A/N: Deciding to mess around after Forbidden Knowledge-where Duo Lon and Shen first met, when the former was still only about eighteen-I wanted to set something early on in the two's friendship. Maybe a story where Shen discovers some stuff that's up with Duo Lon. Nothing badly secret, of course(Duo Lon's vocation as an assassin is like, one of the not secret things, since…you need to know to hire someone. It's secret in that he doesn't *broadcast* it, and knowledge of Hizoku training and secrets are a BIG no no, of course), but Shen wasn't too sure what was up with his new, weird, drinking partner he met that night.
I'd say it's time frame was maybe a month after they met? He probably has not had his own house built yet(that the crew visited in 14 Nights), and so probably rents out some low-key, low-class place somewhere in Shanghai where he can go to crash nondescript when he needs to be on 'city business.'
We know that in team stories, the trio knew each other before the 2003 tournament-they knew well enough, in fact, that Ash just entered them on his own. And Shen and Duo Lon, even in early stories, seemed rather close, despite being as different as they are…so my head started spinning tales about this. What could get them so close, especially when it comes to someone as taciturn and strange as Duo Lon, and someone of Shen's loud and in your face personality?
I guess read on to learn more! More notes at the end to go over some headcanons for those not caught up with my 'verse(if you are, you know mostly what's there.)
It was rare to have the windows open in the small apartment in October, but this autumn was unseasonably warm. Even though the city was always a couple degrees warmer than the countryside, it was well beyond that. The lights were dimmed-the small lamp on one of the tables was on, as was the small kitchen light. The bathroom, however, had its lights on in full, illuminating the blood that was spattered and smeared around the floor and counter.
Duo Lon was busy in said bathroom, looking at his bloodied torso in the mirror with an array of towels, bandages, bottles of antiseptic, and other first aid things in front of him…including things for stitching. Behind him, in the living room, his drinking buddy Shen-more like a friend now, he supposed-was sitting on the couch, likewise somewhat bloody-and even somewhat surprised, which was an extreme rarity for the boisterous, fearless brawler.
Neither was saying too much at the moment as Duo Lon began to clean his wounds-mostly on his torso, some of which blended in with the vicious scars already there-until finally, Shen broke the silence.
"Holy…shit, man," was all he could think to say.
The assassin almost had to chuckle at this. "Do you always get into that kind of trouble?"
"I…it happens. I usually handle it. They were smart tonight. But…just…holy shit, do you usually rip people to shreds like that?!" he stared at his drinking partner again, having never realized just what the pale, quiet young man-who hadn't even seen his nineteenth birthday yet-was made of.
"Only if I have to. Or if they strike first," he replied plainly.
Shen shook his head, digging around for a cigarette as he grunted in pain, lighting it, mostly due to stress. He saw his buddy's pipe on the simple wooden table, along with an ashtray with ash in it, so assumed it was alright.
"What are you doing in there?"
"Need to fix myself up. You too, if you're smart."
"You do that yourself?" he said, grimacing at the needles that he knew would be used to stitch up the deepest wound.
"You've been shot once before. I've seen the scar."
"Yeah but a doc fixed me up," he said. "It ain't the pain that bugs me but…" he shook his head, almost impressed. "Fuck."
"You want to go first?"
Shen, trying to mellow out some after what he witnessed-he would beat armies of men within an inch of their lives, but he had never killed a man himself-only snorted laughter.
"Maybe I'll see how much of a butchery job you do to yourself first."
Duo Lon only shrugged as he finished cleaning himself off. He had an extensive first aid kit at his apartment, since he was not someone who would go to a doctor or hospital at all, on the odd times he would end up injured…which was rare, to be sure, but tonight, it couldn't be helped.
'That Kind of Trouble' started earlier in the evening, as Duo Lon noticed his more recently-met drinking partner not acting like himself that night at the bar. He kept looking over his shoulder, as if he were looking for someone…or perhaps felt like someone was looking for him. There was no fear coming off of the man-Shen Woo did not fear things-but there was a certain disquiet about him. The fact that someone bumped into him and he did not start a bar fight immediately over it was enough to drive the rest of this fact home to the perceptive man, even if he couldn't tell what. His senses long sharpened to be able to read people-including subtleties-told him something was not only wrong, but seriously so.
