors to the church, and Christ, if it were anyone but that bleach-white cocksucker they’d have a shattered motherfucking shoulder.

“You fucking shut the fuck up,” snaps Badou, whose leg feels like a large dog has chomped down onto it like a motherfucking post-man's ass and not deigned to let go yet. “You fucking shitty shitty fucking piece of fuck-ass shitfuck-”

“Eloquent,” sighs Haine, helping the redhead to lie onto a pew. His fingers slip in the jagged hole in Badou’s jeans, pressing at the deep knife wound in Badou’s thigh. In response, Badou screams shit-fucking murder and punches him in the face. The albino doesn’t seem to notice, sneezing a little as the bones in his nose re-knit themselves. “You gotta take off your jeans.”

The redhead struggles to comply with shaking hands, his heavy belt a nuisance. He wonders which level of hell you go to for dropping trouser in a goddamned house of The Lord.

“That knife looked kind of rusty,” says Haine disinterestedly. “You’ll probably get gangrene.”

“Your comforting bedside manner fucking sucks ass,” groans Badou.

“Or tetanus or something...”

“Fuck. Christ, man, fuck. This hurts like a bitch. This hurts like twelve bitches.”

“…like you got a nice case of lockjaw already...”

“Would you fucking get the goddamned med kit already, asslover?”

Haine does, and the rest of Badou’s night involves a lot of pain and a lot of antiseptic, Badou finding some very choice words for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spook.

At the end of it all, Haine has a freshly lit cigarette for him. Their fingers don’t brush, their eyes don’t meet; it’s just a fresh smoke.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

It sure as fuck doesn’t stop the blinding pain still shooting up from his leg, but it’s something to think about, anyway.

-+-+-+-

Badou is absolutely certain he’s fucked for life the day Haine makes a move on him in the back of a movie theater.

It’s a clumsy, awkward hand on his thigh. At first, Badou is sure that the other man just missed the bag of popcorn between them. When it doesn’t move all through Kate Windbag-slet’s entire monologue, Badou wonders if he should say something. When it moves much higher and casually unzips his jeans, he does say something. What he says is, “Gnauugh.”

He says a lot more things between gritted teeth as that goddamned pale hand slides inside the slit of his boxers, begins stroking softly. When his panting starts to become audible in the quiet theater, the albino pushes Badou’s face down to his shoulder to muffle it.

Despite being overcome by the stink of that stupid dead-cow jacket, Badou doesn’t pick his head up from his partner’s shoulder until he hears gunshots. When he does look up, everyone is screaming and running. Except for Johnny Depp, who seems to be pretty calm and serious despite the fifteen gunshots to the back.

“I forgot how much you dislike Johnny Depp,” says Badou.

Haine grunts.

Badou hopes he has time to finish his orgasm before the goddamned cops show up.

FIC - DOGS: prompt request

Fri, 02 May 2008 14:01:52 GMT

Title: Whats a Little Brain Damage Between Friends?
Fandom: DOGS/DOGS: Bullets and Carnage
Rating: Hard R.
Pairing: Haine/Badou
Disclaimer: I don't even own a dog, much less DOGS.
Feedback: Is my sunshine, my only sunshine. It makes me happy, when clouds are gray. You'll never know, readers, how much I love you. So please send some feedback my way.
Notes: Written for mechaphilia. Thanks for being so patient, I had no idea it would turn out to be such a huge fucking monster when I started writing it. I hope you enjoy it!

Posted at dogs_manga.

One afternoon, Haine found religion.

It might actually be more accurate to say that religion found Haine. It found him quite forcefully, across the jaw, tattooing several verses from Hymns Praising Our Blessed Holy Virgin Mother: Edition II up the side of his face.

Most people would swear. Haine, however, simply stands up from the hard wooden pew, rolls his shoulders, and waits.

Ten seconds later, when his redheaded partner tries to bound past him, the albino’s arm snaps up and out. And it’s once again proved true that the big ones always fall the hardest.

Especially the ones who are both big and stupid, who practically clothesline themselves.

On the floor, Badou whimpers dazedly, clutching his throat. “She’s after me,” he manages to rasp coarsely, eye wide with terror. He rolls under the pew just as Religious Songs for Expressing Earnest Heavenly Gratitude careens off the bench’s edge, Naoto following it a split second later. If Haine were the type to notice or care, he’d wonder about the peculiar and sudden endeavor into the world of headwear. A knitted hat is jammed down tightly past her ears.

“Where is he?” snaps the swordswoman, trying to cover up the fact that she’s slightly out of breath.

