Title: Rainbow

Author/Artist: Amethyst Hunter

Pairing: Ban/Akabane

Fandom: Get Backers

Theme: #15 – "perfect blue"

Rating: PG-13 (swearing, innuendo)

Warnings/Spoilers: A continuation of the previous AU/theme (#12, "good mood") in which it suits my purposes to have Fudou around. The poor (not) bastard, bwaahahaha. :D

Notes: Part of the series for 30kisses.

Disclaimer: The GBers ain't mine.

Summary: Fudou hates Teh Shiny, especially when he sees it up on Ban's and Akabane's wall...!

--

Takuma Fudou tended to view life in one of several colors. His favorite color was red, of course – there was nothing quite as satisfying as seeing the blood of an enemy splashed around like a waterfall. The shade of red he found himself usually fixated on involved an all-consuming rabid rage at being thwarted in his desires for yet another time.

Sadly for him, he rarely got to see much red these days. At least the kind he wanted to see. The color he hated most was usually the one he saw more often than not.

Fudou hated, loathed, despised, abhorred, and really disliked the color blue. Not just any blue, either. If he had been able to, any and all mentions of, references to, shades and hints of a perfect sapphire blue would be forever erased from his existence. Sapphire blue brought to mind things and people that drove him into mouth-frothing fits of madness.

Sapphire blue made him think of Ban Midou. And by extension, his live-in boyfriend, who had just recently added insult to injury by depriving Fudou of his other arm.

That one boggled him. Fudou could respect Dr. Jackal in a way because the two of them were guided by blood-sense, an overwhelming lust to devour their respective enemies. In retrospect he supposed it hadn't been the greatest idea, challenging the pretty transporter to a fight, but Dr. Jackal had instigated it with that not-so-innocent remark about passing on Fudou's greetings to his lover - who just so happened to be the very man Fudou most wanted to see dead. Why the two of them had decided to shack up together was a mystery for the ages; according to Fudou's source Jackal had been just as keen on fighting Midou as Fudou was.

Then again, his source wasn't exactly the most trustworthy around. White was another color he couldn't stand and that mirror-freak drenched himself in it as liberally as Fudou had marinated his mummified arm in natron. Fudou mentally added Kyouji Kagami to his list of People To Kill Someday.

Kagami had been right about one thing though. Midou had set himself up like a prince in this apartment. It wasn't necessarily all-out luxury, but it was close enough despite its relatively small space. Fudou wondered how he was able to pay for everything on a retriever's salary, and then realized: of course Midou wouldn't cough up a dime, as cheap a bastard as he was. This had to have all come from Dr. Jackal.

Pondering which spot in the apartment would make the best hiding place to leap from and attack when the lovebirds returned, Fudou moved on. Finding the location of the building had been a cinch thanks to Kagami's information – which Fudou had paid dearly for – and picking the lock had been even easier. His thievery skills hadn't rusted any since his days as a small-time hoodlum.

He cased the rooms, noting with varying shades of amusement or disgust the colors used in the décor. Most of this had to have been Midou's doing, he decided as he looked upon the warm earthen tones of the furniture and walls. There was a definite blue theme running through some of the pictures that had been hung.

Fudou was eternally grateful that blood wasn't blue. Otherwise it would have taken all the fun out of killing the snake-eating scumbag.

The bedroom was done with a few red and black accents. More like Dr. Jackal, for sure. Fudou studiously avoided all but the briefest of glances at the large four-poster in the center of the room. He refused to give his brain any further nightmares by allowing it to contemplate anything Midou and Jackal might do on that bed. Not that Jackal's kinks would've bothered him all that much; those scalpels had to be good for something besides self-defense. It was the thought of Midou getting busy that made him positively green with illness.

He wondered what he ought to do with Dr. Jackal, after he'd finished with Midou. There would have to be some kind of punishment rendered for the loss of his other arm. The second cybernetic addition hadn't come cheap, and for some reason it was twice as twitchy and spastic as his first. Against his better judgment Fudou found himself idly wondering what Dr. Jackal was like in bed. Maybe after pounding the crap out of him with some Second Sight tricks he ought to throw a fuck into that skinny transporter's ass for good measure, show him what a real man was like. It wasn't as if Jackal was unattractive...

