Burn it Down

(fusion with Kite)

"Nothing special, you know, just the penthouse."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Does that, like, impress you?"

"Fuck yeah. You gonna take me there now?"

"I mean, yeah, since you asked so nicely."

A nervous chuckle and a sweaty hand on his waist, and Hiruma thought, fuck, dude, if you weren't such a perv you might not be dead in a second. But it was so easy, playing incubus, and when he pressed the muzzle of his gun to the guy's stomach he probably still thought it was foreplay. Probably thought it was something else, Hiruma laughed to himself. He pulled the trigger, noiseless, and something wet and sticky was splattering all over his hand and shirt.

One shot to the stomach never did it, though, and Hiruma grinned as he stepped away.

"Don't look so fucking surprised," he said. The guy looked so scared. Fucking stupid. "You must have pissed some one off pretty bad."

Hiruma raised his arm. Right between the eyes. He pulled, didn't even blink as all that blood started showering out. Hot and wet, splattering all over his face and clothes, and he moved his tongue out to lick it off his lips.

Hiruma wiped his face off and strolled away, letting the gun drop from his gloved fingers, untraceable.

If only all men were this easy.

He met up with the old man at some run down ramen restaurant. The neon clock on the wall read 5:55, and he made a wish. That was the superstition, right? He wished he hadn't taken that shower. There never was anything like the feel of blood against your skin. Nothing for it though, and Hiruma ordered a large bowl of the daily special.

When the old man showed up, the clock read 6:03, and his food was there.

"Have fun?"

"Can't you tell?" He grinned, big, all fangs and pointed teeth. "I'm basking in the afterglow."

A photo was tossed down on the table, government seal.

"One of ours?" Drops of ramen broth dripped from his chopsticks onto the picture.

A shrug. "One of our best. Too straight-laced. He's starting to question things."

Hiruma laughed. "Some one in the government who's not corrupt? That's too fucking funny."

"We're training a replacement. In the meantime you'll be working with him; soon as you get the signal, kill him off for us, won't you, Hiruma?"

"Sure thing, boss," in that tone of voice that made it clear that no man was boss to him. Hiruma picked up the picture, tilted it. Pretty hot, Hiruma decided, and looked just uptight enough to be a lot of fun.

* * *

A small bomb. Tiny even, really. A terrorist attack, the government would call it later, because they obviously wouldn't point the finger at themselves. A tiny explosion, just big enough to blow up one office, and as Shin left he pulled off the door handle so that no one would be able to get out.

He walked down the corridor, busy, so no one would notice just another boy walking among the crowd. He saw some one walking towards him, skinny, dressed all in black, a plastic Son Son bag slung over his shoulder. Big, black sunglasses, and when they slipped down Shin could see green eyes staring him down. Too bright, Shin thought, no one had eyes like that. Crazy.

The boy blew a bubble, kept walking towards him, smile growing bigger each step, and all Shin saw was teeth. Walk past me, Shin thought. Walk past me, and the boy did, but then he felt a hand reach into his pants pocket. The trigger, and then there was a blast of heat against his back. The sound of glass shattering, things breaking, and people screaming.

Shin looked towards his side, felt hair ghost against his cheek, faced the boy eye to eye.

"Hiruma Youichi."

Hiruma's grin seemed to grow even larger. "What do you say we go somewhere private?"

Shin turned and followed Hiruma out of the building.

Hiruma's place was an abandoned apartment on the fifteenth floor of some run down building. It smelled like piss, and the door was halfway boarded up. They had to lean over to get in. There was a barking noise, a mutt chained up in the corner, chewing on a raw steak. Once they were in Shin went and sat down on the couch, started taking things out of his bag.

"They say you're the best."

Shin shrugged. "I'm good at my job."

"They say you're too good. Not human."

Shin could feel the heat from Hiruma's too skinny body beside him.

"I bet it would be really easy for you to kill me right now. Just fucking get rid of me. How many ways could you kill me, right now, with just your bare hands?"

Shin turned to face him, just for a moment. "Too many to count."