Shen had excused himself early, in fact, mentioning he had to go downtown. Keeping an eye on which direction he was going-and knowing where he was going was home to all sorts of unsavory types, Duo Lon finished his absinthe and decided to follow, taking to the shadows as was his forte.
It was nearly twenty degrees out even at night, so the assassin wore no jacket at all, just his usual sleeveless shirt he would wear around casually, and despite the night being clear, it was still somewhat humid. The feel of the air was wrong, almost, to match the fact he had a feeling his new buddy was, in reality, in some rather serious trouble.
Shen, it turned out, crossed the wrong underworld people, and Triads did not forget. Drawing weapons, the bruiser laid into them with a fury in a warehouse; Duo Lon did not think he needed to enter, as he seemed like he had control of the situation. But when one ended up sneaking a garrote around the brawler's neck and another stabbed him, he could wait no longer.
While he did not use any of his strange, visible powers-no necromantic energy and no poison spitting-he did not have to. His deadly hands and feet tore and bludgeoned the men to death, usually not even needing more than one strike to take them out. Shen, trying to catch his breath from nearly having his jugular severed, watched as the men fell dead one by one.
He himself was injured when he tried to help Shen, the garrote having cut into him just barely; three very skilled knife wielding men managed to deal a few wounds to the young assassin as he was distracted. While such rabble would normally be lucky to even put a scratch on him, the fact he allowed himself to get distracted, coupled with their clearly better training than the rank and file, made for a few injuries.
He had survived far worse, though, and quickly destroyed the other men, managing to terrify them in the process. Large crowds were not his preferred way to fight, but this time it could not be helped.
As he finished disinfecting his last wounds-he healed very quickly, but it didn't hurt to be careful-he looked at Shen curiously. He was nearly eight years older than Duo Lon, and given all the trouble he could get in, he did not understand why he seemed disturbed.
"You must deal with them all the time," he said.
Shen blew out smoke, shaking his head. "I never killed anyone."
The other man stopped as he prepared the stitching needle. "Really?"
"Yeah. It…ain't my thing. I'll send 'em to the hospitals, bust 'em open, give 'em a good stomping out, whatever, but I can't bring myself to kill anyone."
"I'd say not wanting to take lives is…normal," Duo Lon said. "I apologize if I…"
"The way you were sneaking…those strikes…the way you just...do it...you get hired, don't you." It was not a question.
Beginning to stitch the wound at his side, seemingly unbothered, he nodded. "Yes."
His curiosity satisfied-not that he was surprised to find out after everything-he swapped his line of questioning. "You study medicine or something?" he asked, sort of unable to take his eyes away at the sight.
"Somewhat," Duo Lon replied, vaguely. "Biology, a few other things. Out of necessity."
Not wanting to press the man more, he watched as he quickly applied the rest of the stitches to himself; there weren't many, but he just wanted to take care of that one particularly deep one. Finishing up after about ten of them, he started to bandage his now cleaned wounds, turning toward Shen when he was finished.
"Do you want to go to the hospital?"
"I…think I trust you after this," he laughed, shaking his head. "I seriously didn't know you could hit so hard." While he knew he was capable of restraining him from destroying the table, and he had seen some pretty impressive feats from the weird man at the bar, he didn't realize that his clawed hands and kicks with his long legs could straight up kill in a single blow.
Only chuckling at that, he took a clean cloth to take care of the other man's wounds. Soaking it in antiseptic, he cleaned away the blood before dumping more of the burning liquid in everything. Thankfully, the garrote only caused a flesh wound and a bruise, Duo Lon managing to neutralize the attacker quickly.
Shen hissed as the strong substance cleaned his wounds. "Fuck, that burns."
"Good. It means there was no nerve damage." He examined the deep wound on his bicep. "Do you want this stitched?"
