Heine's expression could hardly be called 'perturbed.' Instead, the expression on his face was more suited to an impassive sort of anticipation. He had been standing outside of a certain red haired ex-journalist's door for the better part of fifteen minutes. During that time, an impressive array of muffled thumps and half-muted grunts and curses could be hear emitting from the inside. There wasn't the barest hint of concern on his features. He didn't think it was plausible that Badou was getting his ass kicked inside of his own apartment. Then again, it is Badou... The man did have a fairly tragic history of taking a beating on a semi-regular basis. It was then that a particularly resounding crash came from inside the apartment, accompanied by a strangled noise. Heine heaved a sigh, his shoulders slumping in resignation.  He stepped back from the door slightly, raising one booted foot from the floor.

His leg recoiled, before flashing forward again in a brutual forward jerk, the sole of his boot striking the center of the door squarely. There was a protesting shrill of old, rusted pins jarring loose from their hinges, and dropping to the floor with satisfying, discordant pings, the screws securing the door to the frame following after with a noise like hail on the aged boards. The door itself fell inwards with an impressive noise. Heine felt a twinge of disappointment--the door, like everything else in the complex, was old, and it's wood split and swollen with age. As a result, only the top half of the door had actually hit the floor, and the rest lay awkwardly balanced like a misplaced see-saw.

Badou, to his credit, whipped around at the noise, his one good eye widening in alarm as he took in first the now useless door, and then, as his gaze traveled upward, narrowing steadily as it did, the man who stood poised on the center of it, the very picture of nonchalance.


"Rammsteiner?" he choked.  If he'd had a cigarette in his mouth, he would have swallowed it from shock alone.


"What the hell, man? Why can't you just knock like normal people?!" he demanded.


Now that the shock had worn off, he could only survey the wreckage of his door with aghast dismay. Heine  hitched his shoulders in a careless shrug.

"I thought you might be in trouble," he said calmly, making no move to pick his way further into the room.


Badou's mouth worked silently for several seconds, before he fixed his partner  with a glare.


"What the fuck, man," he grumbled. "You say that like I'm always in trouble, or somethin'."


In response, a pale eyebrow arched wryly, it's owner fixing the redhead with a pointed look. Badou, slightly cowed under the scrutiny of those crimson depths, ducked his head sheepishly, clearing his throat as he did so. Heine gave his head a barely perceptible shake of his head, his gaze lifting to survey the rest of the room. The place was in shambles. If Badou hadn't proven to be alone, he would have thought that a brawl had taken place in the space that was formerly known as Badou's living room.  Lamps either sagged in the corners or lay overturned on the floor, their shades skewed at a rakish angle. The small wooden hutch that housed Badou's television set (an old model, weighing at least 13 pounds and the screen slightly cracked in one upper corner; wire antennas bent at a sharp right angle that meant on good days it would get maybe six channels, and on bad days static and colored bars,) with it's drawers underneath tossed open, DVDs and old VHS tapes scattered all over the floor. The couch hadn't been sparred either--all five of it's red cushions overturned and still half-on, half-off the couch itself, to reveal an absolutely grime coated underneath.


The ottomans to the various mismatched armchairs were also turned upside down, their dull, rounded legs pointing to the cracked ceiling like large, overfed fat dogs. The coffee table had been hit the hardest. Magazines were scattered everywhere, glossy pages rumpled, some hanging on the edges of the table perilously--the only thing keeping them  from their anchored perch and the doom of the floor a hard gust of air. Or a jittery redhead. Even the clearly full ashtrays at either end of the table had been raided for butts that hadn't quite been smoked down to the filter.

"What are you looking for?" Heine asked, having a grim feeling that he already knew the answer.

"My smokes!" came the desperate reply, a kind of madness glittering in Badou's one green eye.

"Ah."

"Well, don't just stand there, man! Are you gonna help me look for 'em or not?"

"No." He shrugged carelessly. "It's not my addiction."

"Asshole!"

Heine sighed, desperately trying to maintain his sense of patience. He spoke again carefully, as if explaining things to a particularly willful child.

"Maybe you just haven't looked everywhere?" He suggested.


"No, I have. I really fuckin' have. This has never happened to me before!" he wailed, which Heine knew immediately to be false. The man, for all his devotion to cigarettes, never seemed to actually have any.  Badou suddenly froze and turned to look at him with a sly, expectant look. Heine took a step back, suddenly wary. Though he was prepared, he wasn't entirely. Badou lunged from his place on the floor and onto the felled door, fingers firmly winding their way under Heine's clothes and gripping firmly. If there was one thing that could be said for the redhead, Heine thought, it was that he could move.

"Got any on ya?" His tones were downright wheedling.

"Badou," Heine said patiently, "I don't smoke."

That phrase had become his mantra for half as long as he'd known the man.

"Just because you're going through withdrawal doesn't mean my answer will change. Now..." his hands hooked underneath Badou's fingers, steadily prying him off of himself. "Get. Off. Of me."

Badou shot him a look halfway between being wounded and disgust.

"I want my godfucking cigarettes, Heine!"

"I don't have any, you idiot! Maybe you should consider quitting."


At this, Badou let go of him entirely voluntarily, slack-jawed with astonishment. His shoulders slumped then, a sullen expression settling into place.

"Yer shittin' me."

"No. Anyway, the only reason I came here in the first place is so that you wouldn't cause us to be late. Again."



A blank look settled on Badou's face, and he eyed Heine with suspicion. In reality, he was barely hearing him. The withdrawal was taking it's toll, and it wouldn't be long before the man cracked and the hunger dog that dwelled in  the hearts of most men bared it's fangs.  Heine gave a soft snort of disgust.

