Disclaimer: Dogs: Bullets & Carnage belongs to Miwa Shirow. Not me. TTATT

Summary: He laughed, because really, laughing was all he could do now. Badou drabble.

Warning: A bit OOC. Or really OOC. Depends on how you look at Badou.

'This is Bishop speaking.'

These are Badou's thoughts.

This is Badou.

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Laugh

'Do you even know what you're looking for now, Badou? Are you still searching for the gateway to Hell?'

He laughed.

He laughed as he contemplated one of Bishop's ridiculous questions, the man's face grinning broadly, annoyingly, in his mind's eye (he really had to stop sticking his nose into business he had nothing to do with; the man needed a hobby, other than dressing Nil in lacy, frilly Lolita outfits).

Are you still searching for the gateway to Hell?'

Hell wasn't a fitting term for the underground, really. It was much too light (pits of fire would burn brightly, after all).

Do you even know what you're looking for?

There used to be a point.

He had started on this one man crusade -- not really two, because even if Heine was his partner (and Badou used the term very loosely), he fought for completely different reasons (or maybe no reason at all) -- with belief in his young, naive mind and hope shining in his one eye (it was brighter then) and burning in his foolish heart; he thought he could save his brother (or at least avenge him somehow).

But the years passed by, and Badou no longer holds onto his beliefs; his eye much, much duller in his nicotine-induced lethargic state (except when he is bringing bullet-rain from the heavens; then it's lit by the manic, insane sort of light you see in those with nothing left to lose) and his heart burning from the poison eating away at his insides. The leads all vanished like the crap cancer sticks he burns through so quickly (just like his beliefs), and this older, jaded Badou isn't quite so sure of what he's looking for anymore.

Do you..?

He laughed, because really, laughing was all he could do now.

He couldn't fucking well cry, because crying would be admitting defeat and crushing that final, baseless -- useless -- hope that he so inexplicably, desperately clings to even now (it is all he has left to live for).

If he were a religious person, he'd pray, but --

'You won't find it, you know.'

He'd never been one for religion, anyways. And knowing Bishop just reinforced his stance on it.

Screw the priest and his idiotic mind games. He'd gone through the past several years aimlessly searching for something (which he wasn't sure what was anymore) without thinking about it, he could go through a few more.

All I can do is laugh.

So he swallowed a lungful of gray, polluted, city ash down and laughed.

And he wondered why laughter always left him with acid burning in his throat, a bloodshot-red green eye and wet cheeks.