"You know what? Just bandage it. It'll scar, I don't care. I've had worse. Like you said, I've been shot."
"It's not so deep." After cleaning them all up, he applied clean, white bandages around, finally finishing up. "How often do you get into trouble like this?"
Shen laughed, shaking his head. "All too often. Just not this bad. I shoulda know something fishy was going on, but I went anyway. They've tried to kill me before, but I usually get the drop on 'em." He peered at his strange new friend who was cleaning everything up now; he still wore the same trousers that he had on that night. It was dark and they were black, so neither could see the blood that had spattered onto them from the night's mess. His shirt was thrown over the chair and his boots in the corner; everything would have to be cleaned later.
"Not used to having to clean up so much," the assassin said. "I usually don't get this…messy." Most of the blood that had gotten on his clothing was not his, of course.
"Bother you?"
"No. It is what it is. I've been worse. It's only blood and viscera, after all. I just prefer to work more quietly. Sometimes, it cannot be helped." He remembered a few incidents where things went wrong. Other times, he was told to send a message.
"Those scars you got all over you didn't look very clean."
"They weren't. That was a very experienced opponent from a couple of years back. Twice my age. I managed to walk away...he did not."
Hearing this made Shen shake his head again. "Whatever it was. Thank you. I never thanked you. How did you know to follow me anyway?"
"You did not seem yourself tonight. I had never seen you alarmed before." Finishing, he moved to throw the shirt that was hung on the back of the chair into the laundry pile and place his boots into the bathroom to clean later as he settled back on the couch for a moment.
He sighed deeply, lighting another cigarette on his metal lighter and tossing it on the table, as Duo Lon packed his long pipe. "I may have been a little stupid," he admitted.
"While you struck me as hotheaded rather quickly, I admit I never got the feeling of stupidity off of you when it comes to street smarts."
"Yeah, well…" he said, leaning back on the assassin's dark gray couch; most of the modest furniture in the small, one-bedroom apartment was some sort of black or gray. "Usually I'm alright. But a couple of the bastards I was hanging with ended up with some guys I had kicked out of a neighborhood, and I didn't notice until it was too late. I found out because one of 'em sent a message to someone else. I had just seen it before getting to the bar. Then they left, and I didn't know where they went."
"That's why you were acting like you were."
"Yeah."
"Trust is hard to come by in the underworld, it seems."
"You can say that again," Shen grumped. He snorted a bit of laughter, though, a moment later, before looking at his strange drinking partner. "I somehow trust you, though," he said. "You wouldn't have stuck your neck out there for no reason, and I get the feeling you'd have killed me already if you wanted to."
Duo Lon had to chuckle sadly at that; six months ago, he was forced to take the life of another drinking buddy who was too curious and had learned way too much about his clan somehow. Shen, he noticed, did not press him. Whether or not it was because he too knew what it was like to be a part of the underworld or not or for another reason, he knew when to stop asking, it seemed.
"I suppose," he said, not saying much else. Taking a drag of his pipe, he suddenly remembered something he had in his bedroom. "Hang on. I think there is something we both may like to help us relax."
"Oh?" Shen asked, curious.
Duo Lon stood to head to his bedroom. This was spartan as well-a bed, nightstand with a lamp, a desk that had his laptop on it. He did not own a TV, thinking there was no point, but he did have a rather nice stereo, in which he tended to collect all sorts of rare, underground extreme heavy metal music; one of the few things about the young man that no one meeting him the first time could guess that he was into. It was something he had discovered a couple of years ago by chance when they were visiting one of the cities, and he had wandered into a small, underground store and found he liked the shrieking, evil sounding vocals. Whenever they would visit, he would come back, and when he was left to his own devices a year or so later, he immediately acquired a few albums and something to listen to them on.
In a way, it helped him focus on shielding his mind to the really dangerous stuff on the other side.
Deciding to put some on in the background-Shen blinked, being rather surprised to hear this coming out of the young man's room-he walked out with a small bag of what he had come in here for.
The brawler noticed this and laughed. "I didn't know you liked that."
