behind the times
*waves* ^_^
So I will be internetless from Oct 1-10, but I'll catch up with any comments when I get back. And I'll probably post crazy!Ed shortly after getting back, too. :D
In the meantime, there is DOGS fic?
I was trying to think up a best case scenario for DOGS (haha, yeeeaaah), and decided that even in the unlikely event that Dave turns out to be alive, it will still be a disaster.
Hence the fic. Oh, Dave.
DOGS does not belong to me.
Behind the Times
“No way,” says the man with the binoculars.
“Nails,” says the policeman beside him. “If you say that one more time, I swear to God I’ll shoot you and claim self-defense.”
“Is his hair actually down to his ass?”
“You’re the one with the binoculars.”
“He’s a chainsmoker now!?”
“Yeah, and whose fault d’you think that is? Christ, Nails, you got no idea-”
“Doug. Wait a second. Is that a Dog?”
Doug moves closer to Nails (directly in the line of potential fire from the street; Nails never has learned shit), and looks at the men on the sidewalk across the road. “The albino kid?”
“The albino Dog.”
“His partner, Mimi says.”
“No way.”
“Nails!”
“You’re saying that’s my brother. The chainsmoker with hair down to his ass standing next to his partner the Dog.”
“Yeah, way to summarize. But then, you were a freelancer, weren’t you? Guess you still got it.”
“This isn’t as funny as you think it is, Doug.”
Doug sighs and slumps back against the wall, out of sight of the street. “It’s gotta be funny, Nails. Listen to me, you better find a way to make it funny before you actually talk to your brother, because if you don’t, you’re not gonna handle him at all. He’s not a kid anymore.”
“I know he’s not a-”
“You don’t know. You don’t know what the last few years have been like, you’ve been in fucking jail. Why’d they let you out again?”
Nails shrugs, eyes glued to the binoculars. “Regime change.”
Doug shudders, can’t help himself. Thing is, he met some of the new regime. They make Badou’s partner look like a schoolgirl, and not the Underground kind of schoolgirl, either. But yeah. It’s easy to believe those bastards wouldn’t figure Dave Nails for much of a threat. “Right. Anyway, I’d like to say things were more of the same while you were away, but for a while, they actually got a hell of a lot worse. And your kid brother was on his own for that, you follow me?”
Nails’s hands tighten on the binoculars, but he doesn’t say anything. For a miracle.
“Mimi says-get this-the partner’s been good for him. Think that out. Your brother’s cheered up since he started working with a Dog.”
“What kind of work, I wonder,” Nails murmurs. Doug doesn’t say anything. Wasn’t properly a question, anyway. “He lost that eye, huh?”
“Well, he did get stabbed in it.”
“…Are those guns? He’s armed?”
“Everybody’s armed, Nails.”
Nails twiddles a knob on the binoculars and leans even further out the window. “Everybody isn’t armed with two Ingrams, Doug.”
Doug turns to peer out the window again. The partner twitches, then spins and looks up. Looks right at them.
Goddamn Dogs.
“That’s our cover blown,” Doug sighs. “Come on, idiot. Time to face the music, and it’s your own damn fault you aren’t better prepared.”
“How did he know we were here?” Nails asks, purely curious, staring right back at Badou’s partner. Defective sense of self-preservation.
“He’s a Dog. I’m happy to say I got no idea how they do anything. C’mon. You can ask him yourself, up close and personal. Isn’t that how you like it, Mr. Journalist?”
“Hmm,” says Nails.
* * *
If Heine had ever thought about it (he hasn’t), of course he would’ve guessed Badou’s brother was a dick. Related to Badou, right? So he was bound to be a dick.
He wouldn’t have guessed this kind of dick, though.
“Don’t you ever cut your hair?” the brother asks, grabbing at Badou’s hair. Heine growls; Badou elbows him. Badou’s just lucky Heine hasn’t bitten anybody yet, because that’s what he’d like to do.
“You’ve got split ends,” the brother says. “You reek of smoke,” he says. “You’re way too skinny,” he says. “Don’t you eat?”
“What the fuck,” Heine mutters to Badou. “Isn’t he dead?”
The brother looks thoughtfully between them. “Aren’t you going to call off your dog, bad boy?”
Heine laughs. He laughs for a long time, the kind of laugh that makes normal people cover their ears and run. The brother thinks Heine belongs to Badou? He thinks the crazy-ass dog belongs to anybody? He’s got no fucking clue.
“Where have you been?” Badou asks over Heine’s laughter, first thing he’s said since the brother-Dave-showed up. Heine stops laughing and listens instead. It’s fucking weird for Badou to sound so young. Fucking weird, and all Dave’s fault.
Dave, who’s grinning about it. He has no idea how close to death he is. “I was carted away by the law!” he says. “But they decided I’d learned my lesson.”
