until your heart stops beating
Characters: team charizard. that is, kasai and xanxus
Location: somewhere away from the tour
Rating: uhhh i'm gonna put M for violence rn!
Time: post-arrival, where xanxus displays his stalking skills
Description: after this.
( it's never enough )
Location: somewhere away from the tour
Rating: uhhh i'm gonna put M for violence rn!
Time: post-arrival, where xanxus displays his stalking skills
Description: after this.
( it's never enough )
He remembered the last few empty days after Xanxus had disappeared, before he'd been sent back himself. If anyone should have been pissed off here, it was him. But maybe time and collapsing buildings had mellowed him somewhat. Or maybe it was just that whenever Xanxus raged, there wasn't any room for anyone else to be angry.
"It's not going to be me," Kasai snapped, moving back as fast as he could to stay out of range of the chair that had become a weapon of unmitigated destruction. "Just break the goddamned chair, that should do the trick." He was rusty at this, he could tell; it had been a while. If he didn't re-learn how to master the art of keeping his head from getting cracked against the pavement, this was going to be a short and bloody stay in the city.
One hand brushed the edge of a building, and Kasai pulled himself around the corner before Xanxus could get too close. His leg wanted to drag, but there was no way in hell he was about to let that slow him down in the face of this kind of complete bullshit.
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Xanxus snarls. "I'd do that, but it won't be enough." Because lord knows that right now, there isn't anything in the world to placate him, and he has to do something for the sake of being able to assert his force. He may have lost the battle for his powers against BREW (and as far as he's concerned, the fact that he hasn't forgiven it means that he's at war with the goddamned thing), but he's certainly not going to lose to anyone else when it comes to force which punctuates power which emphasizes this partnership which is, in fact, the most important component of things.
That, and the fire, but that's a neutral ground and the two of them are on a grudging level of respect for it, but that's neither here nor there.
What is happening, however, is that Xanxus is still fucking pissed, and that chair is going after Kasai's head.
(There are certain things he notices, however. Like the way the old man has different edge to his voice, like the way he ran away from him, because something was off, and fuck it, Xanxus was a Mafia Boss. His job was to notice shit and complain about things.)
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He didn't bother ducking out from around the corner to see if Xanxus was readying another blow because it was a given. Instead, Kasai moved away again, not quite running but definitely not being leisurely as he kept just out of range of the chair. Sooner or later, when it broke, it was going to get thrown at his head; he was waiting for that moment. It would happen. His memory wasn't that bad yet.
"Look, can we just - shit!" He ducked out of the way in time to avoid an unexpectedly fast attack, the chair smashing against the wall near his head. A sharp plastic edge chipped off and grazed along his face, nearly scratching the massive scar there, effectively spiking his slow-moving anger. Only this asshole could do that anymore. "What the hell's up with this? I didn't forget you, dumbass."
No matter how hard he tried.
"This your way of saying you missed me?"
This was turning out to be such a great day.
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What.
If there's anything that irritates Xanxus more, it's accusations of sentimentality, because he's dealt so well with that over the years. (And he really has. Ten years in the future and he's not quite murderous as he used to be.) Oh no. These things have to be subdued and oppressed and torn apart into pieces. Fuck this. Fuck everything that the man uses against him to get under his skin.
"No, fuckass. This is my way of saying that if you so much as value your fucking lungs you are not going to make those accusations against me."
The chair smashes against the wall again, missing Kasai by inches (what the fuck, is he getting weaker that he can't even hit a fucking arsonist by habit now?), which of course doesn't really do much to his anger except to heighten it. Scars were almost marring his face, and the scars were all familiar and Xanxus can feel it and all the hatred is coming back: being kidnapped, being forced to fight a war he doesn't give a fuck about, having to deal with the stupid citizens of this place, having to deal with the authority of this place, having to answer and bow down to the authority of this place, being pathetically weakened so bad that he's made reliant on a literal human weapon who just has the amazing ability to get on his nerves all the fucking time.