“You shouldn’t throw those,” Haine drawls in reply, a disinterested, narrow look on his face. “They’re about Jesus and shit.”

Naoto’s expression darkens like a rain cloud with a grudge, and a shitload of lightning in stock. “Which way did he go? Out, or back around again?”

“Who?”

“Who do you think?”

“Jesus?”

“Badou.”

Naoto stalks a step forward and Haine nimbly steps back, his frown deepening. “Ask the Bishop.”

“The Bishop knows where Badou is?”

“Where Jesus is. Maybe, anyway.”

The sound Naoto’s teeth make as they grind inconspicuously together isn’t so inconspicuous in the dead silence of the cathedral.

They stare.

They continue staring.

When they’re through with that, and feel like getting a little crazy, they stare some more.

“Asshole,” dismisses Naoto coldly, purposefully passing him just a little too closely. Haine slides right up against the back of the pew so even her stupid fucking scarf doesn’t touch him accidentally.

“Bitch,” he responds flatly.

“Fuck, I’ll second that,” says a voice from the level of Haine’s boots.

Naoto has vaulted over the pew before Haine’s foot can even make contact with Badou’s dumb face.

-+-+-+-

“You are such a fucking idiot,” Haine informs him, later. He states the comment as one would pronounce an inherent truth, like ‘water is wet’ or ‘gravity exists’ or ‘Rachel Ray is obnoxious and should be put to death.’

Badou’s head lolls on Haine’s shoulder as he limps next to the albino. “Can I have a popsicle?”

“I almost felt bad for you when she pulled you out by your hair. Almost.”

“Tri-cleaning action.”

“That purple hair shit is hilarious. How the fuck did you even do that?”

“All in a golden afternoon.”

As the shorter man tries to dump his dazed partner on the couch, Badou’s clumsy feet tangle up in Haine’s, executing a mind-boggling thirteen-step within the small space. They go down, missing the beaten cushions entirely. Haine scrambles to catch Badou’s head from getting another heavy wallop on the floor.

“Popsicle?” asks Badou.

Haine redistributes his pile of chain smoker to the couch, then rubs his forehead and considers his options.

“Sleep?” he offers, somewhat desperately.

“One time I ate a whole basket of oysters,” replies Badou. He then gives a huge wink, [just a showy blink in his case, really]. “Oysters are an aphrodisiac.” There’s a slight pause, and then the redhead looks slightly crestfallen. “I just got diarrhea, though.”

Options considered, Haine picks up the television remote and knocks Badou out cold.

“Sleep,” he repeats, with a nod.

-+-+-+-

The next morning, the situation hasn’t improved much. After spending twenty minutes of hearing Badou groan [and wonder aloud why there were little, button-like indents on his forehead], Haine is beginning to get annoyed.

When he gets up from the mattress on the floor and comes around the couch to tell him to seriously shut the fuck up and stop whining like a girl [because there’s no insult Haine can think of that would be worse], Badou screams and knocks over an end table in his rush to get away.

Haine only frowns, however, when Badou sticks his head under the couch like a terrified, misplaced ostrich. “My morning breath isn’t that bad, asshole,” he growls.

“Shit, man, I don’t have any fuckin’ money, okay, just take the TV or whatever, there’s never fuckall on anyway-”

“What-”

“I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve resorted that dumb motherfucking Dora the Explorer bitch, I’m rooting for the fox, man, every time, just to bite her goddamned balloon head off so she stops fuckin’ screaming VAMINOS! at me, christ-”

“Badou-”

“That ain’t me, man. That’s somebody fucking else. He probably lives down the hall. Definitely does. Seen him around. He’s an asshole. A real dick-for-brains. I’m-”

There is a long, painful break in Badou’s frantic monologue as rusty gears turn inside his dented skull.

Haine’s lips thin into a line. He grabs Badou by his hair and hauls him from under the couch, forcing him to make eye-contact. “What’s your fucking name.”

“Well, uh, that is, uh,” stutters the redhead, his one eye wide. “That’s kind of a personal fuckin’ question, you know-”

“You don’t know your name.”

“I. Uh.”

Haine sinks onto the couch that Badou abandoned, head in his hands. “What’s my name.”

“Mr. Breakanenter?”

A heavy sigh. “Do you remember any of last night?”

Slowly, his partner’s expression changes from terrified and bewildered to downright horrified. “Oh shit. Did we fucking bang?”

The albino’s brain supplies him with mental images of this, not for the first time. Putting his cock in Badou’s mouth has always seemed like an oddly appealing option for shutting the other man up.

