It's been an hour since the delivery and Verde is still sitting on his chair, slumped back with long legs stretched out in front of him.

He sparked. They sparked, a potential bond. Some hitman throws himself into Verde's car during a supply run for esters and they spark because Verde has a Sky.

Verde wants to keep him.

Keep him strapped to the dissection table, peel him open to see how the bond will react. Keep him in the observation room down a level, monitor everything. Keep him close, sample him every day for a holistic mass spectrometer analysis on Sky biomarkers.

Verde will need to build a new wing of the facility, somewhere nice where the Sky will be happy and let Verde run experiments on him. A lovely carbon fibre cage, airtight with methoxyflurane valves if Verde needs to make his Sky sleep.

His Sky.

Verde tries to justify it to himself; he'd keep his Sky anyway – it's not like he can buy one from slave traders, they're so rare. It would be stupid to let this chance pass him by.

Verde ignores the fact that he's already mentally engineering a nice personalised shock collar with some injectables like ketamine and his newest flame suppressant. He should make sure the cage has live camera feed from all angles, who knows what a man like Verde's Sky can do when distressed.

Ah, he already has so many experiments he wants to test. How long does it take for a Sun user to starve? Can a Sky maintain a normal mentality when completely isolated from any outside flames comforting them?

The computer monitors above the metal table where the Sky is strapped down beep quietly, indicating the drug levels in the man's blood have once more dropped below the necessary amount to keep Verde's Sky asleep. The hitman's Sun flames are very adaptable, flushing the drug through his system faster every time Verde adjusts the dosage.

That can be another experiment later, to see if his Sky can be oversaturated. At what point will a Sun user overdose? Would something like Heroin with its asphyxiation properties be more difficult to 'heal' or will something that targets a particular organ like the liver be more deadly? He'll think on it later.

Verde stands up and moves over to the table once more, checking the gas mask over the hitman's face and then reaching out to the touch screen to dial up the ratio.

He pauses. Why is he waiting? What part of this needs consideration? If Verde is bonded to his Sky, then he can run as many tests as he wants since the hitman would belong to him.

Verde dials up the ratio of knockout gas to oxygen and then gets to setting up the more precise equipment. He wants to monitor both himself and his Sky when activating the bond because he will probably never have this chance again.

Especially since the hitman is a dual user, Verde is very curious as to how the Sun flames will react. Is the hitman automatically his own Sun Guardian? Bonds work off similar flame frequencies, so it would make sense there would be no room for another Sun.

Verde pulls on gloves to attach the machines to his Sky, very careful about maintaining no skin contact. He drags over his chair next and sits own before attaching himself to an identical set of machines. Verde doesn't forget to take blood and tissue samples from them both, planning on comparing the before and after.

Verde sits for a while, observing his sleeping Sky. He pulls off a glove and hesitates for a fraction of a second before laying his hand over his Sky's.

Bright green Lightning flames flare up and sink into the hitman's skin. Nothing much happens really, it's just a weak initial bond, but something in the back of Verde's mind sits up and takes notice.

It takes far too long for Verde to rip himself away and take secondary samples. He starts running calibrations and prepping the samples but his eyes constantly flicker back to his hitman.

This Sky is already ruining Verde. Maybe it would be better to keep him at a distance.

A sudden alert for the front door startles him. When Verde checks the screens, a man in purple leather is holding a takeaway cup of coffee and childishly trying to peer through the camera, thinking it's a peephole.

Verde only now notices the faint Cloud flames he's sharing Reborn's Sky with.


Reborn wakes up in Skull's house again and screams into a pillow because he can feel that asshole's Lightning flames.

Skull rushes upstairs in worry at hearing Reborn's muffled distress. "You're awake! Can I get you anything? The tall nerdy man said your last mission went bad. Is he the tech guy? What went wrong? Did you shoot anyone? Did anyone shoot you?"

Reborn just looks at the Cloud for a long moment, having a hard time focusing since his system isn't quite clear of drugs. "Skull," Reborn murmurs, holding out a hand.

Skull trots over and flops onto the bed beside Reborn, linking fingers.

"You're good," Reborn coos, his free hand petting the other man's coarse hair. "You're so good, such a good Guardian."

Skull brightens up with a cute smile even though he has no idea what's going on, he just likes being praised.

Reborn is still pretty out of it from whatever Verde gave him, and a little nauseous at the bonds pulling in two different directions which is quickly turning into pain, and being close to Skull feels really nice…

"You're hired," Reborn says in a moment of stupidity that he will regret for the rest of his life.


.

A/N: I'm sorry, Reborn, all your Guardians are freaks. Some cute Skull fluff next chapter though.