[Fic] Be the Bad Guys
Muse: Suzuki Suki
Word count: 1748
Prompt: I'm just a girl with my head screwed on, I'm just a girl with a smoking gun for savich_inc
Suki had no idea how she had gotten herself into this situation. She wasn't one to just go out HUNTING for no reason--except when she had neglected to maintain her schedule of killing, and then she had to face facts that she would go absolutely crazy if she didn't kill RIGHT NOW and then she was off on a hunt. Depending on how badly she itched to kill, she was apt to make silly, stupid choices about who specifically she was going after--such as in a case like today.
Somehow, hunting a whole TEAM of archangels had seemed like a smarter idea at the time she had stumbled into their little headquarters with that bloodthirsty gleam in her eyes. Now, however? It wasn't looking too good. She had to seriously consider the fact that she really might die now. Which was rather unfortunate, considering she didn't WANT to die. She wanted to do something ELSE with her time--navigate the politically bizarre waters of Chicago, tend to her bar and her customers, knit a tea cozy... She pretty much wanted to do ANYTHING but die today. Alas, her Calling had it in for her.
She was probably going to die, she reflected as one of the archangels dove for her heels and narrowly missed. It had turned into something else at this point--she was hardly hunting any more. The tables had turned, went the old cliche, and she was the one being hunted at this point. And yet she couldn't stop THINKING. This was the problematic part of her Calling--it was enough to make her go out and do things like decide to hunt a whole nest of archangels, but not enough to make her stop noticing things, like the faces of the confused people as she ran past. She tried to give them a half-smile--that was definitely the Calling. Why in the world was she smiling at these people? Why wasn't she killing them? ...Because if she stopped to kill them, she would die not long after, assuming she even GOT the time to kill them. Which was not very likely, at this stage.
Turn here, turn there--she took her gun and glanced backwards, shooting haphazardly as she veered into an alley. Her legs were aching, which was kind of embarrassing--clearly she needed to start running more often, assuming she got out of this alive. It wasn't looking good at this stage, as one of the archangels seemed to dodge her bullets--was her aim really that bad these days?--and tackled her to the ground.
Well. This was it. She was going to die, unless she did something absolutely silly like somehow sliding the arm that held the gun out from under her body and shooting it off into the angel's side. Which she proceeded to do, the rush of the hunt flooding her body. This was what she was kind of built for--to kill when the odds were down. That's why her Calling sent her to the nest of archangels, because that's how she liked her hunts.
Well, one down three to go and she had a heavy (and, delightfully enough, dead) archangel on top of her. Maybe she wouldn't get out of this one, because they were all there pointing guns at her. She was suddenly thankful that the guy on top of her was as big as he was, despite the fact that he smelled of milk and was bleeding white all over her rather nice coat. Now it was just a question of whether or not they would decide to shoot THROUGH his body to get to her--which would have been the smart thing, but that was the thing about teams. You didn't exactly want to just go around killing your teammates--or shooting them, rather, seeing as this fellow was already dead. If they bothered to drag his body off, she could in theory kill another one of them before they shot her. In theory. She hadn't quite had the plan all worked out yet, but she was getting there.
Either way, though, she was probably going to die, and that wasn't exactly the plan she had been working on. Well, they always say you should expect the unexpected.
And the unexpected happened, because there were three rapid-fire shots and two of the archangels dropped to the ground. Suki squirmed under the body she was laying under, and saw they had started their own project to bleed all over everything--between the three of them, including the fellow on top of Suki, they were going to create a small lake of angel blood. Which would be interesting. But who the hell was shooting? Who had killed them?
Suki couldn't see much from under her dead man shield, but she could hear a strangely high-pitched cackle coming from the vicinity of the way she had been running. "That was a lovely trap we set for 'em there, chica," a man's voice came, high and reedy and with a definitely foreign twang to it, though Suki couldn't place the accent. He wasn't a native Spanish speaker, from the way he said the word, but she couldn't be bothered to actually think about it at the moment, because there was her shot and she took it. The third archangel went down in a spray of bullets and pearly white blood. The cackling started again, and somehow it was so infectious that even Suki had to grin a little as she extracted herself from under the huge angel's body. Once her head emerged, she saw a tall, lanky man in a lumpy knitted sweater holding some kind of machine gun--Suki couldn't see the make, though she was definitely going to ask later, if she had the chance. His nose was long and perched on it were a set of very thick-framed round glasses. His head was thrown back in laughter, well-combed brown hair falling away from closed eyes.