He guesses that might be mildly weird, but psychoanalysis is for suckers.

“No,” sighs Haine, after entirely too long a pause, in which Badou had been twitching like a ferret. “No, we didn’t bang. You hit your fucking stupid head and a fucking stupid cliché fell out.”

-+-+-+-

Mihai has been holding his coffee cup up to his lips without taking a sip for fifteen full minutes. Kiri has washed the same mug eleven times. Mimi is outright staring, and has been since Haine walked into the shop, toting a curiously glazed-looking Badou, and demanded a pad of paper and a pen with a fierce glare.

He used these materials to make flashcards.

“What’s this?”

“A gun.”

“What kind of gun?”

“A… badly drawn gun?”

Haine claps Badou around the ear. “It’s a Mac 10, a blow-back operated selective-fire machine gun. You use two. They’re your preferred weapon.”

“Do I go hunting?”

“…Yes.”

“Oh. And that’s why I wear camouflage!”

“No, that’s just because you’re a fucking douche.”

“Oh.”

Haine flips the page. “What’s this?”

“A church.”

“Why do you go to church?”

“Because I. Really want to know just what Jesus would do?”

Haine’s hand whacks Badou around the ear again. “We are employed by the Bishop there.”

“Alright.”

“He’s a creepy pedophile. You like to talk to him.”

“Wait, what?”

A page rustles. “What’s this?”

“You.”

“What’s my name?”

“Mihai.”

“No.”

“Murphy.”

“No.”

“Ernest.”

“We don’t know anyone named Ernest, what the hell. No.”

“…Mihai?”

“Haine. I’m your fucking partner, you whimper and hide behind my back and bitch at me constantly, it’s Haine you fucking-” Leaning across the table, he begins beating Badou over the head with the pad of paper.

It helps him feel better, but probably exacerbates the situation, really.

When the smaller man settles back into his seat, he rubs at his temples, sighs, then picks up the now slightly more ghetto looking pad of paper. He flicks the page back. Points viciously.

“What’s this?”

Badou looks apprehensive, not wanting to get attacked. “…A cigarette.”

“And?”

All eyes are on Badou.

The redhead blinks, shrugs. “I dunno. They cause lung cancer? What, am I a smoker?”

There’s a collective gasp worthy of the corniest sitcom. Haine slowly drops his head to the table with a heavy thunk, hoping to giving himself amnesia.

Badou turns around in his chair, waving to get Kiri’s attention. “Can I get another coffee over here, Haine?”

-+-+-+-

After Mihai had pried Haine’s hands from Badou’s neck, Haine attempts to try a different approach. They usually weave through the city like piranhas, all sharp teeth and confident stride. But now, the beat is off, and Badou trails meekly behind him, not knowing where they’re going, or how to get there.

Haine finds himself growing irritated at the silence, the realization of which irritates him even more. “Stop it,” he snaps.

“Sorry,” rasps Badou weakly, no fighting, no complaining, no lit cigarette thrown at the back of his head.

Haine’s left eye twitches minutely.

They reach their destination, which is the very definition of ‘seedy motel.’ They check into a room with tall windows covered by shitty blinds [which never close quite the whole way].

“Why are we here?” mumbles the redhead as they step through the door, scrunching his nose a little as his boot sticks to something on the floor. Looking up, he notices the windows. “Christ, I bet they get as many fucking voyeurs as they do happy humping couples in here.”

“Exactly,” says Haine. He closes the door behind them with his foot. As the latch clicks into place, Haine suddenly sees a scene in his mind’s eye clear and vivid as anything; stalking to where Badou is, shoving him down onto the filthy bed, and tasting, touching, taking [subsequently making it even more filthy].

Badou looks up from where he’s absently opening the nightstand drawer. The lack of cigarette in his mouth is completely disturbing. “Why did you just growl?”

Haine’s eyebrows knit, and he shakes his head a bit like a wet dog. “Nothing. Open the blinds.”

“They’re practically open already. I don’t think they can close.”

“Just....nudge them aside, then, jackass.”

Badou does. Three seconds later, he whoops like a frat boy. “Dude! On-top-of-the-covers boning! In broad fuckin’ daylight! Daaaamn!”

Coming up behind his partner, Haine frowns, wondering how he should go about this. The girls at Buon Viaggio had a lot to say about how to snap Badou out of it. The flashcards hadn’t been working, they said, because Badou had to remember things himself. That in mind, Haine nods shortly to himself.

“So, ah, do you remember anything now?”

