A/N: Incidentally, this chapter contains one of my favourite lines in the whole fic. Kudos if you can guess which one it is. ;)

33. Legend – Screw Up

No doubt about it, Legend had taken a wrong turn somewhere, and he was now deep in uncharted Fuckedupistan. He would have punched himself, if his face didn't already feel like an elephant had trampled it – after first shitting in his mouth.

"Oooouurgh …"

"Hark, I think I hear the sweet cry of the lesser spotted Legendary Turk."

Great. That was all he needed. "Go away, Buttercup."

"I'd tell you not to call me such a derisive nickname, but I kind of like that one. Much better than your last effort. What was it again, Hels?"

"Fuckface," said a deadpan female voice.

Brilliant. She was here too. Of course, you rarely got one of those two without the other. They were like magpies, charity-muggers or STDs – never welcome, hard to get rid of, and rarely turned up alone.

"That was it!" Richie crowed. "Graphic, disgusting and totally inappropriate. Oh yes, Buttercup is much better. I might even get my name changed legally: Buttercup the Terrific Turk. What do you think, Hels?"

"Don't call me Hels."

Different day, same routine. Legend turned to face them. He didn't run into Richie and Helena very often, but they both had the unnerving ability to get under his skin and irritate him like sand in a bathing suit. Knowing they were all on the same side only made them marginally more tolerable.

He knew his face looked bad when Richie threw up his hands in mock dismay. Helena was about as easy to read as a dead language carved in a soap bar that had been passed around a prison shower.

"What have you been doing to yourself?" Richie cried. "Honestly, you can't stay out of trouble for five minutes, can you?"

Helena's eyes were like chips of ice. "Naifu did that to you." It wasn't a question.

Legend was too tired, too frustrated and too damn mad at himself to fight her as well. He might as well have tried to fight a blizzard with a hairdryer and no plug socket. "Yup."

"Why?"

"Because I had a booger hanging out and she thought a fist was the best way to get rid of it." Exasperation frosted his words. Fight fire with fire and ice with … well, sarcasm. He was crap at being icy. He preferred to blow up stuff that pissed him off.

Helena narrowed her gaze. He was older, taller more experienced and more muscular. Why, then, could she make him feel three inches tall? "You are an idiot," she said, quieter than snow. He got the sense she knew exactly what had happened before she got there, though he doubted Naifu had told her. With Helena, you always got the sense she knew everything about you, including the small print in your mind even you didn't bother to read. Creepy woman.

Richie looked between Legend and his partner and back again. By comparison, he was a puppy who bounded from everything to everything else with the same amount of exuberance – conversations, people or fights. Legend knew better than to assume Richie was harmless because of his mannerisms. Richie was a former wealthy playboy, but he was no pansy. He could wield nunchaku with deadly force and accuracy, without hitting himself in the nuts like most people who just thought they looked cool. Plus, Richie didn't shrink from the nastier parts of being a Turk. He knew just as well as everyone else which soap was best to wash dried blood spray from your eyelashes and which drycleaner didn't ask questions about getting red stains out of white shirts.

"Does someone want to fill me in? Present company excluded, of course. I don't mix work and pleasure." Richie cast his own incisive gaze at Legend. He was still smiling, which only made it worse. "Mayhap that's where you went wrong this time, chum?"

Legend gaped. Did he have it printed in neon letters across his forehead? Maybe he was just getting too old for this shit. Maybe he was losing his edge. Maybe he was losing his mind.

"I gotta go see a medic," he snapped, shoving past them. They were dressed in workout gear. At least they hadn't been intentionally spying – not that it made much difference. "The gym's all yours."

"And a grand state you've left it in, too," Richie said sardonically. "What a ghastly mess. Which design school did you learn at: a slaughterhouse?"

Legend banged the door shut behind him and stomped away. He cursed himself and his overactive libido. He had pushed things too far, refused to let them go, and where had it got him? Abso-fucking-lutely nowhere. Less than nowhere. Square One was way off in the distance.

If it had been any other girl, he would have given up already. Either reel in the fish or cut the bait; that was his motto. Yet with Naifu something was different. She was damaged goods and he, sick freak that he was, couldn't leave her alone. The image of her face, screwed up and yelling at him, was tattooed on his brain. He wanted to wipe away that pain and make her smile again: maybe even get one of those rare real smiles that reached her eyes, not just the mischievous smirk she usually used. She provoked such a range of emotions in him he wasn't sure what to make of it. It was fucked up. It was stupid. It was frustrating. He dug his heels into the sand even as the connection he had made to her dragged him slowly over the edge of a cliff into a chasm of things he had thought died in him years ago when he picked up a charred red shoe. He had given up this life last time the contents of that chasm came into play.

Turks didn't cling or linger over death. They didn't feel guilt or dissatisfaction over the job. And they definitely didn't fall in love with their colleagues.

Maybe he should have stayed in retirement after all.