Sneeze

Badou always thought it was hilariously funny when Haine sneezed. Not only due to the fact that he rarely did, but that when the instance did occur, the menacing albino sounded like a torn up squeaky toy rather than the rabid dog he was known to be.

Shadows

It scared him sometimes, seeing his reflection in the mirror. Pale and haunted, he would breeze out of the view of the reflective surface as quickly as possible, always fearing the shadow that stood behind him in the silence of those tiled rooms.

Bath Time

Despite the heat, Badou always loved the summer. The dog days always made him feel calmer, the heat blurring him into a haze like the comforting blanket of smoke that always followed him around.

It was also an excuse to bring out his stolen fire hose and douse Haine with it, shouting madly from his third story window that it was "BATH TIME FOR DOGGIE *****ES!" as the hose pumped water from a hole in his wall that lead to some other poor sap's water main.

Years

He often woke with nightmares these days, haunted by a childhood experience in which he had strayed into a dark alley, only to meet a pair of red eyes and shining white teeth. He had screamed, as any young child would have back then. But by the time he opened his eyes again, the smile and the eyes were gone. But as Badou sat on his bed, the eyes still lingered, a face now burned into the memory alongside them that was all too familiar to his waking eye.

He wondered then how old Haine really was.

Silence

Badou groaned as they waited in Granny's lobby, staring up at the ceiling and wishing the old fox would put a goddamn clock in her goddamn waiting room. Haine was statuesque beside him, as always.

"God," he drawled out angrily, unable to stand the silence any longer. "What time is it anyway? That old hag said she'd see us at four thirty!"

"Sit down asshole, it's only quarter after four," Haine said, his voice lacking its usual acumen despite the insult flung with the first word.

"How the hell can you tell?" the redhead replied angrily, hoping to God he hadn't missed the fact that his partner was wearing a watch. Again.

Haine sighed, opening his previously closed eyes lazily. "We got here at four. I've been listening to that hourglass over on the table in the corner. As close as I can figure, it's about quarter after," he replied, looking like he would have been sorely inclined to go back to meditating rather than dealing with the obviously irksome tendencies of his companion.

Whirling to face the object, Haine was proven correct, seeing as the sand on the bottom half was about one quarter of what the sum amount of sand seemed to be.

"Couldn't you just have looked?" the redhead asked, turning back to face the albino.

Haine's eyes sparkled darkly, a smirk like oil sliding over his features. "That takes all the fun out of it. It's like with you. Do you have any idea how fun it is to listen to you squirm?"

Options

Sitting in his cloud, Badou could only marginally make out Haine's sitting form as his mind cleared. His anger abating with the flow of nicotine surging through his veins, he smiled to himself, exhaling in Haine's general direction as his mind grew clearer.

"You know," he said, his voice slurred as he wound down from the nicotine-deprived euphoria, "you should start drinking tea or something. Calms ya down."

He heard the albino snort. "At least it wouldn't clog up my lungs. And I quite like my stress reliever, thank you very much."

"At least my stress reliever doesn't kill dozens of people. Seriously, you should look into your options."

Change

Some things, he knew would never change. Politics, scandals, crime. But as he watched the albino sleeping next to him, the pale chest rising and fall smoothly and quietly, he realized some things, he never wanted to change. Because if they did, all hope for the world he knew and loved would be gone in the blink of a ruby eye.

Discipline

He had to give the little girl credit, she had a helluva lot of courage. But on the other end, Haine was also doing surprisingly well.

Badou had been griping at the snow-haired bastard to let Nill stitch him up one of these times, seeing as the poor girl practically worshiped the ground he walked on. And this time, much to Badou's glee, he had been to tired to argue. Even Haine, mister shoot-my-ass-full-of-bullets-and-I'll-just-spit-them-back-at-you, had been so shot up that he had just lain down on the floor of Nill's room in the back of the church and laid still on his stomach. Nill, bless her tweenie heart, had sprung for the first aid kit before he had even hit the floor.

By the time she returned, Badou had also taken a seat on the floor, though a much less horizontal one. He himself wasn't all to banged up, seeing as he had only gotten into the damned building three quarters of the way through the fight. And he could only watch in quiet wonder as Nill, the only female he had ever known that Haine let get even near him, all but smother him.

He knew then, as he saw one of Haine's hands twitch, that it was taking all of the discipline the albino had not to jump up and run away. And as Badou watched, it was taking all the discipline he had to keep himself from jumping up and shooing the small angel girl away, cawing at her to leave the tough work to the big boys and to just wait until they gave her their clothes to stitch up. Sighing, he chose to simply look away, stealing a small roll of gauze to tend to his own wounds before his discipline broke.

Sometimes jealousy was a *****.

Possession

It always warmed the cigarette addict's heart when, after a rough night, he and Haine would curl up on his old mattress and just lay with each other. Too tired from whatever activities had occurred previously, they would eventually fall asleep on each other. And though Haine didn't know it, Badou loved to wait until the albino was asleep, his pale face buried in the crook of his partner's neck, so he could trace the pale skin in winding, cryptic patterns. He knew that the scars weren't there anymore, but he loved to trace the places where they had once been, thinking that he was sketching a masterpiece on the purest canvas known to man.

But what made the small activity precious to him, was that he always imagined he was painting the picture with his own blood.

Idiocy

Every night they could manage, Haine and Badou would scamper back to Haine's apartment before a predetermined time. Planting themselves on Haine's man-eating couch, they would turn on their favourite program. Cackling and howling like the teenage boys they were at heart, they would, without fail, wake the neighbors. And when the other tenants would shout at them through Haine's padlocked door, the dastardly duo would swear back in unison, only to turn back to the small television and turn the volume up louder.

Because in all reality, what person in their right mind wouldn't love a good old episode of MXC?

Technology

"What he **** is that?" Badou said with stark disbelief, staring angrily at the small piece of plastic in Haine's outstretched hand.

"It's a camera asshole. You use it to take pictures," was all his reply turned out to be.

Taking the small "camera", Badou inspected it suspiciously. Fiddling with it for a few moments, he looked up at Haine angrily when he couldn't find the lone feature he was looking for. "You shithead," he said angrily, waving the small thing in his hand for emphasis, "there's no place for film in this goddamn thing!"

"It's digital."

"...f***."

Music

When Badou got a stereo, it was manner from Heaven. He would plop in his favourite CD, and crank it up until he couldn't hear himself think. All he could do was jive like the mad dancer he was to the pounding rhythms beating in his apartment.

On one such occasion, he was developing his mad skills, enjoying the lack of interruption he was experiencing with great fervor. But when the song ended, and the track went silent to transfer to the next one, he became aware of a very familiar cackle coming from the general location of his door.

Looking over, he found Haine, apparently having collapsed on the floor, convulsing with maniacal laughter as he held his nonexistent stomach.

"What?" Badou asked indignantly.

Through the gasping breaths of his partner, Badou caught the general idea that his "jiving" make him appear like he was having some manner of fatal seizure.

Maybe dancing just wasn't his thing.

Rope

Even with his extensive working career, one thing never ceased to make the hairs on the back of Badou's neck stand on end. Whenever he and Haine hunkered down in the albino's apartment for a movie night, they would always end up watching an old classic from Haine's vast collection.

And it irritated him to no end when Haine made him watch Alfred Hitchcock movies, because he would always end up screaming like a little girl and all but leaping into the albino's lap when things got just a little too dramatic.

And after one such night, Haine had taken up the habit of carrying a small piece of braided rope with him.

Badou didn't sleep for a week after wards.