And there were many other regrets, but this isn't the place for it.
"If you would just stay fucking still -- "
Swish swish motherfucker.
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But then Xanxus made a comment about his lungs and longevity or not, Kasai couldn't help but snort with laughter, cigarette clenched between his teeth.
"If we're talking the value of my lungs, here, then I could accuse you of anything I wanted." He risked the broken spine (and leg, augh) to jump back a little further and blow a stream of smoke into the air. His lungs were so black and shriveled at this point that they could pave a half-mile stretch of road. "Wrong choice." Of all the bones and internal organs, Xanxus had gone after the lungs. Shit, he couldn't help but laugh.
But like he hell he was staying still. He could see the thin marks of old scars starting to fade in on Xanxus' face; he knew what that meant. Kasai kept backing up, unwilling to turn and run more out of a desire to never turn his back on that raging asshole than any sort of pride.
Back, back, keep out of range. Sooner or later he half-expected the bastard to throw the chair and full-out tackle him, and that he wouldn't be able to dodge.
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"You are talking too much," Xanxus snarls. And the chair is no warhammer. And because the chair was no warhammer, Xanxus can do whatever the fuck he wants with it, because Kasai is talking entirely too much and conversation is not what Xanxus wants right now, but the satisfaction of splitting a skull open and calling it a day for having pulled his vengeance on a world who obviously hates him enough to kidnap him from his duties.
So Xanxus, tired and pissed -- but not yet tired enough to give up, because lord knows that Xanxus is fucking relentless -- decided to throw the goddamned chair like a frisbee instead. It's no brick, or glass, but it's a projectile. And man does he love his projectiles.
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-- ah, there was the projectile. The chair came flying at him, whipped hard and fast, and Kasai only managed to bring up one arm in time to keep it from bashing his face in. It knocked him off-balance just enough that he put too much weight on his bad leg and staggered. Great - wasn't this a hell of a case of deja vu. Shit flying at his skull from every angle, and next, he was probably going to get attacked.
"Looks like you haven't changed a bit," he muttered as he tried to right himself, supporting himself on the nearest solid object that wasn't liable to be torn out of the ground and used to beat him to death.
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Actually, there's a whole fucking lot that Xanxus would like to change, if given the chance again, but that's neither here nor there. And he's also sure there's a lot that Kasai can say to that, but no one cares. The chair lies useless on the ground, the top and cross rails splintered by the force of his whacks and the fact that he threw it at Kasai's head (which probably did it in and caused them to cave). Not that it matters to Xanxus anymore because a weapon thrown to the ground is a weapon not worth picking up.
As is the case now. He moves towards Kasai, breath struggling to calm down as he moved. He places a foot over his leg -- the one he was limping with -- and stepped on it, hard enough to immobilize and probably cause pain, not enough pressure to break. (He could probably do that too, but that'd take time to heal, and Xanxus is everything hideous, but certainly not a patient man.)
"What the hell's up with this?"
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He held onto the edge of the wall hard enough to make his knuckles go white. How to explain that he'd gone back to the exact moment he'd been taken from, grievous injuries suddenly returning, and left to die by the cops? Something in that explanation would be judged a 'failure' for Xanxus' part. Though generally, everything was a failure for Xanxus. This wouldn't exactly be new.
"I ever tell you about how the last thing I saw before I got here before was a burning building about to fall on my ass?" He waited a second for any sign of assent - or just a blank, irritated stare - before shrugging and continuing on. "It fell. And steel beams don't play nice with bones."
Fire, concrete, steel framework, acid bullets ... it was a wonder he'd survived at all. But the memory made him grin despite the pain in his leg. All that effort and he'd survived. No matter what anyone did, now, it wasn't like they could kill him. Not even the nutjob about to break his leg.
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Yes, he actually has license to say that, because Xanxus is that fucking mature. WHATEVER.
