Lee: UPDATE?! Shock horror. This is my first time at a DOGS fic, and the nerves have started! Haha ... Okay ...

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters. Even though I bet I love Badou more than Miwa Shirow does ¬_¬

Badou couldn't see it, then.

He remembered the first time he realised he didn't know Haine at all.

The teardrop rain hadn't stopped falling since the previous evening and fog hung in clusters, like ghosts of the city's victims, folding together like oil in water; not quite belonging, but they clutched to a glimmer of hope, hung onto what was left of their life. Bad memories, broken souls.

Badou floated in his own ghosts, thick smoke billowing through his hair, breezing over his face. Water droplets slid from his long fingers, dripped from his nose and soaked his clothing; he had been leaning against a wall, dripping, sighing; wondering if he was too early or too late, and just where the hell Haine was.

He had drifted home soon after, slowly, slowly, as if the albino would catch up to him, accuse him of being late for the job and turn him around. He had kept walking without interruption. When he put his key in the lock he did it slowly, slowly, and not really knowing why.

Clothes off, then, scattered from his door to his bathroom, eye patch caught loosely on the door handle. He had turned the bath tap, felt the water, then stood facing the mirror silently. No ghosts claimed his image then, and he watched as the steam closed around his hair, his cheeks, cheekbones, nose and left eye, leaving a heavy, staring, useless eyeball, staring at him, always staring, always scarred, always scarring. The mirror disappeared in the heat, and Badou climbed into the hot water, burning the ghosts away, burning the teardrops, the sweat, the cold, the scars.

Where had Haine been, anyway? Badou had frowned and tried to forget about it, his lean form relaxing and soaking and cleansing. His mind as free as his floating, darkening hair, his thoughts wandered to a sanctuary somewhere far away devoid of the past and present.

He had slipped awake gradually, damaged eyelid sticking a little longer than the left, coming to more with every footfall of a slaughterer's boots, and sat up when Haine entered the small room. Badou's dripping hair stuck to his face and neck, and he slid it from his face while a blood-streaked Haine idly knelt beside the tub and began stroking his hand through the bath water, leaving finger wide trails of red.

'Where the fuck were you?'

Haine rested his chin on one bloody hand, watching the water. Like so many other entities he had manipulated and tainted, the water rippled and stained red beneath his fingers. His pale cheeks were lined with someone else's fluids and rain, like tears of blood. 'I was busy.'

''Busy'? I need the goddamn money, Haine!'

'You have another job, don't you?'

'It's not enough, and you know it. What am I supposed to do if I can't afford the bills for this place?'

'Quit smoking, shithead.'

'Very funny. Get the fuck out of my bathroom.'

Haine had grinned and swapped hands, refusing to move, and bared his teeth when Badou flicked water at his face.

'What were you really doing, then, arsehole?'

Haine's vermilion eyes concentrated on the bath water again, and he said nothing in reply.

Badou sighed and shook a speck of blood from his finger. 'Alright, man, I can take a hint. I just don't know you, is all.'

'Knowing,' Haine said, watching a thick dribble of blood float and settle onto Badou's belly, 'Knowing and understanding are two different things.'

He remembered the first time he realised he understood Haine more than anyone else.

Slouching on a pew, eyelid drooping, Badou had watched the angel girl light candles. One by one, they lit up and shone bright, never caving in to the slight draught running through the church; they were like tiny angel souls, pure and battling against life. Close by, Haine sat, trying to blow the first one out and wrinkling his nose at it. Every now and then, Badou would catch a word or two from the Bishop who stood beside him. '… Are you listening, Badou?'

Badou nodded, and continued watching Haine. The albino's mouth moved, but many of the his words escaped Badou's ears. The first candle was out at last, and Haine's eyes had stolen the fire.

'- every night- '

'- Lilly- '

'- can't- '

'- monster- '

'- eyes- '

'- death- '

'- blood- '

'… Are you listening, Badou?'

Badou nodded.

Nill shook her head. Sorrowfully, she lit the first candle again, and Haine's eyes hit the floor, glassy and lifeless.

'… Badou, are you listening?'

'Haine,' the redhead called, 'Let's go.'

Badou can see it, now.

