I'll draw this line and hope you'll take my side [OPEN]

[thesmallergun]

Characters: OPEN
Location: Death by Pastry
Rating: PG
Time: September 29
Description: Another partner shindig is being hosted at Death by Pastry in preparation for the upcoming mission. Trust games, resonation help, and mingling ahoy! Check out the previous one here. There are two subthreads but feel free to make your own!

Comments

[middayitaly]

"Makes sense," Romano muttered, though it sounded as if the statement were more to himself than to Badou. It actually all sounded downright insane, but Romano was learning quickly that if he didn't take everything strange about this universe in stride, he wasn't going to last. After all, things were definitely worlds apart once you could start metaphorically comparing souls to... upset babies.

"Never really thought about it myself," he commented honestly with a shrug. "Maybe since I'm not the one who has to fuckin' eat them."

He hadn't even finished his macaroon yet, even with how small the cookie was, since it wasn't as if he had much appetite in the first place. But Romano ate the rest of it anyways before answering, "So no, not looking for a meister. Guess I'm trying to get a damn weapon, or else I'll be going in alone with a pistol or something."

A beat of silence. "Not that I'd mind that, but hell, with what might be waiting there... I sort of want a fighting chance, goddammit!" To be honest, the thought of fighting a witch sounded fucking terrifying, not to mention fighting one alone. After all, Romano had never fought a kishin or witch in person before -- only the creatures like the rabid frogs and the sand monsters.

So sorry for the late! RL got very busy the past few days :c Will tag in the event log next!

[smokeeasy]

The irony was that Badou wasn't actually hungry either. Not even as he eyed his plate, judging aside a cookie to see what was underneath. He was purely trying to keep his hands, mouth, and brain distracted until he could get outside and have another smoke. It was only marginally effective, and a certain degree of jittery energy was beginning to work its way subtly into his demeanor.

He picked up a macaroon of his own, took a bite of it, put it back on the plate, and picked up a French fancy before responding to Romano's words. "Yeah? Huh. You pretty good with a gun then, man? Because I--" He shoved the bite-sized pink pastry into his mouth, talking around it so that it half obscured his next words which, if Romano could make them out, were 'might know a gun of sorts who wouldn't mind going along with you.'

"From what I've seen of these kishin eggs, I'd say you'd have to be either brave or stupid to face one down with nothing but a handgun. Not that I don't know guys who'd do it, mind. I just like to go into a fight thinking I'm gonna come out of it again on the other side."

He shoved some cookies around his plate with his forefinger, then looked at Romano. "Man, I gotta go outside and inhale some bad air. You wanna come with?"

it's no problem!! life happens, man! o/

[middayitaly]

Through that pastry that Badou was working through, Romano couldn't completely understand the guy's words. But before he could ask him to clarify, he had already seemed to move from the point, so Romano shrugged it off, assuming it couldn't have been too important anyways.

"I don't specialize in guns or anything," he answered, "but dammit, you get a lot of practice in when you live as fucking long as I do." It wasn't as if he wasn't good with a gun, particularly -- the problem usually lied in the fact that Romano was rather skittish and easily spooked when it came to fighting, resulting in less-than-stellar aim. But hopefully, his daily training with Ping was helping with that aspect.

Stretching his arms, he nodded his consent to the suggestion. "Yeah, the decor in here is way too damn fruity for my tastes anyways." And fuck, he could even go for some 'bad air'. Romano had been cutting the urge to smoke in very recent years, but with since coming here, he sure as hell felt like he almost deserved to indulge a bit.

[smokeeasy]

Abandoning his plate of pastries on the edge of the table, and leaving conversation aside for the moment, Badou lead the way outside. After so many weeks of heat, the day felt almost chilly enough to warrant a jacket, but the brightness of the sun reflecting off the sand and cement wasn't diminished in the least.

The redhead had barely gotten both feet through the door before he had a cigarette between his lips, his lighter out, and was inhaling the first long soothing drag of smoke. "Man, this sure tastes good."

In actuality, he hadn't realized just how jittery he'd gotten right before they reached the door, how he'd taken out his pack of smokes well within the building to place one between his lips, or how he'd practically run the last few steps to the door, yanking it open and forgetting to hold it for Romano.