Tabling that idea for later, Fudou left the bedroom and headed for what appeared to be an office area. It was disappointingly plain, cream walls with only a desk and some computer equipment. Well, when one was either a snot-nosed retriever or an icy transporter, he guessed one didn't really need much by way of office supplies...

Fudou turned around. He had just decided to try looking in the guest room when a glint of grey caught his eye on the opposite wall. He looked up, next to the door he'd come through, and his vision instantly fogged over to twelve dozen spectrums of red, none of them pleasant.

Son

Of

A

BITCH.

They'd gone and framed it. They FRAMED his arm – coat sleeve, glove and all – into a piece of art decor and stuck it up over their mantle like it was some sort of hunting trophy.

It took a full five minutes of cybernetic seizing before Fudou could even begin to process thought and when he did the only thing that came out of his mouth was an incoherent frothy mixture of curse words and strangled howls. Oh, they would PAY for this! They BOTH would die! How DARE they hack off his body parts and treat them like exhibits at a damned museum?

So absorbed in his fury was Fudou that he didn't register at first the sounds of a key being turned in a lock and the door to the apartment opening. As soon as he heard voices he spun and stormed into the main room, intent on painting the entire place scarlet with his prey's bloodstains.

The transporter was the first to spot Hurricane Fudou barreling towards them. "Oh, look, Midou-kun. We have company!" Dr. Jackal said with a little smile, clapping his hands together as if this was some kind of delight to be enjoyed.

Midou was smart enough to know better. "Shit! I knew something was screwy with the lock when I opened it."

Fudou flew at him first, claws shooting out of both cybernetic hands. "I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU BASTARDS!"

"I take it you've seen my art collection," Midou said dryly, sidestepping the attack and jumping out of immediate reach.

Fudou whirled, regrouping his charge. "How...DARE...you...!" he heaved, breath snorting from his flared nostrils like a bull blinded by the taunt of a matador's cape. The red he was currently seeing was starting to bleed over into spots of purple, so enraged was he by his foe's insolence. "Bad enough you rob my other arm from me – now you mock me by displaying it on your wall for the whole world to see!"

Midou held up a hand. "Hey, that wasn't my idea," he lied, his characteristic infuriating smirk beginning to creep around the edges of his lips. "Talk to the jackal. It's your own fault anyway for thinking you could beat a guy who walks around carrying a shitload of knives inside him. Haven't you ever played Rock-Paper-Scissors, or were you the type of kid who got his jollies from pulling the wings off flies?"

Fudou's jaw worked furiously with a reply. "I'm gonna smash the two of you into a bloody pulp! DIE!"

He rushed Midou but instead of his fist connecting with flesh a foot shot out and tripped him, sending his jaw slamming into a tiled floor. His world exploded into yellow stars as an amused voice came from above. "I don't think so. You, Fudou, are one of life's Papers. Your only purpose for existing is to get your weasel-ass kicked by Scissors like us."

Fudou's sight cleared enough for him to look up and see Midou making little snake-bite motions at him with his right hand. He bared his teeth and picked himself up.

Dr. Jackal chuckled as he neatly brushed past them then. "I'll get some refreshments while you two have your little chat."

Fudou turned on him. "You! You're getting it next! After I'm done with Midou here – "

Jackal paused, a quiet look of mild surprise coloring his refined features. He didn't appear concerned with the fact that both of Fudou's false hands were attempting – and failing, in their frantic spasms – to choke him senseless. "Why, Fudou-san, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that Midou-kun is the one entirely responsible for your troubles. But that's simply not true. He wasn't the one who thought of the idea to remove your other arm."

Fudou glared black death at him. "Oh?"

Jackal smiled sweet amethyst poison at him. "Of course not. It was my idea."

Fudou's seizures stopped and his fingers snapped shut – over air. Dr. Jackal had exited like a ghost on a breeze.

Fudou decided that screwing was definitely in order once he was done pounding Midou to slush. Anybody that cheerfully impertinent deserved to have his scrawny pale ass blistered pink.

The primary would-be victim was looking like he was trying to keep from laughing. "Never a dull moment around here, is there?"

"You bastard," Fudou spat. "You two bastards! You think you can get away with this? I'll have the both of you begging for sweet mercy by the time I'm halfway through with you!"

He took a step towards Midou, fingers twitching a jig on both hands now. "Know what I'm gonna do to you?"

