down time
So I have no idea what this is, and, furthermore, a sneaking suspicion that it doesn't make much sense.
Lo, I post it anyway.
It is a Dogs: Bullets & Carnage fic. God, my irrational love for that series knows no bounds. It could have been written to my specifications. Everything ket would like to see in an action manga? THANK YOU, DOGS.
This is...just...an introspective Badou thing. Because as much as I love Heine and Naoto for being beautiful, dangerous, and insane...I may love Badou more. For being insane with occasional moments of dangerous, mostly accidental.
And there are so very few times in the series when nothing dramatic is going on that I had to wonder what that would be like. And so.
Down Time
Listening to the two of them would be exhausting for anyone, and Badou felt he was something of a special case. Pre-exhausted, as it were. Which was why he shouldn’t have to be present for this conversation. Life was bitter, life was unfair.
“When is he coming back?”
“How should I know?”
“You decided to wait here, you should know.”
“Well, I don’t. You could always leave.”
Naoto wanted to know what the plan was. Heine, meanwhile, didn’t want to talk about the plan, on account of Heine never wanted to talk about anything. Ever. And even though that was screamingly obvious to most people after they’d spent five minutes in his company, it was like Naoto was just refusing to know. Whether that was because she didn’t care about Heine’s problems or because she was a social retard, Badou wasn’t sure.
No, Heine didn’t like to talk about things. And in this particular case, Badou had to wonder if Heine was refusing to talk about the plan because there was no freaking plan. That would be kinda typical.
“You never said how you met the priest.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“How?”
“How did you?”
They were like siblings. That’s exactly what they were like: this was a neverending sibling squabble. And it wasn’t Badou’s fault or his business or his problem, and, man, he just wanted to go home. Or to shoot at somebody. No particular preference.
Nill had picked up on how pointless and circular the arguing was, too. It didn’t even bother her anymore-she just watched, wide-eyed and entertained. Somebody hand the girl some popcorn.
“And you think he’s trustworthy?”
“I think he’s more trustworthy than you are. Whoever the hell you are.”
Huh. Nobody on earth was trustworthy. Except maybe Mihai, but that was just because Mihai didn’t give a shit anymore. He was retired from giving a shit. Badou respected that. Maybe someday he could retire from giving a shit, too, and get by on his badass reputation like Mihai.
Seemed pretty unlikely, though. When he stopped and thought about it.
“How long are we going to wait around here like sheep?”
“Until he shows up.”
“And yet you don’t look stupid.”
“You come here out of nowhere, you start asking questions you’ve got no business asking, you follow us around, and now you’re criticizing me? Get lost.”
This conversation had already lasted five cigarettes, and it looked like it was planning to keep going until all involved parties died of old age. Or spite. Could you actually die of spite?
Funny thing, Heine and Naoto. As soon as you threw them into a life-or-death situation, they worked together like they’d been watching each other’s backs since birth. The rest of the time, they bickered like idiots.
That was like siblings, too. Funny thing. Crazy twins had called them big brother and big sister.
Cigarette number six, and even Nill was starting to look bored. Well, that was because they’d descended into sullen silence, and Nill was generally more entertained by talk. Talk was something special to her. Something she didn’t have.
Badou preferred sullen silence, truth be known. But then, he could have talk whenever he wanted it. He could scream at himself in the mirror all day long if he felt like it. Nill, no such option. Sucked to be Nill. He supposed she had being beautiful over him, but hell, that had done her more harm than good.
And she couldn’t even fly.
Naoto was a beautiful girl, too, now Badou had the time to really look at her and think about it. And, while he was on the subject, Heine was a very pretty guy. Naoto, she didn’t remember anything about herself. Heine didn’t remember anything about himself, either. Big brother and big sister, huh?
Yikes.
Badou wasn’t as bad at collecting information as Mimi thought he was. Nah, it wasn’t the collecting. It was the sharing; that was where he fell down. Just as a for-instance, he wasn’t planning on sharing this particular bad thought with anyone at all, starting with Heine and ending with Kiri.
He’d told his brother his crazy theory on this subject once. His theory that saying things out loud-that was what made them real. His brother had given him the “okay, strange little brother” look and messed up his hair.
It was bullshit, obviously. But bullshit or not, it was an idea he’d never been able to shake. It was why he’d gone into information, perversely. He said it was for his brother, and that was part of it. But the other part was so that he could be the one who decided what was real and what wasn’t.