It was only after the first toke had passed tar into his lungs and nicotine into his bloodstream that his brain slowed down enough to remember his companion. Oh, right. Well...

Badou was, by habit, incredibly stingy with his cigarettes. He didn't share, didn't accept people bumming a smoke, wouldn't even give a friend a spare drag. But then he came from a place where he had to pay for his stash, and cigarettes weren't cheap. In Death City, by contrast, he managed to pass them off as necessities which he stashed in at the grocery store. No one looked twice. He had as many as he wanted. Which meant that he could share without actually shaving any skin off his nose to do it. The stinginess was still a tough habit to break. But then he was kind of proposing to work with this guy....

He looked over at Romano while, in his brain, a silent and furious battle raged. It was several long seconds before the more congenial side won out.

He withdrew his pack of smokes from the pocket they'd found their way back into, flicked open the top, and extended them towards Romano in offer. Heck, maybe the guy didn't even smoke, right?

[middayitaly]

Romano initially blinked in surprise at the sudden speed that Badou had picked up right before they exited the building, but... no, it really wasn't anything shocking. Enough of his citizens had been smokers for him to recognize the typical nicotine craves, and Romano himself had had enough smoking throughout his history to almost sort of empathize.

When they got outside, he leaned against the bakery's wall next to Badou, crossing his arms in his usual stance and letting the guy have his damn smokes. What he didn't expect, however, was to see the box of cigarettes extended to him in offering.

Huh. Well, that was surprising. Romano had his own small little mental debate, mostly because he still didn't completely know this guy and his natural disposition to distrust was kicking in. Then again, even by his standards, it could be pretty rude to just flat-out refuse. But there was also the fact that his smoking rates had gone down in the past few years and he intended to keep that-

Oh.

"No thanks," he replied, stuffing his hands in his pockets and trying to look unaffected, even if he was feeling a little more somber. "Dunno how it'll affect me now that I'm a human and shit." A certain hangover still hung over his mind, and he certainly didn't want some sort of redux of the incident.

And it seems to just keep on happening, that pesky RL thang. orz

[smokeeasy]

Knowing he probably shouldn't feel such a wash of relief at that as he did, Badou gave a shrug and slid the pack of smokes back into his pocket. He could never quite get his head around these countries and their weird...human-landmass-ness. They certainly appeared just like people to him, even if he had been told that they were effectively immortal in their own world.

He did, however, have a friend whose body had gone from healing like water at home to...well, not doing so here. So it didn't surprise him that realizing his own mortality could have an effect on a guy. He also knew better than to prod at topics that might be too personal, especially with a guy he'd just met.

Anyway now that he had a cigarette back between his lips, he felt like it really wasn't worth getting too worked up over. Best not to jab at what might be a still-open sore. He even left aside his quips about being "Vikingland" for now.

Besides, they did actually have something more important to talk about. And of course, since Badou was assuming that Romano had understood his eclair-mouthed pronouncement, he carried on without bothering to clarify exactly what he was now talking about. "So it's fireworks and smoke mostly. On my end, I mean. Changes sometimes, but that's the kinda default. I guess it wouldn't really be everyone's style, but if you're into that kinda thing it's not too bad. How'd that be with you?"

don't worry about it, man! :)

[middayitaly]

... what was even in those cigarettes, anyways?

Since Romano had absolutely no idea what Badou was talking about, he was suspecting that maybe there was something a little more... potent in the smokes. But really, was it some weird thing they had only in this universe? In Badou's universe?? Because, if whatever he was smoking was working after just one breath... damn.

"... Shit, what the hell are you even talking about?," he asked incredulously, confusion and skepticism written all over his face.

My last term-time commitment is tomorrow! /prepares to celebrate

[smokeeasy]

"My weapon form, man." Badou said it without missing a beat as though he was just that used to people being completely flummoxed as to what he was going on about. (In truth, aside from Heine they very often were. And even his best friends occasionally got spun around by the twists and turns of Badou's logic.)