Midou made a show of yawning. "I'm pretty sure I've got it all down by now, but go ahead and run through the list again so's I can be sure I remember it all."

Fudou chose to ignore the sarcasm. He took another step, plotting how best to corner and torture his prey. "I'm gonna start by cutting out that smart-mouthed snake's tongue of yours and eating it in front of your face! Then I'm gonna smash both your kneecaps so you can't run anywhere!"

"At which point you'll commence with the hammering in of every bone in my body," Midou said in a bored tone. "Yeah, yeah. Get to the good stuff."

"I'm gonna rip open your guts and pull out each and every one of your organs and make you die slowly choking on them! And then I'll carve up your face so you'll get a taste of what you'll look like when you wind up in Hell!"

"Don't forget the eyes. You're gonna cut out both my eyes so I can't Jagan anybody in Hell and instead have to suffer their eternal tortures. You always were sloppy on the details, Fudou. It's why you sucked so bad as a thief."

"Bastard! I'll tear off both YOUR arms and see how much YOU like it! And then you know what I'm gonna do to your pretty boyfriend there?"

"No, but I'm sure you'll think of something suitably stupid." Midou rolled his eyes. "Just whatever you do, don't bore him. He hates being bored."

Fudou's malicious grin transformed his face into a visage of dementia. "Oh, he won't be bored, I assure you Midou. I'm gonna fuck that pretty ass of his raw while you watch. And I'll make him enjoy every bit of it too. Akabane Kuroudo will be begging me to finish splitting him in half by the time I'm through, and then, and ONLY then, will I put my fist right through your chest and squeeze your black heart to mincemeat so you DIE!" Fudou roared with laughter at his boast.

A polite voice interrupted from behind them. "Would anyone care for a drink?"

Fudou turned and stared. Dr. Jackal was smiling at them and carrying a tray of water glasses. He walked over to a coffee table and set the tray on top of it, gesturing with one white-gloved hand. "You're welcome to one if you like. Do go on, I believe you were mentioning something about squeezing Midou-kun's heart into mincemeat?"

"You miserable freak." Fudou's lip curled with disgust. "Does he stick it to you that good, huh?"

Akabane raised a delicate brow. "I beg your pardon?"

"Fudou here says he's gonna fuck your pretty ass raw while I watch," Midou said with a snort of laughter. "He says you're gonna enjoy it, too."

"Is that so. How interesting."

"You'll have to wait your turn though. First he's gonna cut out my smart-mouthed snake's tongue and eat it in front of my face. Then he's gonna smash my kneecaps so I can't run off, at which point he'll commence with the hammering in of every bone in my body. After that he'll rip open my guts and pull out all my organs and make me die slowly choking on them. Then he'll carve up my face so I'll presumably get a taste of what I'm supposed to look like when I wind up in Hell. The finishing touches will be when he cuts out both my eyes so I can't Jagan anybody there and instead have to suffer their eternal tortures. Oh, and he also plans to tear off both my arms to see how much I like it." Midou flashed a smug shit-eating grin at Fudou. "Did I leave anything out?"

Akabane smiled. "My, my. That sounds like a very extensive list."

"Nah. I'm betting only about half that'll actually get done. He was a shitty thief, it stands to reason he'll be a shitty torturer-murderer. I used to work with the jackoff so I oughta know from watching him in action enough times."

Fudou couldn't believe it. These two psychotics were about to face hellish torture and death at his hands, and they were JOKING about it? They really were a pair of madmen fit for each other.

Dr. Jackal gave a light laugh and moved to stand beside Midou as he addressed Fudou with a sly look. "Well now, I'm certainly open to experimentation as far as voyeurism is concerned, but I doubt that you can even begin to compensate as a substitute, Fudou-san." He lightly nuzzled his boyfriend's ear, all the while smirking at Fudou as he purred, "Midou-kun is a thoroughly satisfying lover." Devilish purple eyes sparkled with evil mirth. "And you do know what they say about the size of a man's...knives and their performance thereof," he said with a chuckle, nodding towards Fudou's huge cybernetic claws.

Midou snickered loudly and in that moment Fudou discovered it was possible for white to both encapsulate all colors of the rainbow and yet remain its blinding purity. His vision actually went grey for a second as he fought to process this insufferable humiliation in terms he could deal with: namely a single thought that screamed KILL!