Head turning reluctantly from the writhing nudity, Badou looks at him with a wide, earnestly curious green eye. It’s a far too innocent an expression for someone he had personally seen claw out a grown man’s eyes. Haine shudders internally. “Anything at all?” he prompts, hand gesturing awkwardly. “About this place? About what those assholes are doing?”

The taller man stares at him uncomprehendingly, and then looks back out the window. The frantically rutting couple collapse. After a few moments, the woman shoves the man bodily off her and gets up from the bed. She then pulls a crinkled dress on over her head, casually goes through the exhausted man’s discarded trousers pocket, and steals his wallet. As she’s leaving, she notices her audience, and gives the two silent men the finger over her shoulder.

They don’t stay silent for much longer.

“I’m a goddamned whore?” shouts Badou, voice rising hysterically. “I’m a cocksucking Chlamydia factory wh-” He’s cut off there, as his partner has clapped a hand over his mouth.

“No,” asserts Haine through gritted teeth, reaching his bullshit quota. Fuck those Kiki and Mary bitches. “You’re a PI, you fucking idiot. You take photos of people humping and then blackmail them or sell the fuck-shots to tabloids.”

Badou nods, then says something into Haine’s palm. Not being a total dick, Haine removes it. “What?”

“I said, I have to piss. Let go, Mihai.”

“Haine!”

“Whatever.”

Five minutes and a flushed toilet later, Badou howls bloody murder from the bathroom. “WHERE THE FUCK IS MY FUCKING EYE?”

-+-+-+-

They end up back at the church. Sitting on a pew, his chin resting on folded hands, and his hands resting on his cane, the Bishop frowns contemplatively. Nill sweeps the same spot over and over again a few feet away, listening in.

“How do you know he’s not faking it?”

“I just don’t think he is.”

“You really think you would know? He has more than once proved to be a sinner in the ways of deceit and fabrication, my dear Haine.”

“He’s been too weird to be faking it.”

“Y’know, I’m right fucking here, guys.”

“Stop defiling my holy ears with your profane words and be quiet,” says the Bishop dismissively. He then waits. When Badou does nothing but shift uncomfortably on the stone floor, the blonde man’s eyebrows arch. “Oh, my.”

Haine grunts. “See?”

“Well, this is certainly a- what is the right word?”

“Fucking stupid cliché?”

“Ah, yes. Quite.” The Bishop cants his head up. “What exactly were you expecting me to do, here?”

Haine’s face narrows. “Fix him.”

“Circumcision is not a custom practiced by the Catholic Church, I’m afraid. However, perhaps we can make an exception-”

“What-”

The albino makes a frustrated noise, kicks a pew despondently. “I can’t deal with him like this. He’s useless.”

“You mean he wasn’t before?”

“I don’t know who you are, but you guys are fucking assholes.”

A long creak issues from the heavy doors of the church as someone opens them, and all three men look up. Naoto looks embarrassed and awkward at her less-than-stealthy entrance, sidling into the church.

Nill’s wings flare out, and she smiles and waves. Her sunny expression turns to puzzlement, however, at the odd knit cap awkwardly pulled down onto the swordswoman’s head. Nill lightly crosses the stones to the other woman, beaming with pleasure at the cute blue hat. Reaching up, she playfully snatches the hat from Naoto’s head, putting it on her own and posing.

But no one is looking at Nill and her ‘winsome’ pose. They are looking at Naoto.

To be more specific, they are looking at Naoto’s neon purple hair, springing up in all directions.

Poor, bewildered Badou is the first one to speak. “I like your hair,” he says brightly.

The scream of rage echoes off the high stained glass windows. The Bishop cocks his head as he hears the heavy, painful thud of a full grown woman with arms like a wrestler tackling a walking match-stick man to the floor.

When he hears Badou begin to sob, he motions in the direction of Nill, who’s nervously fluttering wings give away her location. “A mop for the blood, my little angel,” he sighs.

-+-+-+-

The sense of déjà vu Haine has as he lugs his unconscious, useless asshole of a partner up three flights of stairs to the other man’s flat is overwhelming. When he drops Badou onto the lumpy mattress, the redhead groans and stirs.

Getting on his knees beside the other man, Haine listlessly slaps his face a little, pulls his eyelid back. He slaps him a couple more times for the hell of it, then does the obligatory brain-damage check when Badou’s eye starts to flutter. “How many fingers am I holding up?” asks the albino, waving four fingers in Badou’s face. “How many fingers?”

But Badou doesn’t respond verbally. Instead, he lashes out and closes all ten of his own fingers around Haine’s neck. His eye blinks fully open. The pupil is small and dilated.