"That one was--you're a little stinker, ain'tcha?" He moved to give her a hand in throwing off the dead body so she could stand properly. "You got spunk. I like it. I like YOU."
"You saved my life," Suki said politely as she accepted his offered hand and rose to her feet. "All I could do was finish the job. For all we know, that guy could have shot you and then shot me and we could both have been dead."
"Aw, chica. If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there'd be no work for tinkers." His grin seemed borderline on a leer, but there was something overwhelmingly charming about it that Suki couldn't help but grin back. "There we be. I suppose now what I do is offer you a drink, yeah? Something like that. I've never been much good at recruiting, but I figure we do a little drinks--do you like those fruity ones at the bar two blocks over? They've got this, like. Mango-berry twist that is raaaaaathur delicious." He seemed to be walking away, and Suki just stared after him.
"Excuse me?" she asked finally.
"Wha?" he turned around, the raised eyebrow revealing that he hadn't realized she wasn't walking right behind him the whole time. "Drinks, chica. Drinks! In celebration. And then talk of your new contract."
"New contract?" Suki had no idea where this was going. "I didn't sign any new contract, sir."
"To be on my TEAM, silly. And of course you haven't signed it, I haven't had legal whip it up yet. I can call 'em right now, if you'd like to see it BEFORE we get all fuzzy and bubbly in the heads."
Suki just stared at him. "Sir, I don't mean to be rude, but I don't exactly do teams."
"No one does teams anymore," the man rolled his eyes. "But I saved your ass, you saved mine--in some circles, that makes us FAMILY, much less a team."
"I hunt alone," Suki replied through gritted teeth. She wasn't going to get FORCED into a contract with some strange man, as charming as he might have been.
"Oh, bloody well good, see how that one almost turned out, yeah?" He rolled his eyes, and Suki bit back a growl. He was right, after all, as much as she was not interested in admitting it. "Listen, chickie."
"Before I do that, your patronizing attitude is going to get you nowhere in getting me to sign a contract," she cut in shortly. "My name is Suki. Ms. Suzuki, if we're doing business."
"We ain't doin' business, 'cause you won't do business with me. But very well, Ms. Suki, lemme explain my team. You don't hafta do no loyalty shit, yeah? That develops later--right now, say I get blown down right now?" He raised the gun he was holding to his own head and mimed shooting it. "You obligated t' do nothing. I die, your contract is immediately expired. Owe nothing t' no one, gotcha? While your contract is in place, you don't hafta be my slave or nothin'. Just get called up occasionally, do a bit of killing, go home an' take a shower. Where you take that shower is entirely not my concern--I got a place to crash if y'need one, but if that's too close for you--too comfortable, too team-y--you go back to your own place at the end of the night. In return, I pay you a shitload of money and you get a kill with a fairly decent guarantee that you won't DIE. 'Cause as much as you're not obligated to have my back, I got yours already. Sound like a plan?"
Suki quickly calculated her odds. It seemed decent enough, for all that she wasn't a fan of killing in teams. And the bar had been running pretty slowly every since the treaty--this guy seemed to have decent work set up already, and even if it wasn't very decent work, she could figure things out one way or another.
"Have your man draw up a contract, Mister Stranger," she said slowly. "And I'll buy the drinks."
"I promise I haven't dumped anything into anyone's drink in YEARS," the man protested. "And the name's Roberts. Seeing as you're gonna be on my team and all, I figure you ought to start calling me by my right proper name, Ms. Suzuki."
"It's just Suki," she replied, suppressing an amused smile. "After all, I'm on your team, aren't I?"