Mihai thought Badou was less messed up than Heine, but that wasn’t actually true. It was just that he was messed up in his own special way.
Nill, at the limit of her patience with the sullen silence, asked if Heine wanted anything to eat. With her hands, not her mouth, of course. She’d worked out little signs for things-food, clothes, cold, afraid, Heine, the priest. She was still deciding on ones for fix, blood, Naoto, Badou. Someday she was gonna have her very own hand language all worked out, and no one in the world would understand it except for Heine, Naoto, and the priest. And Badou, but the less said…
“What’s the matter with you?”
Heine: bad habit of creeping up on people and making them scream like girls. Had clearly been raised wrong.
Well, clearly.
“Nothing more than usual. What’s the matter with you, all acting like you care?”
“If something bad comes through that door, you’d better be ready to fight.”
“If you take away my cigarettes, I will hurt you.”
“You will try.”
“Bastard.”
Heine still had a little of his soft-mouthed, soft-eyed, chatting-with-Nill look. Badou wished he wouldn’t look like that. It got Badou thinking he was a decent guy, and that was a forbidden thought.
Forbidden, mostly because it was probably true. At least, he’d probably started out decent. But no matter how decent he was deep down, it would be a big fucking mistake to start expecting normal human behavior out of Heine. To rely on Heine.
Best person on earth couldn’t have lived Heine’s life and stayed sane. He faked it well, was all. Or most of the time he faked it well. Sometimes he went demonstrably batshit.
And here was another thing that didn’t do Badou any favors when it came to information gathering. There was a lot of crap he just plain didn’t want to know, no matter how much money it was worth. He didn’t care if it would help him understand other people or the world or whatever. The world wasn’t worth understanding, and he had plenty of his own nightmares without taking on anyone else’s. He regretted every single thing he’d learned about Heine and Nill, and he could tell Naoto was going to be the same way.
This was why Badou liked kids-most kids. It was because they hadn’t had time to get all fucked up yet. Life still looked worth living to them. They were happy. Heine, of course, hated most kids for exactly the same reasons. Badou had been one of the happy kids. Heine hadn’t.
Badou looked away from his partner, partly because he was staring and that’d get him a fist in the face in a minute, partly because it was depressing to think about this kind of thing while looking right into Heine’s crazy face.
Of course, he turned away and looked at Nill, who wasn’t much better. Still, it was funny how the most innocent one in the room was the one who’d been gengineered to be a sex slave.
Naoto was helping Nill get food, and she had on her soft face, too, just like Heine did when he was with Nill. Something about her hit the two of them the same way. The two of them and no one else. Oh, sure, everybody thought she was cute. But this special affection, this over-the-top protectiveness…
Badou put a lid on drawing parallels between Heine and Naoto for the day. There was only so much disturbing he could handle.
“Seriously,” said Heine. “There’s something wrong with you.”
“I save up my brooding,” Badou explained, twisting to give Heine his very best earnest look. Hey, he was even telling the truth. “Usually I’m busy. But since we’re going to sit here until Christ comes to town on a bicycle-”
“Until the priest gets back.”
“Same difference-I figured I’d dredge up some bad memories and scowl at them for kicks. But let me guess. This is something you don’t do.”
“Because it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I refuse to believe that, partner.”
“True. I’ve probably heard stupider things from you, but I’m not letting myself remember.”
“You’re so testy today. Is it all the girls? You can tell me.”
Oh, glare of death.
They could have gone on like that, too, getting worse with every passing minute, except that they were interrupted by a thump-thump from outside.
The church was in the middle of a wasteland of abandoned lots, and there was the reputation of the priest on top of that. There shouldn’t be anyone anywhere near close enough to be audibly thump-thumping.
“Badou. Watch Nill,” Heine snapped, flowing to his feet and flicking off the safety on his guns.
Naoto glared at Badou in passing, silently reinforcing Heine, and paced up to his side, sword hissing out of its sheath.
The two of them, beautiful and deadly, side by side and ready for anything. Perfectly bred hunting dogs. They looked happy.
Badou backed away, gun in hand, Nill behind him, and wondered about that. Happy to fight. They always were, and it wasn’t just them-he was guilty, too, and he didn’t have the excuse of violent lunacy that they did. So what was that about? The adrenaline? The chance to test your skill? The what-the-fuck of it all?
Or maybe it was just that, even now that the world had gone utterly to shit, there was no screwing up a fight to the death. It was what it was. Simple. Ugly. Clean.
The windows shattered overhead, and Badou grinned.