"You okay there, Fudou? You look like you're gonna burst a vein in your head or something. You oughta relax, pop some happy pills or take a vacation or something."

"Midou-kun is right," Dr. Jackal nodded sagely. "Stress is extremely detrimental to the body's condition."

"I'LL SHOW YOU A DETRIMENTAL CONDITION!" Fudou roared, charging them. "IT'S CALLED DYING A BLOODY DEATH BY TAKUMA FUDOU! RAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!"

He swung at Midou since he was the closer of the two, but the bastard scooted beyond his reach. Dr. Jackal wasn't cowed by the sight of giant claws slashing his way so Fudou went after him next. At this point he didn't really care who he hit first, Midou or Jackal, just as long as the two of them were both lying at his feet in bloody little pieces by the time he left this den of insanity.

His fantasies of beautiful red were not to be, however. Dr. Jackal neatly darted away from Fudou's attack and countered with a blow that forced him to skid to a sudden stop, heaving from the force delivered to his gut.

"Now really, Fudou-san. That was just rude." Dr. Jackal's face creased into a petite frown. "It's not very nice to attack one's hosts after they have just offered you their hospitality." He smiled suddenly. "Even if you are rather amusing to battle. But such activities are better saved for a certain time and a certain place. No?"

"DIE, PSYCHO HAT-FREAK!"

Akabane sighed. He turned slightly towards Midou and said patiently, "I do hope you won't follow my bad example in dealing with rude guests, Midou-kun. But I think Fudou-san poses a unique case in this instance."

Fudou's free hand shot out and seized the transporter by his throat. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

Midou answered with a hint of his ever-present sneer as he started to light up one of his cigarettes. "It means you just screwed yourself out of a dinner invitation, Fudou."

He bared his fangs at his enemy. "A shame, I'm sure!"

"Yeah it is, actually. Akabane here gives great dish."

"Why thank you, Midou-kun," Jackal cooed.

Fudou shook him roughly. "Save it for when you're both dead and rotting in a festering heap! NOW DIE!"

Dr. Jackal merely smiled up at him. Then Fudou felt the sharp sting of something jabbing his thigh. He looked down and saw a scalpel sticking out of it. He raised his face to Akabane's and the snarl abruptly died in his throat when he saw the frigid expression in those purple eyes.

"You first, Fudou-san. I insist."

Even while he found himself being turned into a giant magenta bruise Fudou made a mental note to ask Kagami just how the hell was it a scrawny little transporter half his size could be capable of such unbelievable power. But for now it was all he could do to endure Dr. Jackal's annoyingly genteel voice as the bastard lectured him in between blows. "Fudou-san, you are positively in dire need of a refresher course in manners. Allow me to kindly refresh your memory."

Fudou found himself facedown on the rug, blinking in shock. Some part of his brain noted that it was some vomitrocious cream color. It would've looked a lot better saturated with his enemies' blood, he thought wistfully.

"First of all you ought to have called ahead first instead of dropping in unannounced." Wham! There went his left knee. Fudou howled and struggled to his feet to take a swing at the transporter.

"Then you immediately demand a fight with Midou-kun and myself when we haven't even had a chance to settle ourselves. Why, we'd just barely set foot through the door." Wham! Wham! And Fudou, whose swipe had missed badly, was suddenly missing half of his coat and a good deal of skin from his shoulder with it.

"You haven't even the decency to accept our offering of drink while you're here. And you're getting your blood all over the good rug. Normally I'd be inclined to overlook that, but Midou-kun has informed me that you leave the nastiest stains when you bleed. I'd prefer none of them contaminate our dwelling as Ginji-kun is quite sensitive to the presence of certain substances. And good dry-cleaning is so hard to find these days, you know."

A black-booted foot made its presence known in the vicinity of his groin and Fudou discovered a new dimension of painful meaning to the phrase 'blue balls.'

"On top of all that you have the utter nerve to come calling whilst reeking of that foul diamond dust. No, don't bother to deny it," Dr. Jackal said in a persnickety tone. "I smelled it as soon as I walked inside. You've been hanging around some rather disreputable company, haven't you?"

Midou's voice chimed in. "I told you. Sloppy detail work."

"Well, there's no excuse for it," Dr. Jackal said haughtily over Fudou's groans.