“IF YOU DON’T FUCKING FIND ME A GODDAMNED SMOKE IN SIX FUCKING SECONDS SO HELP ME GOD, I WILL FUCKING RIP YOUR SPINE OUT YOUR FUCKING ASS AND FLOSS WITH IT.”

It’s too horrifying to describe, but Haine smiles. That is much more like it.

Still being strangled, he lunges forward and crashes his mouth against his partner’s, more of a vicious bite than anything remotely like a kiss. He clambers on top of the enraged redhead, bearing down on him with tongue and teeth and frantic fervor.

Badou resists for a while, and Haine could really care less, but it’s so damn good when he starts to respond, to lick heavily into Haine’s mouth and moan-

“Mihai-”

Haine’s carnage-red eyes snap open. There is a terrifying silence, which Badou breaks by giving a low, unhinged laugh.

“Just fucking with you.”

Snarling, Haine wrenches Badou’s hands away from his throat, pins them above Badou’s head with a bruising grip. “That’s not nice. Now I’m gonna fuck with you.” The redhead’s legs strike out, his jagged, nicotine-deprived laughter ringing, and Haine digs his knees painfully into the other man’s thighs to keep them still.

“Actually, forget that.” Haine drawls in a monotone. He then smirks like a knife drawer would. “I’m just gonna fuck you.”

-+-+-+-

“Uh,” Badou groans, standing naked in the door to the bathroom. Cigarette clenched between his teeth, he pushes Haine’s hand away from his crotch, tries to pull away from the man latching onto him from behind. “Jesus H Christ, man, do you ever fucking stop with your goddamned bullshit. No. Fuck off. We need to fucking shower. I can’t hit the fucking streets later smelling all fuckin’ cock-musky. It’s socially embarrassing. I said get the fuck offa- oh god.”

Haine laps wetly at the dark bite mark he just left on the side of Badou’s neck. He surveys the plethora of others with a faint sense of pride, and with something low and primal, that says mineminemineminemine. Not in so many words, of course.

Logically, he knows they need to shower, they’re covered in sweat and practically sticking to eachother, reeking of sex. But the more Badou bitches at him, the more he chain smokes in frustration, the more Badou he is, and Haine can’t seem to help himself.

“Come on you douchebag,” rasps the redhead, pushing Haine’s wandering hands away again. He turns his head back, and something within Haine growls in approval at the mussed hair, the tired eye, the red and kiss-swollen lips. “How about a quickie in the shower? Will that fucking satisfy your dumb ass?”

“Mm,” he hums agreeably, but makes a nuisance of himself the whole time Badou tries to get towels, put out his cigarette, and turn on the water. When they finally manage to get in, Badou doesn’t even have time to reach for the shampoo before Haine goes in for the kill. His hands grab roughly onto Badou’s ass and hip. He bodily shoves his partner backwards and-

-there’s a sickening clunk as the taller man’s head comes in sharp, painful contact with the showerhead.

FIC - DOGS prompt set

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:25:42 GMT

Title: Don't Flinch [But it's Gonna Hurt]
Fandom: DOGS/DOGS: Bullets and Carnage
Ratings: PG-13 to R
Pairing: Haine/Badou
Disclaimer: NOT MEIN.
Feedback: Lurvely.
Notes: The Beta prompt table from 1character, used soley for prompts and nothing else, as I ignored every rule on the list aside from "Write stuff."

Theme Set – Beta

#01 – Package
Haine can’t help but notice his idiot partner spent quite a lot of time devoted to staring at Naoto’s chest, or trying to get a good look up her skirt.

When asked, however, Badou responds, “I’d fuck her, but I’m 99% sure she has a package.”

#02 – Obscure
It’s dark in the room, the shitty blinds pulled shut. Badou’s rasping breath, slow and even in sleep, underlines the unintelligible murmur from the television.

If he loses focus on the screen, Haine can almost see a smiling blonde girl within the static.

#03 – Skeleton
The first thing Haine had thought of, upon meeting Badou for the first time, was a battle ravaged corpse re-animated. Nothing but unhealthy pallor and jutting, skeletal grin [even an eyeball plucked out by a hungry crow].

#04 – Nurse
The ashtray fills with bullets steadily, clink clink clink, as Badou excavates them patiently from his partner’s abdominals.

“Get me some water,” orders Haine.

“I’m not your fucking nurse,” snaps Badou [but he gets to his feet].

#05 – Domino
He doesn’t show up, so Haine goes after him. When the albino storms into the small grocery shop, Badou doesn’t notice, slumped over on the counter and fast asleep.

