Exposed

It took almost ten years of them getting to know each other before Badou ever actually saw Haine reach his absolute breaking point. He'd seen him come close; watched him shed tears of numbed shock at moments that rocked him so hard it had taken him months to get back on his feet. But never before had Badou seen him crushed; never before shaking with fear and sobbing until he couldn't breathe let alone think straight.

And if Badou hadn't been one hundred percent sure that Haine would not have murdered him for touching him, he wouldn't have knelt down next to the other man and wrapped an arm around him. It sounded backwards, considering he usually would have knelt down anyway. But the fact that he knew Haine wouldn't hurt him immediately was strangely not a comforting one, and it made him reach out and bridge the gap.

"Come on, man," he said, leaning the albino's even more ashen face against his shoulder and trying not to grimace at just how much the poor guy was shaking. "Tell ol' Badou what's up."

"It hurts."

Gun-Fodder

"God damn it, Haine! Why can't you just listen to me when I tell you to go out and get ammo?"

"Fuck you! You're the one who told me to get my ass back in the apartment before I even got a foot out the door. Which do you want me to listen to more, your libido or what little addled sense you have?"

"Shut up and shoot, Zombie-Fuck."

"You're just butt-sore, Fire-Crotch."

"I thought you were."

"Yeah, well you will be too shortly if you don't actually start shooting what ammo you have at the people who are trying to kill us."

Zeugmatic

"That cannot be a word," Badou all but shrieked over the Scrabble board as Haine sat back triumphantly against his cushioned booth seat at Buon Viaggio. Naoto, playing both score-keeper and referee to their little match, picked up the old leather dictionary that Kiri kept upstairs for an untold reason, flicking through it all the way to the back where the Z section sat.

"No, it's a word," she said, a look of surprise on her usually enigmatic face. "Don't know how the hell the Lab Rat knew it though."

Badou looked over incredulously at his partner, his jaw laying against the tabletop as Haine grinned down at him maliciously; his overtly pointed canines accented by the twisted little dimple in his cheek. "So, how much was that one worth?" he asked, looking over at Naoto innocently.

"Approximately 23 points."

Xylographer

"You have got to be fucking kidding me."

"That one's worth 27, Haine. I think you win."

South

"You know, we could be like that old song," Badou said through a mouthful of smoke one day, and Haine glanced over at him skeptically, sensing a pointless topic about to unravel from the other's often wagging tongue. "You know, the one about Bad Leroy Brown? 'Meaner than a junk yard dog', you know?"

"Yeah, that's great," Haine said, his tone apparently bemused but still holding the underlying threat of completely sinking the thought, "especially at the end of the song when he gets the shit beaten out of him for looking at some hoocher at a gambling house." He cast a withering glance over at his partner. "Sound like you, alright."

Assassin

"So, what do you boys think?" the man asked from his standing position in their front hallway. Badou was sitting marginally upright, with one arm slung over the back of the couch. Haine, a bit more comfortable with being unnecessarily obscene, had his legs stretched over Badou's lap, and his shoulders curled over the arm of the couch he was closest to; portraying probably the most petulantly bored child he could muster.

"Sure," he muttered boredly, seeming to surprise the government suit that had come knocking on their door. "Got nothing better to do. And, hell; it'd be nice to hold a gun again."

"So…" the man paused, looking to Badou for some guidance through the albino's nebulous behavior. "Both of you will come and work for us?"

Badou shrugged, letting his upper lip curl for a moment. "We're not so good at long-term commitments, you see," he said, taking a puff of his last cigarette. He needed to make it last until they got paid again, which was a distinct problem considering that wasn't until sometime next week. And the pay that this assassin work offered sounded pretty damn good; he couldn't deny. "We'll do freelance, though."

"Freelance assassin work?" The suit sounded unsure.

"Yeah; it's what we did before you showed up. Might as well do what we know. What do you think, Haine?" Badou asked, looking down the couch at his partner.