Anyway he listens to Kasai re-tell his story -- the last he remembered before coming here, no doubt -- and frowns. He's not sure whether to be impressed or annoyed. He'll settle for both. "And BREW didn't have the foresight to actually heal that before you get here? Are you that fucking useless now?"
He'll press insistently on that leg, now.
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"I don't tell that thing what to do," he managed, pressing hard against the wall to keep himself upright. "And if you think something like that could make me useless, you really are a dumb shit." This was basically asking for retribution, but really, if this bastard was still going to act like a possessive teenager over everything and complain about a limp that wasn't even his, he was going to learn pretty damn fast why nobody underestimated Kasai.
And speaking of - risking falling, Kasai rammed his other leg against Xanxus', effectively freeing himself and possibly giving the bastard a shot of his own medicine in the process. He was quick to regain his footing, though; like hell he was about to try and stand his ground while still half-standing.
The cigarette had to go, though. He'd ruined the damn thing. Kasai dropped it and ground it out under his heel, hands jammed in his pockets to find the pack he knew he'd brought with him.
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It's an old game, and it's a game he's played with the Vongola and against his own (well, less with the Varia) occasionally. That doesn't mean he likes it, however, and all that talk and insult makes Xanxus rile up and want to smack him across the face or something, like he'd do with Squalo. But Kasai is not Squalo -- as much as he'd like to force him to be one -- he is not the right trash -- and therefore, concessions have to be made, before he loses him entirely, or drives him out of sheer hatred.
It's the principle of the thing. And Xanxus is all about principles, whether he likes it or not.
"If you can hurl insults at me you can probably still make a molotov or more," he conceded, grudgingly. "I won't have you lying down like an old maid, here. We're moving in, we're going training as often as we can, and you can live half of your life in the clinic for all I care, but I fucking need you to be a deathscythe as soon as we can."
There's waiting and there's waiting, and Xanxus is upset that their soul count is always reset upon re-entry to this world. "And we have enemies. In here and elsewhere. Don't make more that'll fucking inconvenience me." He levels a stare against him. "I don't make it a habit to concede and neither should you."
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It was both a blessing and a curse. For an arsonist of his caliber to find someone so innately immured in fire was rare enough; it was just his luck that the guy was a raging asshole, too. Oh well. Like attracts like, he figured.
"Like you'd let me live half my life in the clinic," he shot back, still not smirking but not glaring anymore. "I've got no problem being a deathscythe as soon as possible, but you are going to have to learn that conceding is sometimes a necessity." Sometimes, to survive, you had to give other people what they wanted, whether you meant it or not. He'd done it before. And specifically, Xanxus was going to - and already had, in some cases - have to concede to him. "Not that I'm saying you have to surrender to every order they give us, but ... well, you've already done a little in not beating me to death."
Kasai didn't answer in regards to the enemies thing; he made enemies sometimes, whether he planned it or not, and he'd deal with them when he had to. They weren't going to be going after Xanxus, anyway. He pulled a box of matches out of his pocket and then snagged the pack of cigarettes out of his jacket, lighting up in a smooth motion trained to second nature perfection from years and years of practice.
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"Enough of that," Xanxus snarled, not letting Kasai finish his narrative and opting to talk over him instead. "I've killed fucking trash who think they can take that tone on me, including the entirety of my so-called family, so don't even try. My patience is only so much."
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"Then don't act like a dumbass." If one insult had gone by, another wasn't going to condemn him to death. He nudged a shattered remnant of the chair with one foot, irritation rising again with the memory of just how close he'd come to getting his skull cracked by this angry bastard. "You wouldn't kill me, anyway, so don't try to scare me into compliance. Doesn't work that way."
He let the smoke trail out of the corner of his mouth as he watched Xanxus, still half-anticipating a punch to the skull or a few broken ribs. It was amazing what three years and a near-death experience could do.
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"Stop the insults," he snarled. "Keep it up, and people will think we might actually we be friends."
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