"We have a job. Let's go."

"...What, and leave the door like this?"

Heine glanced down and shrugged, a faint smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.

"Why not?"

"Because the old lady who owns this joint will throw a fit and evict my ass, that's why!"

"Then fix it when you get back. Stop wasting time."


And with that, he swept out into the hallway once again.


___________________________


"I don't understand where they went," Badou bemoaned, not fifteen minutes later as the pair made their way silently down the street. Heine made no attempt to disguise the roll of his eyes. Badou was often like this. First was the panic, and then the incessant whining that made the normally impassive gunman grind his molars in barely restrained temper.  The final stage was the one that he was counting on today, however. 

"They're always in my back pocket. I know, cause if they're in my butt fuckin' pocket..."

He trailed off, shooting Heine a sidelong look. That was probably a poor choice of words. Heine only smirked.

"Point is, they're always on my ass!"

"Stop talking about your ass so that I'll fuck you."

"Wha--? I wasn't---I was just...you mean you don't wanna?"

"...Not the point. We'll be late."


The pair fell silent, their shoulders hunched slightly as they made their way through the dim streets, the only noise that came from them was the report of their footsteps. It was best not to draw too much attention to themselves in the Underground, although being inconspicuous was more or less an impossible task for the two of them. After several minutes, they arrived at their destination--the loading area of a seemingly long abandoned office building. The building itself was nothing remarkable--squat and in between two newer, taller buildings--the red brick of it's facade dull now with age and blackened soot that smeared along it's bricks like painted on shadows.  Heine ducked into the darkened side alley, drawing Badou in after himself.

"Listen to me. This isn't complicated. I'm going in through the back, and you will keep an eye on the entrance."

"Why do I have to guard the entrance?" Badou hissed.

"Because I am going though the---"

"No, I mean why do I always guard the entrance?"

"Because someone has to guard the fucking entrance," Heine hissed, his eyes flashing dangerously bright in the murk.

Badou held up his hands in mute surrender. For the briefest of moments, the separate shadows of the men danced on the wall behind them--not in the form of the two lanky gentlemen, but of curiously shaped, four-legged beasts. Two dogs in shadowplay, one crouched before the looming bulk of a sleek and glowering hound, ears flattened and fangs bared up at the larger of the two. But a single snap of the shadow-jaws of Heine's shadow sent Badou's cowering with it's tail tucked between hind legs.


"Fine. But I wanna smoke f--"

He cut off abruptly as, with a sigh, Heine slipped his hands into his pocket and withdrew the missing packet in question. Badou's eyes widened, and a large, comical grin spread across his face.

"Smokes!" he cried, reaching for the carton eagerly. But Heine drew his hand away, staring him down coldly.

"C'mon, man. Don't. I just want one, I swear, and then I'll--"


Just as calmly, his free hand settled onto his holster, and he withdrew a single gun from it.  He eyed Badou, considering him for a moment, before abruptly giving the carton an airborne toss. Both men craned back their heads as it spun lazily in the air above them. As it started to hurdle back to ground level, Heine calmly leveled the barrel of his gun skyward, and pulled the trigger. The bullet rushed to greet the descending carton, punching a hole neatly through it's center, before it crashed to the ground, smoking slightly.

Badou's jaw dropped. He stared first at the ruined carton, then at Heine. Then back again. The crestfallen expression quickly became one of rage.

"You fucker," he snarled, looking for a moment as if all that bottled rage would channel itself into Heine instead. Heine merely shrugged, bending slightly as he gathered up the carton and threw it out towards the south side of the building. By now, the distant shouts of alarmed guards as they searched for the source of the shot could be heard.


"Want it? Go get it."

Badou lingered behind to shoot him a final, dirty look, before his own hands whipped to his holsters, yanking free the weapons stored there and opening fire with an almost beast-like roar.



____________________________________


Pale flickers of dim blue and hazy wisps of silvered, threadbare smoke drifted across the plaza. The discarded casings of shells and emptied, discarded clips glistened in the faint rays of light, some slowly being coated by the slow roll of pools of blood on the ground. Silence reigned.  Heine picked his way carefully over the sprawled corpses, heading towards the hunched form of Badou, who had perched himself sullenly on the edge of the stoop and hadn't moved in the several minutes it had taken Heine to take out the few remaining guards.

He stole quietly up behind him, crouching slightly.

"...Hey."

"Mmph."

"I've got what we came for. Let's go."

Badou muttered beneath his breath, the words too quiet for Heine to make out. He sighed, frowning slightly.

"What?"

"I said I don't want to go anywhere with you, y-you cigarette murdering freak."

Heine snorted, legs coiling under himself to stand again.

"Suit yourself, then."

Badou hunched his shoulders, flapping a hand absently as if to dismiss him. As the first few steps of Heine faded behind him, he turned his head cautiously. Only to have Heine's hand shoot forward, long, pale fingers curling under his chin and tilting it back, lips crashing onto his viciously. For a moment, Badou resisted, trying to break his hold and snarling under his breath, teeth nipping harshly at Heine's lower lip. But he stilled a second later, surrendering quietly, arms reaching up to tangle his fingers lightly into his hair.

At length, Heine stepped away, licking his lips.

"Sure you don't want to come with me?" he inquired slyly.

Badou paused, before heaving a sigh and accepting Heine's outstretched hand, hauling himself to his feet. 

The two walked back the way they came, side by side, backs receding into the distance.