"'Dun really care, so long as they pay for travel expenses," he grumbled, apparently nonplussed about the whole thing. But Badou could just barely see the man's fingers twitch at the thought of holding a gun again. Thus letting him know that he liked the idea. Badou patted Haine on the thigh, looking up at the suit who was just about skinning himself with fear.

"Alright, if blondie here approves, then so do I. When can we start?"

Sniper

"This is some pretty fancy gear they've got us hooked up with, don't you think Haine?"

The albino huffed angrily, pressing down on the button in his ear bullet for a moment. "Yeah, it is," he admitted tersely, keeping his eye on the scope of the black sniper rifle he had in his hand as the mass of thundering flags strewn out above him cracked like drums in the wind. "Now will you shut up and get to work? I'm trying to aim here, and it's hard to focus with you yacking at me."

"I'm just saying. With these scopes they've got us using, I can see what kind of underwear you're not wearing today. Pants a bit too small, dearie?"

Haine then just gave up on actually trying to aim, and reached a free arm up behind him to flip off the building behind him, where he knew Badou to be cackling behind a statue.

Outside

"I didn't think you'd like it this much," Badou said, unable to keep the smile off his face as Haine all but swallowed another beignet whole. The albino looked over at him from under his beanie, shrugging as he licked the powdered sugar off his fingers.

"What can I say; when the outside world has this much good food for cheap, what's not to like?"

Threat

"You know," Badou said loudly from his place on the chair he was tied to, "this isn't much of a threat for him. It's more of a challenge. And, well… you know."

His guard looked over his shoulder somewhat nervously, and Badou could tell he'd struck a nerve. "What?"

"Well," he said with a shrug, "you know how dogs get when they're threatened. Instead of running away, they charge and fight. They only run after they get a beating. And unless you guys think you can hand Haine a beating, you're in for one hell of a night."

Unfortunate

When Badou came home to Haine groaning on their couch with a hand slapped over his eyes, he knew better than to be worried. Mostly because he knew that Haine's lack of work lately had forced him to stay home, which left him alone for hours with nothing but the television for company. And, much to Badou's dismay, he'd acquired a vague amusement with Neon Genesis Evangelion, or at least the original television series from the 90s. But, already knowing how its final episode went, Badou hadn't the heart to tell him how awful it was.

Now, apparently, Haine had found out for himself, and was in for some heavy consoling from his partner and a nice, smug, "I told you so".

Off

"Badou, now."

"You're in such a rush, Haine. You late for something?"

The scowl on Haine's face was worth a fortune, if only because it went along wonderfully with the full body squirm he gave as he tried to wriggle out of Badou's grasp. Which, unfortunately for him, was more centered around the idea of keeping his hips enclosed via keeping a firm grip on his ass.

"Geroff," the albino growled, trying again to twist out, and instead giving Badou an even greater amount of ass to hold onto until finally he gave up and glowered at the red-head with a look that spelled retribution at some point.

"Much better," Badou said, nuzzling Haine's snowy bangs with his nose as the lab rat smoldered hatefully in his arms.

Bourbon

"Come on, Haine, just this once," Badou cajoled in a low tone as he and Haine strolled quietly down Bourbon Street. The cobblestones were swathed in the silver moonlight of the only clear evening New Orleans would see for the next fifty years, and he just couldn't get the song that Haine had once sung him out of his head.

Most notably, the voice that Haine had sung that song in, which had every capability of turning steel into Jell-O.

Haine's red eyes gleamed in the silver moonlight, lightened even more by the mischief in his own eyes. "Oh you'll never see my shade, or hear the sound of my feet, while there's a moon over Bourbon Street," he sang, low, soft, and velvety as Badou leaned against his shoulder.

Bad

"Haine…"

"What?"

"Do you think you can carry me home?"

"What? Why? You're perfectly sober?"

"Yeah… but I think if I take another step I'm going to hurl."

"Told you that Chinese place was bad."

"Yeah, I know."