Badou does notice when Haine kicks over a fruit display, setting off a chain reaction of shit falling like goddamned dominoes.

#06 – Thaw
Haine is slow to thaw, a fucking ice princess if he ever saw one, but Badou is a walking testament to patient destruction [ripping down Haine’s walls as systematically as he builds his own higher].

#07 – Waves
People wash in and out of his life constantly, so he’s gotten into the habit of not giving a shit about anybody. Like waves upon an uncaring shore, he remains unchanged and unmoved by the people he smiles at, talks to, and flees for his life from.

It’s an effective system for getting by, until that fucking albino freakshow shows up, and blows it all to hell.

#08 – Burglar
“Someone broke in last night,” says Badou. He flicks his old cigarette into the gutter, lights up a new one. “He’s starting to fucking stink.”

#09 – Frame
He’s not entirely stupid. He’s felt burning red eyes on him, tracking him, framing him inside a neat little mental crosshair. Badou continuously tries to dance out of the range of fire, but he knows he’s a marked man, for sure.

#10 – Carpet
When Haine’s mouth crashes into his, knocking him over onto the floor, Badou’s first thought is ow, and his second thought is what the fuck. His third thought is fuck it, whatever, because he’s tired of being hunted by this asshole.

He doesn’t start thinking again ‘till much later, and even then it’s only to bitch at Haine for the rug burn.

#11 – Insect
“I said fuck off,” rasps Badou irritably, shoving Haine away. The redhead exits the alley, mumbling about smokes and Taiwanese hookers.

Staring after him, watching that long red hair swinging, Haine balls his hands into fists, and feels like a fucking insect [like a moth to a goddamned incinerator].

#12 – Mentor
Haine has never had a mentor to guide him, and Badou cannot forget his no matter how hard he tries.

[Maybe idolatry is better off dead, anyway.]

#13 – Spirit
Badou spits ash onto the pavement, then rubs the bridge of his nose. “Man, I don’t know if I can do this shit anymore. Fuckin’ killing my soul. I’m worse off for it, you know, spiritually.”

Haine drawls, “It’s photographing fat men humping teenaged prostitutes. You’ll live.”

#14 – Wax
Sometimes he catches him, after jobs, just staring out the window, still as a wax figurine. Smoke hanging around him like bad manners, his good eye seems glazed over, a million miles away.

When Haine mumbles something about getting some Chinese food, Badou startles, and gives him a wax figurine grin.

#15 – Trash
It’s stacked in every corner of the room, oozing inward in a glacial tidal wave of filth and stink. The pizza boxes thrown behind the couch have, at this point, been stacked higher than the couch itself.

“You should probably take out the fucking trash,” drawls Haine, pointing. “There’s a fucking banana peel right there. You could slip on that shit.”

“That only happens in fucking cartoons, you shithead. I ain’t gonna slip on a banana peel.”

It’s true; he slips on an orange peel instead. Haine signs his cast, ‘Bitch I told you.’

#16 – Womb
“I can’t fucking concentrate on this shit,” groans Badou, disgustedly flinging their job options across the table.

“You might be pregnant,” says Haine. He drops his hand to palm Badou’s stomach. “Do you think it’ll have your eye?”

#17 – Burn
It’s starting to become, Haine thinks, and unhealthy preoccupation. The problem is that Badou moves his hands when he talks, expansive gestures that translate to absolutely nothing.

His ears tune out while his eyes follow those hands, zeroing in on the burn marks on his partner’s fingers- and the pit of his stomach burns for another kind of heat entirely.

#18 – Flash
Their heads are turned exactly 45 degrees to the right.

“It’s-”

“I know, Haine.”

“But with a-”

“I know.”

Badou sighs, takes a photo of the city mayor inserting his cock into the mouth of a jack-o-lantern, and thinks he should’ve stayed in fucking school.

#19 – Anima
Howling murder, Badou chases a laughing Haine up and down the pews. “I’M GONNA SHOOT YOUR ASS SO FULL OF BULLETS YOU’LL NEED EIGHTEEN SUCCESSIVE FUCKIN’ ENEMAS TO GET THEM ALL OUT!”

The Bishop isn’t sure whether enemas are against the lord’s word, but he trips Badou with his cane anyway.

#20 – Gamble
Making a disgusted noise, Badou pulls away, looks up with that one murky green eye. “No, fuck man, I can’t do this shit, it’s fucking weird and gross and-”

“Pretend it’s a fucking cigarette and suck it,” growls Haine, shoving Badou’s face back into his crotch, pushing on the back of his head until he hears the other man gag.