"Now and then I will add some to my pipe to relax." In the bag was a measure of hash-having smoked much stronger substances to help shield his mind when he was younger, he had somehow ended up liking to wind down with some of this now and again. It wasn't often-usually only every couple of months. He had smoked some with Park that fateful night about six months ago, but this time, he wanted to just chill out with someone who was not in their last moments of life.
"Doing this even after all that absinthe? Didn't that affect you?"
He shook his head, preparing his pipe with the stuff as he lit it. "High tolerance." He passed it to him.
Shen took it, smiling as he took a puff himself. "Good shit," he said, coughing once. "What's with that music? I would not have pegged you for something like this."
He shrugged. "Just found it by chance. The shrieking vocals intrigued me." Taking the pipe back, he took a draw, holding it inside for a moment as he handed it back to Shen.
"This shit barely even affects you either, does it?" He took another draw, feeling nicely mellow by now after the rather wild night.
"It calms me a tiny bit," he said. "Not that I usually need it."
Shaking his head again-he did this a lot tonight, he laughed, the hash starting to affect him. "You are something, I swear," he laughed. "You first don't let me kick some guys' asses in a bar. Who were totally ripping me off, by the way. Then you catch my damn hand mid punch. Who can do that?"
Duo Lon just shrugged, leaning back on the couch, letting the music wash over him. A tiny smirk was on his face, however. "I've been trained."
"Fuck yes you have. And then it turns out my new drinking buddy apparently…is some sorta whatever you are, cleanin' the guys off of yourself when you were done with them. I dunno, I don't want to know, I just know…thanks. Again. Seriously." He rubbed his nearly garroted neck. "I was so fucking stupid tonight."
"You'll remember this and not do it again."
"You got that right," he snorted. "Gonna lay low for a couple weeks. I got enough cash to last me."
Duo Lon didn't pry, figuring he made most of his money in underworld duties somehow. Taking another puff of the pipe, he considered getting some food soon.
Almost on cue, the brawler's stomach rumbled. "Ahh, fuck," he laughed. "After tonight I didn't think I'd want to eat for two days."
"I can make something if you want," the assassin said. "Though I admit my pantry is sparse. I have been somewhat busy lately."
"Is there a takeaway place here somewhere?" Shen asked. "If, uhh, you know, you can…take deliveries."
The assassin chuckled at this, taking the pipe back from the man to finish off the substance; he felt fine now, with Shen clearly high. He was a jovial sort of high, though. "I can order. I choose a place in the city to blend in. If I wanted to hide, you would never find me. I do order from time to time when I'm busy."
Shen dug mobile phone from his pocket, blinking at his weird new friend's dialogue. "Got a menu?" he asked with a grin on his face. "I'm buying. Least I can do after you saved my ass."
"Can you pass me some of that?" Duo Lon asked, a big piece of fried dough in his hand.
Shen slid him the soy milk as he watched the man swirl the item around in it as Shen started destroying the fried noodles in front of him. The men sat at the small, circular table in the room near the kitchen, most of the food piled on it. Duo Lon had taken the bedroom chair out for him, as he only had the one; he was not a man that was expecting guests. The quasi-shirts of bandages they wore on their torsos looked to be holding up well, and would likely not need changing until the next day.
As he swallowed, washing it down with some pineapple soda he had ordered, he looked around the place.
"Why don't you have more chairs?" he asked as the assassin started on his own noodles, having polished off one of his appetizers. "Surely a guy like you gets attention."
He snorted, shrugging. "No interest."
The brawler just shook his head, realizing he may never understand the man…at least, not yet. They had only known for a month. "This stuff's good."
"I find in terms of takeaway it was the best of the lot," he said, drinking some tea that he had made. "Fairly high quality." He also grabbed a tea egg, which they had ordered a large container of, as well.
"Do you get takeaway from where you usually stay up north?"
He laughed at that. Shen knew where he was from when he heard him speak his dialect. "There's not a takeaway place anywhere near where I usually stay. Or the places. Unless I'm at a hotel in Shijiazhuang. I usually just cook."
