She flips her hair over her shoulder, long black tresses caressing Skull's face and leaving a hit of mint and lavender to trail through the air in her wake. The red dress is tight all the way from her exaggeratedly pushed up breasts to her wide hips.

"Ow," Skull complains about the hair flip just to complain. He can't say that the dozen shopping bags filled with guns hidden in expensive clothes are heavy. He can't say that because he is a manly man and he lifts weights and shit so this is nothing.

To be fair, Skull was picked because he looks like weak and easy prey and their targets won't get scared off, but he is still very manly thank you very much. Skull is meant to wait outside the shop, hidden around the corner in case someone immediately notices Reborn is a man and the hitman needs backup, so technically Skull is strong enough to be backup, right?

"Lal, please tell him to stop being a little bitch," Reborn mutters.

Lal's sigh is heard through both of their ear pieces.

"Lal, please tell him that he can't put eyeliner on properly," Skull mocks.

The woman whips around to glare down at the man trailing along behind her. "Are you saying you know how to put on eyeliner, you gelatinous fuck?" Reborn asks with a very sharp flick of his wrist, the dozen gold bangles clinking together with the motion to better express his outrage. "Because yours make you look like a hooker."

Skull gasps. "Reborn-"

Reborn slams a hand over his mouth and smiles like a shark.

"We're trying to get Reborn kidnapped," Fon chimes in patiently through the comms. "Let's please not say any names that might scare the sex traffickers away."

Reborn releases Skull's face and strokes a hand loving down his sweet, adorable boyfriend's cheek, leaving angry red marks from how sharp his nails are when they dig in.

Skull shrinks back, cowed.

Reborn turns sharply on six-inch heels to continue strutting down the sidewalk and Skull hopes the kidnappers are rough with the hitman. He hopes one of them slaps Reborn, right across the face.

Reborn flips his hair again with a violent motion and Skull remembers this man can read minds.

"Just for that, I'm going to beat the shit out of you when we get home," Reborn warns.

"Quieter," Lal hisses at them.

Several people passing by give Reborn wary looks.

"She's a dominatrix," Skull blurts out at the people. "We're into BDSM, it's fine, it's not domestic abuse. She said it in, like, a flirty way."

Fighting with Reborn is kind of fun though, and it's the best way to get sneaky cuddles when Reborn is agitated, because Skull is a brawler and that means rolling around on the floor a lot.

Reborn giggles in a husky tone and falls back a step to wrap an arm through Skull's shopping bag laden one. "Do you want the riding crop or the knife later?"

"Um, I want Luce when we get home," Skull mumbles. "So you won't use me to get off on your sadistic tendencies."

"Pity Luce is in Germany," Reborn says with that terrifying smile again. His eyes catch something through a shop window and his head swivels to stare at it. "Oh, look at that tie," he murmurs. Reborn detaches from Skull and wanders off.

Skull comes to a halt. "We're not actually supposed to shop..." He looks down the street and can see a hint of the silver and gold shop front of the boutique the sex traffickers own. So close yet so far.

"Yo, Skull!" a familiar voice shouts.

Viper clicks their tongue. "You're in normal clothes, how do they recognise you?"

"I am not made of just my purple fashion," Skull protests, moving to the side of the street so he doesn't stop traffic. "I do have other features."

"Like the stupid eyeliner," Reborn murmurs from inside the store.

Skull doesn't dignify that with an answer (he can't come up with a cool comeback) and instead turns to face the guy who called out his name. "Jacob? Giovanni?"

The two grin and come to a stop beside him.

"How have you been?" Jacob asks. "Shit, I thought you were dead after you fought the hitman."

"Fought me?" Reborn scoffs. "You call that a fight?"

"I scared him off," Skull says easily because he's a pathological liar. "Grazed his cheek with the first shot and he ran. Tried to come back with friends but I got away."

The two Carcassa fawn over him, amazed.

"Reborn," Verde calls out, annoyed. "Put down the ties and chase off Skull's little friends. We have a job here."

Verde gets jealous easily, Skull has learned. It's really cute. It's less cute when Verde lights up with about a billion volts because he thinks shock training is a perfectly logical response to one of his lovers hugging someone else.

A bell chimes with the shop's door opening and a moment later, Reborn's talon tipped hand drops onto Skull's shoulder. "And who might you gentleman be?"

Jacob blinks and then his eye go wide. "Oh. Oh, damn!"

Verde growls quietly and Skull automatically takes a step sideways to try and block Reborn.

Giovanni jabs the other in the ribs with an elbow. "My name is Giovanni and this is Jacob. We know Skull from...work. He's a good man."

"Is he?" Reborn muses, hand moving to comb through Skull's hair, giving him a scratch like you would with a puppy. "Dick is a bit small, but he pays for my shopping sprees so I suppose it's not all bad."

Neither of the Carcassa know what to say to that.

"She's a feisty one, isn't she?" Skull laughs it off. "Anyway, we should head back home now." He hefts the bags. "Definitely done here."

"Oh, yes," Giovanni says, still a bit taken aback. "We should get together sometime though. You haven't been back to work for a month."

Shit. Skull hesitates.

"It was his first day," Reborn picks up smoothly, expression shifting to worry. "I'm not letting him go back there if that happened on his first day. That's clearly a bad omen."

"No, no," Jacob chimes in quickly. "That was just a once in a blue moon thing, a freak accident. They weren't there to attack us, we just happened to have jacked a car that had some...stuff inside it."

"It's true," Skull says. He kind of wants to go back, these two are nice, and this will be a great excuse. "I didn't even get hurt, you know."

Reborn peers down at him but doesn't bother arguing; the hitman only needs the two others gone. "Maybe," Reborn allows. "We'll see. Anyway, it was nice meeting you two."

They say quick goodbyes and the two Carcassa head off down a small lane between shops.

"Who were they?" Colonnello asks.

Reborn frowns. "Who invited Lal's recruit?"

"No one invited him," Viper mutters. "No one ever invites him, he just shows up and refuses to leave."

"They were from the Carcassa mission," Skull says. "I made friends with them!"

"I don't like them," Verde grumbles.

"Do I know either of the two?" Fon wonders.

"No," Reborn answers. "But it's difficult keeping track, isn't it? The trash tend to blur into the background."

"Come on," Skull sighs, starting to head for the boutique again. "Let's get you kidnapped."