He knows there’s a pretty good chance Badou will bite it off, but it’s a risk he’s willing to take.

#21 – Statue
Badou used to be envious of Haine’s smooth, alabaster skin, his fit body. The asshole is like a fucking sculpture, perfectly proportioned and unmarred. But the bandages around his partner’s neck bind him to a price Badou knows is far too high for statuesque beauty.

#22 – Perfume
Haine never goes to the shopping mall [the fluorescent lights bother his eyes], so he generally forces Badou to go for him [at gunpoint].

When the redhead returns from his latest trip, looking strung out and smelling like a flowerbed orgy instead of cigarette smoke, Haine laughs so uncontrollably Badou throws the bag with Haine’s new pair of sunglasses at the wall.

The albino brings out his Mauser, and fifteen minutes later Badou is engaging in round two with the perfume sample ladies.

#23 – Wine
Although Badou is their resident substance abuser, it’s Haine who stumbles to Badou’s flat after much too much French wine, all wandering hands and persistent lips.

In the morning, the smoker tries to convince himself it was because he was fucking bored, and there was nothing on television. It doesn’t work.

#24 – Reflection
Upon reflection, Badou realizes he’s made a few mistakes in his life. Most of them involve spending his rent money on cigarettes and pornography, but the most recent one is taking a loud piss in his bathroom and has an ass as white as an igloo.

#25 – Take
One day, Haine decides he’s had enough, enough of Badou jerking him around [he fucking well severed his leash years ago]. He’s had enough of the callous teasing, the almost-quites and the excuses. He’s going to take what he wants.

What surprises him is that when he goes to get it, Badou beats him to the punch, pulling him down onto the mattress by the bandages around his neck.

#26 – Magic
It is not like dreams coming true. There is no magic involved, no faeries sprinkling glitter over them while some fat-ass baby with wings looks on approvingly.

The mattress springs creak for less than ten seconds, and then Badou laughs a bit hysterically, and says “Shit, its all- that’s gross.”

#27 – Fragment
“So.”

“Uh…”

“That was…”

“Yeah?”

“Fucking horrible. I seriously could have had a better time on my own.”

Haine pushes Badou off the bed [pissed because he knows Badou is right].

#28 – Cats and Dogs
Here, life is at its lowest, it’s most primal. When the guns are out of ammo, they fall upon one another with knives, with fingernails and teeth, with hate and spite and malice [sharper than any blade].

It’s not anything like cats and dogs; down here, there are nothing but beasts.

#29 – Hum
Haine unashamedly loves it when Badou, deranged and laughing like a drugged hyena, hums the theme to Jaws while they’re working.

#30 – Flinch
The only sounds in the warehouse are the quiet laboured breathing of someone slowly bleeding out [go towards the light, motherfucker], and the blood dripping off the ends of Badou’s hair, plip, plip, plip.

When the redhead makes a wild lunge at the last living thing in the room- himself- Haine doesn’t flinch.

#31 – Rush
Haine finally understands what all the fuss was about when his partner, cornered and snarling, sinks his teeth into the exposed skin just above the bandages around his neck. Fingernails scraping the skin off Haine’s lower back, Badou rasps lowly into the albino’s ear, “Fuck me.”

A dog to the very end, Haine responds well to direct orders.

#32 – Jester
The smoker’s hands shake as he finally lights up.

Haine waits, waits, waits, for that first conscious observation. He hears the inhale, the slow exhale, the blissful sigh of sated nicotine craving and then-

“…should probably leave before the, uh, goddamn cops show…”

The albino grins, knowing he’s done stunningly better if Badou doesn’t even have a joke about it.

#33 – Haven
A chain smoker who can’t open up in the slightest, and an albino ripped open like a bleeding wound- it makes no sense, but a haven is what you make of it.

#34 – Dusk
He’s the dying light of the day, making one last fiery stand before failing, over and over again. It’s enough to make him want to stay down for the count, more often than not [but then again, he’d miss that red, red dawn in his partner’s stupid fucking pigment-less eyes].

#35 – Chord
He knows its stupid, almost ridiculous, because the dumb fucker wouldn’t know a note if it kicked him up the ass, and he never knows any of the words, and his range is fucking abysmal. He doesn’t even have a good taste in music.

Yet, when Badou says “Dude I love this fucking song!” and turns up the wireless, Haine can’t help but feel that raspy, off-key voice hitting all the right chords.

#36 – Indulgence
Their eyes are locked, steely and glaring at one another. Long minutes pass by.