The curtain drops when the red eyes glaze over. He doesn't know what the curtain's hiding, but Badou understands it. He has his own, a collection of ghosts that shield him. A shield that repels bad memories and broken souls; people long gone that still hurt, people around that can do nothing.

Badou's ghosts are temporary and his shield gently drifts away.

Haine's curtain is always there, his shield hiding the unknown.

Fingertips, surprisingly gentle for gruesome, blood spilling trigger-pullers, tap his shoulder. Badou turns slowly under the thin blanket, shifts onto his back to stare up at the ghost face and rubs his eyes.

'Haine?' He yawns, covering his mouth and frowning, 'How the fuck did you get in?'

The albino doesn't answer, just continues looking around with eyes as shiny as swirling blood.

'Are you … wanting to stay the night?'

'Well, I didn't feel like … staying at the church. I can't sleep.'

'Alright. Get us a smoke, would ya?' Haine passes the redhead a packet of cigarettes before removing his boots and jacket and sprawling out beside him. Badou shifts up to lean on an elbow, hair spilling over his shoulder, resembling bloody slices in the dark; he pulls the blanket up over Haine's far shoulder and tucks it in smoothly. 'You want a smoke?'

Haine's eyes glisten with the blaze of the cigarette as he looks up into Badou's bare face; yellow and orange churning within his red, killing eyes. 'They're bad for your health.'

'If bullets can't kill you, you can't die from these either, lucky shithead,' the flames dance in the albino's eyes like hell fire, burning the curtain away, burning Badou's glossy reflection, the blood, the death, the scars.

With the sinister speed he is cursed with, Haine sits up and faces Badou. 'You can. You can die.'

'I'll be lucky if it's smokes I die from.'

Haine's teeth are sharp as he grins. 'Do you feel alive?'

Badou finishes his cigarette and he reaches away to put it out. Haine's eyes follow every movement, like a wild dog stalking prey. His fingers twist into the blanket next to Badou's chest. 'Well I don't think I'm dead. I'm still breathing, right?'

'You have to be alive to feel death. Does that mean I'm already dead, Badou?' Haine's face is close to Badou's now, and with the cigarette light gone, the redhead can't see where the blood eyes are looking.

'I- I don't fucking know,' Badou shifts back and Haine follows, 'I don't know anything about you.'

Badou doesn't see it, but Haine changes in that moment. His eyes sharpen, he leans forward onto his arms and he places a hand on either side of Badou's waist. 'What did you say?'

'… I- I don't- fucking hell, Haine, ever heard of personal space?' Badou tilts back until his shoulders rest against the headboard, his confused eye glancing back and forth from the swirling blood stare to his own squirming fingers.

Haine smiles, amused. His eyelids droop in satisfaction and he watches Badou fidget and slide slowly down the headboard in an effort of defence. He lets him slide all the way down until his shoulders hit the mattress, then leans forward and presses their lips together. He can feel Badou's breath from this proximity, travelling through his nose in quick pants. There are no ghosts here, now, and the curtain has lifted. Just him and Badou. He kisses harder and then unhooks Badou's nails from his face, moving them to hold above their heads.

'Haine-! What the fuck do you- '

The albino quietens Badou by 'ssh'ing him, and kissing both of his eyes, lingering on the scarred one. He swaps his grip on Badou's wrists to one hand, and uses the other to lift a long, thin leg up and around his waist. Badou wriggles. 'I want to fuck you, do you understand that, Badou?'

Badou had understood. He let Haine kiss him until his lips were red raw, let him lick and bite anywhere he liked until his throat was painful from yelling; he touched Haine in the way he was being touched, rough in sensitive areas, squeezing, caressing, stroking and rubbing; he let the albino slide into him, shuddering, and thrust into him until his nails were buried into the slender lower back, until everywhere was sore, until pleasure washed over him and he was moaning shamelessly with every jerk, muscles in his thighs clenching, and he was swearing at the top of his voice.

Badou didn't know why, though. And when morning came and he ached all over and was sticky and hot and sweaty, when beams of light danced over sleeping Haine's glossy eyelids and lips, he still didn't know why.

But knowing and understanding are two different things.

Lee: Well, reviews are great, as is constructive criticism and the works. :3