"I've been up there before. Once or twice. Nice city."
"I prefer living in smaller places, but I can adjust anywhere."
"Guess you have to."
He nodded, drinking some of the broth from the wonton noodle soup before reaching for a scallion pancake. "I can tell from your accent that you weren't born here."
"I wasn't. I…don't remember much of my childhood. I just lived a lot of my time here. I guess I'm like you, I can live anywhere. I need the city, though. I like to feel the energy."
"Easier to find work, too, I would imagine."
Shen nodded, grabbing himself a pancake and some fried dough which he swished around in the saltier helping of soy milk. "I won't have trouble finding more after laying low awhile."
The two men continued eating in silence for a while as Duo Lon's CD changer shifted to another raw, terrifying sounding CD. He had not brought his more favored vinyl player here yet, since this was one of his more temporary rental units. After some more moments of silence as he polished off his noodles and moved onto some buns he had picked out, he looked over at his newer friend. "If you need help again," he said. "Do not hesitate. I don't like useless battles out in the open, but I consider you a friend, and will help if needed." He paused. "Just know I dislike bar fights."
He scratched his head after swallowing his probably too big a mouthful, chasing it with more of the soda. "I…thanks. I mean, I'm…not looking to hire you or anything…"
Duo Lon shook his head. "Just, if you need my help to watch your back. I'm good at that, too."
"Just gotta watch myself around the southeast dens."
"The gambling dens? There's a lot of areas there to hide around. Right around one of the shops there is an alleyway leading to one. A lot of more unsavory types frequent it. Best way to spy on it is to take the eastern alley. It's blocked off so they can't take you by surprise. There are no fire exits on that building." He tucked into a second serving of almond jelly, dipping more dough into some milk. While he did not feel particularly stoned, besides being mellow, he was hungry.
He blinked. "I fucking live here and I didn't know that existed. How the hell…"
"I can memorize cities quickly," he said nonchalantly. "It comes in handy."
"How many more surprises do you have? Christ."
The quieter man shrugged. "Depends what you consider a surprise."
Grabbing another piece of the fried dough-they had ordered a lot-Shen just stood to go look out the man's larger kitchen window. His apartment was very high up; near the top floor.
"Nice view," he said.
"I like it high up. Quieter. While temperature does not bother me, my air unit keeps my room cool during the summer." The smaller window in said room was open at the moment, blowing in a cool breeze.
"I live about a half hour from here. My view is an alley," he laughed. "Lookin' for a new place. I pissed off too many people at that one."
Not asking, but imagining what he met, the young man polished off the rest of the food in front of him, finally satisfied. There was still some for later, too, due to the portions ordered. Packing his pipe-with normal tobacco only-he sat back in the chair after pouring himself and Shen another cup of tea. He crossed one long leg over the other, taking a puff and blowing out a thin stream of smoke. His wounds chafed somewhat, but he had worse.
Shen walked back over to take the tea with a nod, lighting a cigarette and grimacing at the wound in his arm.
"Gonna feel this son of a bitch for a couple days. Not as bad as being shot, though."
"I was shot with a crossbow bolt once, but never an actual bullet."
"Crossbow…" Shen chuckled, shaking his head again. "Okay, yeah, never mind. You'll tell me if you want one day."
Duo Lon stayed by the window, letting some of the cool breeze into the apartment. The screen was up, and he could feel the air trying to transition to the fall that it was supposed to be, but the summer didn't want to give up its grip.
"Do you need a couch tonight?" he asked after a few moments.
"Hmm," Shen said. "Nah, I can't let 'em think they have me beat. They dunno where I live, anyway." He chuckled. "After you left 'em in pieces, I doubt this group will fuck with me again, though. Hell, I dunno if there's any left."
He shrugged, taking a drag of his pipe as he looked out his window silently. Shen continued after he saw the man wasn't saying anything.
"Dunno why you helped, but again, thanks. I owe you one day. Though by the look I don't think I'll ever need to actually save your ass," he said, laughing.