"Damn straight," Roberts replied with the widest grin Suki had ever seen.
Word count: 1748
Prompt: I'm just a girl with my head screwed on, I'm just a girl with a smoking gun for savich_inc
Suki had no idea how she had gotten herself into this situation. She wasn't one to just go out HUNTING for no reason--except when she had neglected to maintain her schedule of killing, and then she had to face facts that she would go absolutely crazy if she didn't kill RIGHT NOW and then she was off on a hunt. Depending on how badly she itched to kill, she was apt to make silly, stupid choices about who specifically she was going after--such as in a case like today.
Somehow, hunting a whole TEAM of archangels had seemed like a smarter idea at the time she had stumbled into their little headquarters with that bloodthirsty gleam in her eyes. Now, however? It wasn't looking too good. She had to seriously consider the fact that she really might die now. Which was rather unfortunate, considering she didn't WANT to die. She wanted to do something ELSE with her time--navigate the politically bizarre waters of Chicago, tend to her bar and her customers, knit a tea cozy... She pretty much wanted to do ANYTHING but die today. Alas, her Calling had it in for her.
She was probably going to die, she reflected as one of the archangels dove for her heels and narrowly missed. It had turned into something else at this point--she was hardly hunting any more. The tables had turned, went the old cliche, and she was the one being hunted at this point. And yet she couldn't stop THINKING. This was the problematic part of her Calling--it was enough to make her go out and do things like decide to hunt a whole nest of archangels, but not enough to make her stop noticing things, like the faces of the confused people as she ran past. She tried to give them a half-smile--that was definitely the Calling. Why in the world was she smiling at these people? Why wasn't she killing them? ...Because if she stopped to kill them, she would die not long after, assuming she even GOT the time to kill them. Which was not very likely, at this stage.
Turn here, turn there--she took her gun and glanced backwards, shooting haphazardly as she veered into an alley. Her legs were aching, which was kind of embarrassing--clearly she needed to start running more often, assuming she got out of this alive. It wasn't looking good at this stage, as one of the archangels seemed to dodge her bullets--was her aim really that bad these days?--and tackled her to the ground.
Well. This was it. She was going to die, unless she did something absolutely silly like somehow sliding the arm that held the gun out from under her body and shooting it off into the angel's side. Which she proceeded to do, the rush of the hunt flooding her body. This was what she was kind of built for--to kill when the odds were down. That's why her Calling sent her to the nest of archangels, because that's how she liked her hunts.
Well, one down three to go and she had a heavy (and, delightfully enough, dead) archangel on top of her. Maybe she wouldn't get out of this one, because they were all there pointing guns at her. She was suddenly thankful that the guy on top of her was as big as he was, despite the fact that he smelled of milk and was bleeding white all over her rather nice coat. Now it was just a question of whether or not they would decide to shoot THROUGH his body to get to her--which would have been the smart thing, but that was the thing about teams. You didn't exactly want to just go around killing your teammates--or shooting them, rather, seeing as this fellow was already dead. If they bothered to drag his body off, she could in theory kill another one of them before they shot her. In theory. She hadn't quite had the plan all worked out yet, but she was getting there.
Either way, though, she was probably going to die, and that wasn't exactly the plan she had been working on. Well, they always say you should expect the unexpected.
And the unexpected happened, because there were three rapid-fire shots and two of the archangels dropped to the ground. Suki squirmed under the body she was laying under, and saw they had started their own project to bleed all over everything--between the three of them, including the fellow on top of Suki, they were going to create a small lake of angel blood. Which would be interesting. But who the hell was shooting? Who had killed them?
Suki couldn't see much from under her dead man shield, but she could hear a strangely high-pitched cackle coming from the vicinity of the way she had been running. "That was a lovely trap we set for 'em there, chica," a man's voice came, high and reedy and with a definitely foreign twang to it, though Suki couldn't place the accent. He wasn't a native Spanish speaker, from the way he said the word, but she couldn't be bothered to actually think about it at the moment, because there was her shot and she took it. The third archangel went down in a spray of bullets and pearly white blood. The cackling started again, and somehow it was so infectious that even Suki had to grin a little as she extracted herself from under the huge angel's body. Once her head emerged, she saw a tall, lanky man in a lumpy knitted sweater holding some kind of machine gun--Suki couldn't see the make, though she was definitely going to ask later, if she had the chance. His nose was long and perched on it were a set of very thick-framed round glasses. His head was thrown back in laughter, well-combed brown hair falling away from closed eyes.