Finally, Haine slumps into the couch, grunts “Fine.” Badou makes an unholy noise of glee, and switches the channel back to the Women’s National Volleyball League Tournament.

#37 – Freezer
“You’re afraid of what? That’s the dumbest fucking thing I ever heard,” snorts Haine, point blank. Badou twitches, calls him a bag of dicks, and sulks off to get a beer from the kitchen.

Still, that night, Haine wakes up with sweat drenching his brow. Maybe the idiot was right about meat freezers.

#38 – Passage
They don’t request safe passage from the night, from the dangers of the city. Badou’s hair whips in the cold alley-twisted wind with a snap, and Haine just smiles [and hungry crocodiles don’t got shit on him].

No, they don’t request. They fucking demand.

#39 – Coast
All Badou ever wanted was a simple life. Just being able to coast along, make enough money to live and smoke peacefully, out of the rat race. But he’s been finding, lately [as they runrunrun around their track where every contender’s howling mad], it was the dog race he should’ve been worried about.

#40 – Keepsake
All throughout the day, he touches them, pokes at the purple-green bruises until they ache. When Haine comes into Buon Viaggio, those wild red eyes snap immediately to Badou’s neck, and the albino orders his coffee with a slightly less monotonous voice than usual.

Badou throws his own cup of sludge at Haine’s stupid goddamned smug-ass face, [and wishes he were less turned on].

#41 – Morbid
“I like your bones,” Haine says, sitting on the edge of the tub. He says it in a mumble, almost shyly, like a boy asking a girl out to fucking prom.

Badou nods, shifts in the lukewarm water, and wonders abstractly why he hasn’t run for his life yet.

#42 – Shipwreck
It’s their dirty little secret. At night, they turn out all the lights, head for the couch, and are both rendered completely breathless.

Gilligan’s Island will always be their favourite program, hands down.

#43 – Socks
Badou doesn’t realize it until about four weeks in. He holds the foreign sock in his hand [he’d known it wasn’t his because there was not a single hole in it, and it was still relatively white]. He pitches the sock back in the drawer with a curse, and begins to chain smoke fiercely.

The shithead could have at least asked to move in.

#44 – Sand
Tossing the frozen package of peas on the at the back of the sink, Badou leans on the fixture. He turns his face a couple different angles, prodding at the huge bruise on his eye carefully.

Really, he wishes his goddamned fucking partner didn’t have such a sandy vagina.

[He wishes even more so that he hadn’t vocalized that wish out loud.]

#45 – Coin
“Come on, come onnnn Haine, you shitty fucker, shitty shitty fuckass…” Badou puts coin after coin in, listens to ring after ring after ring. He gives up, tries to throw the telephone to the ground, and gets hit in the shin when it rebounds wildly on its cord.

Across the street, Haine eats an ice lolly unconcernedly, watching as Badou swears and swears and swears.

#46 – Guile
It’s not that Haine is particularly charming, or attractive- he’s an albino asshole. It’s not that he’s even really into guys- he’s not, really. It’s not that he’s in it for the sex, or the danger, or any of that shit.

In truth, the honesty of Haine’s intentions shames him, and he can do nothing but acquiesce [maybe one day, Badou’ll teach him how to lie, and he’ll be able to do this].

#47 – Eyelash
The superstitions say, knock on wood. They say, wish on stars, and dandelion clocks, and eyelashes. They say, don’t let a black cat cross your path.

They should say, always let a black dog cross your path [or else you’re in for a hell of a lot more than some hissing and claw-marks on your shin].

#48 – Drive
Watching Badou eat breakfast like a fucking orangutan, lips smacking and milk flying, and talking a mile a minute while chewing, is driving Haine steadily crazy. Crazier. Whatever.

The truly maddening part is that he could and would watch Badou gorge himself on fucking Fruit Loops all morning, the fucking cock.

#49 – Net
When the albino shows up at his flat with a sour expression, bleeding and chock-full of bullets, Badou has to stifle a frantic laugh. Only he’d pick a safety net so full of holes.

#50 – Destination
They’re on top of a roof, waiting for their targets to come waltzing out of their Big Important Business Meeting and into a storm of bullets.

Badou shifts, looks down, and cringes. “Fuck, dude, I’m totally sitting in bird shit, what the fuck, all the fucking places in the fucking world to take a shit, and the asshole bird has to pick the one spot I’m going to sit once in my entire life.”

“I think I might love you or something,” says Haine.

There’s a silence.

“Do we have to hold hands now or fucking whatever?”

The albino grunts a negative.

Badou smokes contemplatively, then shrugs. “Well, then, I guess I’m okay with that.”