He bent down and pulled the brute to his feet by his ponytail. "Now, then. Midou-kun will show you to the door – " Dr. Jackal's grip was at least as strong as Midou's, much to Fudou's dismay as he was helplessly towed forward – "and may I recommend that in the future, Fudou-san, you practice a little more decorum when you choose to visit next time."

Akabane paused, the little furrow on his brow making him seem rather put-out for a moment. "Oh, and one more thing. You may tell Kagami-kun that if he ever sends another of his lapdogs stinking of that repulsive dust of his into my home he'll need to see a proctologist to have those mirrors of his removed from a very uncomfortable place." He smiled almost shyly at Midou then. "Please do forgive my vulgarity, Midou-kun. But there are some things I simply won't tolerate."

Midou snorted and grabbed Fudou's hair from him. "You said it a helluva lot nicer than I would've. Come on, Fudou, before you barf up a lung there and kill my appetite."

Pain was radiating from every pore on his body and so Fudou had little choice but to stumble-crawl behind Midou, the retriever giving his hair a sharp yank whenever the big man faltered. He wasn't content to just kick the ex-thief out the door; he had to literally drag him through the hall and down the stairs. Reason number two hundred and seven why Fudou devoted so much time to thinking about killing Midou – the man loved to humiliate his opponents.

And he wasn't through yet. Waiting outside in the street was the final insult: a large, muddy brown puddle of water. "Here. Clean yourself up a bit so people don't stare." And with that, Midou dropped him face-first into it before turning and walking back into the building. "Don't forget to say hello to Twinkletoes for me and the jackal."

"You BASTARD!" A spluttering Fudou struggled to his feet. "GET BACK HERE SO I CAN KILL YOU!"

Midou stopped and looked at him over his glasses. "You just got whacked with a clue-by-four and you still don't know when to quit? Trust me, Fudou, you don't wanna see Akabane get pissed off. So unless you wanna get even more cybernetic bugfuck crazy than you already are I suggest you beat it back to whatever toilet you crawled out of."

He paused, then took out his cell phone and aimed it at the speechless hulk. There was a sibilant click and Midou turned the phone around so Fudou could see what was on its display.

"For my art collection. That arm looks kinda lonely up there on the wall, y'know?"

How Fudou hated it. How he would have given the shriveled entity that barely passed for his soul a thousand, nay, a million times over...if only he could somehow crush Midou's insufferably smug arrogance into dust, and with it, that brilliantly fanged smile of sickeningly perfect blue which was forever the bane of his existence.

"MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!"

--

Omake/Epilogue: All's Well That Ends Well...?

"Well, that takes care of the trash removal. What's for dinner?"

"You could help me with cleaning this rug, and then I could get to preparing it that much faster..."

"Suggestion duly noted and ignored. Cleaning is to me what being bored is to you. Throw the thing out and we'll just buy a new one."

"Hmph. You are hopelessly lax when it comes to housekeeping, Midou-kun."

"Guilty as charged. Besides, I'll have to be reminded of that big blowhard every time I look at that thing."

"I wonder...perhaps Clayman-san might like it as a potential exhibit for her gallery? It does have a rather unique pattern to those bloodstains, if you'd noticed..."

"Oh God, wouldn't that blow wind up the art world's skirts! 'This is the famous rug that known psychopath Takuma Fudou bled like a stuck pig all over.' Are you kidding me? No one in their right mind would pay to see that."

"Mmm...you'd be surprised. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say. You and Ginji-kun could make quite a bit of money from showing it at art dealerships. Perhaps you'd even become famous for its discovery."

"Heeeeey...now that's the best idea I've had all week! Leave off scrubbing that sucker, Jackal."

"At least Fudou-san hasn't left diamond dust all over the apartment while he was here. It would have been most inconvenient to have it fumigated."

"Tell me about it. At the rate he's rising on my shit list he's lucky I don't take that arm of his and parade downtown waving it around in front of the lunch crowds. Oh, speaking of that masterpiece, check this out. I just snapped it."

"How perfectly vile. I'd have cut a J into him if it wasn't such a wasted effort."

"Trust me, it would've been. Although...now that I think of it...he did give me an interesting inspiration..."

"Oh?"

"You're open to trying new things, right? What say after we eat us exhibitionists go traumatize our nosy neighbors across the street with a little experimentation in voyeurism like our pal Fudou suggested, eh?"