"I'm an air cannon. Which I guess makes me pretty easy to wield, you know? Just point me in the right direction and pull the trigger."

YESSS THAT IS SO SO AWESOME 8)b!!

[middayitaly]

At first, Romano just stared blankly at him more. The actual intent behind Badou's explanation wasn't really hitting him at all, and in fact just left him more bewildered than before.

Then there was an instant of realization and he physically jolted from surprise, because whoa what wait was he really-

But of course, then he had to pretend that he totally knew what the guy had been talking about and to just look completely cool and nonchalant about it (or so he hoped). "An air cannon? Dammit, at least you're a projectile weapon, but do you really just shoot fuckin' air?"

/Dances \o\ /o/ \o\ /o/

[smokeeasy]

Another light shrug accompanied another drag on his cigarette and Badou's answer. If he noticed any inconsistency in Romano's manner, he gave no indication of it.

"All I know is that I don't need to have any ammo to shoot with. I mean, I guess someone could load me up with toilet paper or water balloons or something and have a pretty good night in Vegas. But usually, nothing goes in, fireworks come out.

"I mean, with Al when he was still here, see he was an alchemist at home, and here his whatchamacallit--his meister ability-- it let him transmute the projectiles I shot. He could make them more solid if he needed to. So we never really experimented much with me shooting stuff besides 'air'."

[OOC: Btw, did you see that Zack tagged in our event log thread? :D]

/also dances \o/\o\/o/\o/

[middayitaly]

((OOC: No I didn't, thanks for telling me!! :D))

He listened carefully to the explanation, though it... sounded simple enough. Fireworks were a really fucking weird weapon, he had to admit, but they were probably a better match for him than, say, a machete or a hammer would. He had gotten a lot of training from Mulan, but hand-to-hand combat was still one of his major weaknesses.

"Meister ability, huh," Romano mumbled idly, frowning a bit. He had never figured out what his own was, or if it would even be something useful like this Al kid's was. "So you can basically stuff any shit you want and it'll fire? Guess that doesn't sound... that bad." Of course, that word choice coming from Romano meant that he was at least considering the idea seriously.

"So you're willing to go on that damn mission?," he asked abruptly with a small huff. "No one would go on something like that for kicks."

[smokeeasy]

Badou gave a the first question a bit of a crooked grin. "Wanna give it a try?"

Having never experimented with all the various things that a person could try to shoot out of his weapon form, he was plenty curious and keen to try it. It wasn't the sort of thing that Al would have liked, but if Heine could have wielded him, Badou would damn well have bet that they'd have long since tried every kind of "ammo" on the shelves of the local sporting goods store, and maybe a few things off the supermarket shelves to boot. (What did happen if you fired a load of ping pong balls out of an air cannon?)

But trying him out was germane to the more serious question on the table too, and Badou looked directly at Romano as he gave his answer to that. "If you can wield me, I'll go with you man. Hell, even if you can't wield me, I don't mind throwing my ass on the ground every now and then. It's not for kicks. It's just...I figure we're all kinda in this thing together, right? And if it was my ass stuck in that place I sure hope someone'd come and pull me outta it."

[middayitaly]

... to be honest, trying it out sounded really fucking tempting. Would anything work?

But what would have been an admittedly fun train of thought was cut short by Badou's reply, which he similarly found to be the greater issue to address. Romano was... well, frankly, taken aback by Badou's simple willingness to just go. Were he in the redhead's position, he knew that he wouldn't have the guts to just run out and risk his life for a mission that didn't have any relevance to him. In fact, he wouldn't have gone on this one if one of his best damn friends around here didn't get kidnapped too.

"Yeah, I... guess," he replied, still mulling through those thoughts in his head. Was the guy really offering to be his weapon for this mission, just like that? Almost as if he was trying to reassure himself more than getting proper word from Badou, he flustered, "Hell, no backing out, got it?! I-"

But then realizing that he would probably say stupid things if he allowed himself to ramble on, he cut his words short. A deep breath. Then, "Whatever, let's try. Mission's really soon, so... yeah." He wasn't quite sure how to do this sort of thing though. Should they go to a bigger area? Do some meditating or shit? Like hell if Romano knew.