Badou steps back, nudges Heine back with him. “Yeah? You working for them now?”
Dave’s grin drops and his eyes widen. “Badou…you think I’m spying on you? Wait, what kind of work do you do?”
“How’d you know Heine was a Dog, big brother?” Badou’s hand is drifting to a holster, just absently and for comfort, not with intent. Not yet. “How’d you know where to find me?”
“Mimi said you were paranoid,” the cop says, rolling his eyes. “But you’re really outdoing yourself today.”
Badou looks at the cop and says, “My brother’s dead.”
Dave coughs out one of those laughs that sounds painful. Heine snorts in disbelief. If Lily had suddenly resurrected herself, Heine wouldn’t be handling it nearly as well as Badou. Heine probably would’ve shot every son of a bitch in sight, run to the church, and hidden until the sky stopped caving in.
This guy needs to lower his fucking expectations.
“I’m alive,” Dave says.
“Yeah, I can see you’re alive,” Badou snaps. “Whoever the fuck you are. Some guy who’s not acting like he spent years in jail, that’s for damn sure. But who knows, right? My brother was always kind of a freak. He might’ve rolled with jail fine. But all the weird shit I’ve seen lately, I’m putting nothing past those underground fuckers. You could be anything.”
Dave accepts that, nods. “What can I do to convince you?”
Badou stares until Heine nudges him. Badou’s cigarette is almost burnt out, and while there’s a time and a place for a nicotine fit, this isn’t either one. Badou drops the cigarette, steps on it, pulls out a fresh one and lights it. Nods at Heine. They both turn back to Dave.
“I can’t think of anything,” Badou tells him. “Basically, I don’t buy it. Sorry.”
“Badou, this is your brother,” the cop insists. “They sent me to pull his worthless butt out of the cell myself. He’d been there for a while. What do you want?”
“Want?” Badou snarls. Heine grins. This may be about to get fun.
“What. Is. This?”
Naoto. Woman’s got fuck awful timing, never fails.
“You were supposed to be at the church half an hour ago,” she snaps, arms belligerently folded, whole posture radiating totally hacked off. “Bishop sent me to look for you. Nil was worried.” Pointed glare at Heine.
Oh fuck.
“But I suppose you have a reason to be standing in the street socializing. Who is this?”
“Says he’s my brother,” Badou mumbles, half embarrassed, half pissed off. He must be feeling bad about making Nil worry, too.
“Your dead brother?” Naoto gives the fake Dave her incredulously outraged look. He’ll never tell anybody, but that look cracks Heine up. “Oh, that’s just what we need.”
“Your sword,” Dave murmurs, completely derailed. “I’m sure I’ve seen it before-”
“I’m not telling some imposter about my sword,” Naoto says, taking a step back so she’s in line with Heine and Badou.
“Dogs carry those swords!” Dave decides triumphantly, ignoring Naoto’s jump. “But you’re no Dog. That’s crazy. How’d you get your hands on that? Or, wait, did you-”
“Holy shit, you are my stupid fucking brother.” Badou really needs to make up his goddamn mind on this. “You can’t fake being that much of a moron. The hell’re you doing here?”
“I told you-”
“You’re late,” Naoto interrupts. “Even if he’s not an imposter, you can have your family reunion later. Introduce him to Bishop, that would serve them both right.”
“Hey now, I haven’t seen my little brother in years,” Dave says, smiling at Naoto. Heine’s pretty sure Naoto is impervious to charm, but he’s sure as hell never tried it, so he watches this with some interest. “Can’t we have a second?” Dave pleads.
“No,” Naoto tells him.
Yeah, that’s what Heine thought.
He shoves closer to Badou while that showdown continues, damping down his shaking so they can’t see. “Out of nowhere,” Badou’s muttering, mainly to himself. “Fucking out of fucking nowhere.”
“When does shit not come out of fucking nowhere?” Heine mutters back, elbowing Badou hard in the side for emphasis.
“Wait a second.” Dave’s been distracted from Naoto. Now he’s staring at them, and something about his expression is making Heine want to bite him. “When Doug said partners, did he mean…?”
“Holy shit, shut the fuck up,” Badou hisses.
The dog’s whispering that Heine should rip Dave’s throat out. He’s been whispering it for a while. It’s sounding better all the time.
* * *
Mimi runs down the street and prays that Badou’s smoked a lot of cigarettes today. And that Mihai hasn’t stumbled across the awkward reunion, because, no offense to Mihai, if anything could make this more awkward, it would be the presence of an infamous hitman. She hopes Dave hasn’t said anything unforgivably stupid. She hopes Doug hasn’t said anything at all. Oh God, she hopes Heine hasn’t shot anyone yet.
Shit shit shit.