"I like having a drinking partner, I guess," the man joked.
"Whatever the reason," he said. "Just call me if you need something."
"I will." He turned, leaning by his wall. "I come and go from Shanghai. But I'll get in touch again when I return."
"Alright!" the man exclaimed, clearly still buzzed from the hash. "Now that the bullshit friend stuff is out of the way, got anything here to do besides…not have a TV?" He laughed. "What do you watch fights on?"
"I have Mahjong. Grew up playing it. I tend toward strategic games. Televised fights are boring and I get the feeling none of them would hold up in a real battle."
"Had a feeling," Shen laughed. "Well I'm down for some."
Duo Lon smirked, chuckling softly as he got the tiles out to drop around the table after clearing the food onto the kitchen counter. Friendship wasn't something he had much of; his childhood friends separated for training, and his family also spaced around in separate areas, and after Park, he had felt like bringing people into his life was too risky for them.
But, as the night went on, he decided to try again, thinking that maybe he could let a few people into his life after all.
A/N: A not unhappy ending at all! Again, in the actual team stories, these guys seemed to go back a couple of years. Since SNK isn't telling it, I figured I could.
The Hizoku stuff is pretty headcanon-heavy, again, not a lot of hard info except for a few paragraphs and a couple of team stories, so I had to build a lot of it.
One headcanon I always had with Duo Lon and Shen, that just sort of came to me, was that while Shen loves big battles, and has no problem with beating people senseless as we see in team stories, no one actually ever died in those that I saw(it mostly just lists the triad grunts being strewn around in various forms of beaten bloody.) So I decided death was not something Shen likes to deal out. (He even forgives people who wrong him if he beats them up in a fight.) Meanwhile, Duo Lon doesn't, in his words in team stories, like 'useless fights'-he dropped a lead thug in one blow in one story and just left Shen and Ash to clean up the rest since it bored him-and prefers stealth and shadows, but he *will* kill and has done it many times, given his vocation. His introductory story had him killing a man at a party rather brutally, sending his bare hand through his skull. I really liked the contrast of this and decided to play with that and sort of make that part of their 'opposing' personalities.
Duo Lon in this 'verse does partake in some hash now and then. Look at how chill he is. (I imagined the Hizoku would sometimes smoke substances like opium to shield their minds against the more maddening things of the underworld/other world.)
The extreme underground metal thing was one of those things, when I was originally writing him into the 'verse for the first time, just something that came to mind. Perhaps it's due to the evil, shrieking sound of it that sounds like wailing souls that he might have been interested in it.
His old drinking partner, Park, was mentioned once. In Forbidden Knowledge, Park found out too much about the clan, and Duo Lon had to kill him for it. It sort of made him hesitant to make more friends outside of the clan, but since Shen isn't pressing too hard, he decided to try again.
The scars mentioned come from when he had to exterminate a clan traitor in Assassin's Hunt when he was still only sixteen.(go read both of these, if you so like!)
He's quite knowledgeable about biology I would imagine. One of his likes is 'hunting for unknown biological organisms', and assassins would likely have to know bodies well. And let's face it-it's not a vocation that leads to you just dropping into a hospital, so I'd imagine he'd have learned how to patch himself up if necessary.
Besides the hunting biological organisms, one of Duo Lon's canonical likes is Mahjong. Shen likes combat sports, hence his comment about the TV.
Knowing he's an assassin isn't the top-secret thing, it's all the Hizoku stuff. How can he be hired if no one knows? He just keeps the other stuff to a minimum. (Kensou in XIII even says 'Hey! The Hizoku guy!' to his chagrin, but Kensou's still alive, so that part is probably okay, lol.) But the fact is, the guy doesn't have a lot of close friends. His childhood friends(the other weird Hizoku) are off training elsewhere, and he really doesn't want to let people in too easily, especially with the risk involved and what happened.
But seeing how they're quite 'bros' in later games, yeah, I figured they had to have buildup before we saw. Anyway, hope you all enjoyed yet another bit of backstory on some of the earlier days of the 2003 Hero Team!