"That one was--you're a little stinker, ain'tcha?" He moved to give her a hand in throwing off the dead body so she could stand properly. "You got spunk. I like it. I like YOU."
"You saved my life," Suki said politely as she accepted his offered hand and rose to her feet. "All I could do was finish the job. For all we know, that guy could have shot you and then shot me and we could both have been dead."
"Aw, chica. If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there'd be no work for tinkers." His grin seemed borderline on a leer, but there was something overwhelmingly charming about it that Suki couldn't help but grin back. "There we be. I suppose now what I do is offer you a drink, yeah? Something like that. I've never been much good at recruiting, but I figure we do a little drinks--do you like those fruity ones at the bar two blocks over? They've got this, like. Mango-berry twist that is raaaaaathur delicious." He seemed to be walking away, and Suki just stared after him.
"Excuse me?" she asked finally.
"Wha?" he turned around, the raised eyebrow revealing that he hadn't realized she wasn't walking right behind him the whole time. "Drinks, chica. Drinks! In celebration. And then talk of your new contract."
"New contract?" Suki had no idea where this was going. "I didn't sign any new contract, sir."
"To be on my TEAM, silly. And of course you haven't signed it, I haven't had legal whip it up yet. I can call 'em right now, if you'd like to see it BEFORE we get all fuzzy and bubbly in the heads."
Suki just stared at him. "Sir, I don't mean to be rude, but I don't exactly do teams."
"No one does teams anymore," the man rolled his eyes. "But I saved your ass, you saved mine--in some circles, that makes us FAMILY, much less a team."
"I hunt alone," Suki replied through gritted teeth. She wasn't going to get FORCED into a contract with some strange man, as charming as he might have been.
"Oh, bloody well good, see how that one almost turned out, yeah?" He rolled his eyes, and Suki bit back a growl. He was right, after all, as much as she was not interested in admitting it. "Listen, chickie."
"Before I do that, your patronizing attitude is going to get you nowhere in getting me to sign a contract," she cut in shortly. "My name is Suki. Ms. Suzuki, if we're doing business."
"We ain't doin' business, 'cause you won't do business with me. But very well, Ms. Suki, lemme explain my team. You don't hafta do no loyalty shit, yeah? That develops later--right now, say I get blown down right now?" He raised the gun he was holding to his own head and mimed shooting it. "You obligated t' do nothing. I die, your contract is immediately expired. Owe nothing t' no one, gotcha? While your contract is in place, you don't hafta be my slave or nothin'. Just get called up occasionally, do a bit of killing, go home an' take a shower. Where you take that shower is entirely not my concern--I got a place to crash if y'need one, but if that's too close for you--too comfortable, too team-y--you go back to your own place at the end of the night. In return, I pay you a shitload of money and you get a kill with a fairly decent guarantee that you won't DIE. 'Cause as much as you're not obligated to have my back, I got yours already. Sound like a plan?"
Suki quickly calculated her odds. It seemed decent enough, for all that she wasn't a fan of killing in teams. And the bar had been running pretty slowly every since the treaty--this guy seemed to have decent work set up already, and even if it wasn't very decent work, she could figure things out one way or another.
"Have your man draw up a contract, Mister Stranger," she said slowly. "And I'll buy the drinks."
"I promise I haven't dumped anything into anyone's drink in YEARS," the man protested. "And the name's Roberts. Seeing as you're gonna be on my team and all, I figure you ought to start calling me by my right proper name, Ms. Suzuki."
"It's just Suki," she replied, suppressing an amused smile. "After all, I'm on your team, aren't I?"
"Damn straight," Roberts replied with the widest grin Suki had ever seen.