Mimi flies around the corner, and there they are. There they are, nobody’s even bleeding. And Naoto’s there! Which is good!
Mimi realizes she just thought of Naoto as the voice of reason. This must be rock bottom.
Badou and Heine are plastered together, almost back-to-back, acting cornered and surrounded. It’s not what you want to see from guys who’ve been known to wipe out entire mafia families on their own.
Worse, now that Mimi’s really looking at Naoto, it’s obvious she’s not being the voice of reason at all. No, she’s got the boys’ backs on this one. She’s standing just far enough away from them to allow for sword clearance.
Shit shit shit.
Dave, meanwhile, is waving his hands in the air, which is special Dave code for “I’ve shoved my foot so far into my mouth it’s a miracle I can still speak.” It’s amazing that Mimi remembers that hand-waving trick even though she hasn’t seen Dave for years. Maybe it’s because it annoyed the hell out of her even as a kid.
She thinks about turning and running just as fast in the opposite direction. Pretending she saw nothing and knows nothing.
But that’d be cowardly.
Oh, hell.
“Nobody shoot anybody!” she shouts.
Bad mistake, such a bad mistake. Now they’re all staring at her. Heine looks feral (but when doesn’t he?), Naoto annoyed, Doug like he wants to go home, Badou sullen, and Dave…
Hang on. Oh, hang on.
Dave looks the same as always, he’s even got the same old village idiot smile, like jail didn’t touch him at all. It’s making Mimi feel like she’s twelve years old and that’s just…just…
She walks up and punches Dave right in his silly, smiling mouth because it’s plain wrong that nobody’s done that yet.
“Where the hell have you been!?” she screams.
This is really not in service of her plan to calm everyone down. She knows that.
That face, though. God.
She also knows that, physically speaking, he’s been in jail; she heard about it from Doug’s partner. She means the question in a more existential sense. Because, seriously, where the hell has he been?
“Um,” Dave says, still smiling. “Ow. You must be…Mimi? You’ve really grown up, wow!”
She tries to answer him, but somehow all that comes out is an inarticulate shriek of rage.
“C’mere, Mimi,” Badou says. She can hear the smile in his voice, and it makes her want to punch him in the face, too. There is way too much smiling going on around here. Badou’s not stupid, though: he’s grabbed both of her arms, and now she can’t punch anybody. “Don’t hit him. Turns out he’s been in jail all this time. And I think it’s been a fairly shitty day for him. Actually.”
“He’s smiling,” she points out wrathfully. She may be pinned down between Badou and Naoto, both of whom kill people as a sideline, but if they think that’ll keep her from saying her piece, they are dead wrong. “He gets himself arrested and disappears without a word for years, and then when he finally shows back up, he smiles? Get on your knees and beg forgiveness, Dave!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Badou’s definitely laughing now. And so is Heine. Even Naoto’s smiling a little. What is it they think is so funny?
…Mimi’s never heard Heine laugh before, and it’s weird.
“Hey, brother Dave,” Badou says, with his usual brittle, angry humor. “You go visit Daniella, okay? And then you can find me. We’ll talk once you’ve seen Daniella.”
Dave stops smiling for the first time. “Why? What’s up with Daniella?”
Badou’s walking backwards now, dragging Mimi with him, Heine and Naoto flanking them. Mimi can clearly picture the broken, deranged grin Badou must have on his face. “I guess you won’t know until you see her. Same old shop, Dave. You go visit. Play for real.”
It’s not right to send Dave to see Daniella without any warning. It’s not as if he meant to get arrested and disappear. On the other hand, he had no business being such a reckless idiot when there were people depending on him.
This is cruel. It isn’t fair. But Mimi can feel a very Badou-like smile stretching across her face, all the same.
* * *
“How will I find you?” Nails asks, fishing for a way to keep Badou around and being embarrassingly obvious about it.
“Found me this time,” Badou points out, deranged grin locked in place, probably for the day. “But Granny Liza usually knows where I am.” Granny Liza, huh? There anyone scary and infamous this kid doesn’t know? “I’m findable. You’re a goddamn investigator, right? See ya.”
And with that, Badou releases Mimi, and the whole crowd takes off: Badou and Mimi, the swordswoman and the Dog. They swagger away without a backward glance, just like normal kids giving authority figures the old “fuck off.”
Doug’s mainly relieved. Under normal circumstances, he’d be a little offended to get this treatment from Mimi, at least, but this time he knows it’s not aimed at him. It’s aimed at Dave Nails, still the stupidest man alive after all these years.
“My brother,” Nails says with an abstracted look, “is a one-eyed hired killer who’s sleeping with a Dog and is apparently friendly with all the most terrifying women in the Underground.”
Doug sighs. “Yeah,” he says, “you still got it. And let me tell you something: I don’t know who this Daniella woman is, but you’re going to see her on your own.”