Hiruma felt a shiver go up his spine and smiled. He could see Shin's muscles through his shirt, lean and defined. Tense, like a spring coiled up. Hiruma pressed a hand against Shin's back, watched his back muscles jerk away from his touch. Just like a spring.

Hiruma preferred firearms. He preferred loud noises. He liked the splattered designs the blood left on the walls, almost like a painting. See, he was an artiste. Shin liked duplicity. He liked to set things up to look like they were something else, like the time Hiruma held some businessman down while Shin patiently held a spoon full of coke underneath his nose. Overdose, all the newspapers read, and wasn't it horrible the vices those in power had?

Hiruma liked to watch Shin work. He liked to watch when things went wrong, because Shin was good with his hands, and bones always made the most delightful crunching noises clenched in his fists. Shin was good with a katana as well, and Hiruma remembered the one time Shin had cut off some one's head. Blood was rushing up, like a fountain in some expensive hotel, falling down to stain the that beautiful kimono black. Shin stood there, blood on his face, and Hiruma licked a trail of it off.

Hiruma's eyes were glazed over when Shin turned to look down at him. "Does all this blood ever get you, just, hot?"

Shin whispered his answer against Hiruma's lips. "Yeah."

"You don't seem to mind this line of work," Hiruma said one night, fingers rubbing over Shin's shoulder. Bruises, black and purple, little cuts left from their last job. "They told me you didn't like the killings."

"It's being a tool I don't like." Bandages, around his forearm, where a piece of glass had managed to tear into his flesh. "Killing some one... after the first few times, it's not a big deal, is it? And they've been training me since I was a kid. Junior high."

Still, Shin's scars glowed bright even in the day, neon signs tracing a map on his body at night. Maybe he was adept at ignoring the demons and ghosts that haunted him, but that didn't mean they weren't still there, bleeding him from the inside.

Hiruma leaned forward, his teeth glowing white in the darkness. "You want to kill them, don't you? Fucking kill them, for what they did to you?"

Shin was silent, but then... "Yeah."

Hiruma laughed. "Then let's go."

The men who had trained Shin lived in a government-paid house on the outskirts of the city. They were sleeping. Too easy. Too easy, and soon, Shin and Hiruma had drenched the whole house in gasoline. They stood outside the house, Hiruma with a lit up cigarette in his mouth.

Hiruma turned to him. "Burn it down. Burn it all fucking down."

Shin hated cigarettes. He hated the smoke, but he took the stick from Hiruma's mouth, took one, long drag, and then flicked it into the house.

It was beautiful. Big and red and hot, and he held Hiruma's hand the whole fucking time, and they watched as they burned the place to the ground. When they got back to the apartment Hiruma's lap top was beeping, but he ignored it.

"We'll kill them all," Hiruma whispered him. "Fuck up the whole government."

"I think I fucking love you," Hiruma told him, his face covered with ash, his eyes too bright a green. Shin couldn't find it in him to disagree.

And it had sounded so right. They'd burn everything down, set all those corrupt fuckers on fire. Listen to them scream, and afterwards, they could go to America. Shin had always wanted to see America. Home of the fucking brave.

Find his solace and salvation in a skinny boy who was crazier then he was. Whisper his secrets into Hiruma's skin, confess, and be absolved.

"I think I love you too," Shin whispered, nights later, while Hiruma was sleeping by his side. And for once, he could believe that everything was going to be alright.

Cerberus was out of food. Shin told Hiruma he'd be back in ten minutes, and left to the store. The clerk put five cans in a plastic bag and he left back for home. He looked up. A nice day, the first in a long time. The sky was blue and it was sunny, just the perfect day.

"How do you play rugby? Let me see the ball."

Even the kids were out, doing whatever it was that kids did. It wasn't something Shin knew anything about.

"I told you, it's not rugby, it's amefuto, and it's an amefuto ball."

"Isn't that the same thing?"

The voices faded, and Shin forgot about it until the rugby... amefuto ball rolled in front of him. He looked down, saw a young boy staring back at him, and realized too late that the kid was holding a pistol in his hand.

Shin didn't even feel anything. He heard the loud bang, heard the cans of dog food go tumbling down the steps, and then he didn't hear anything anymore.

The kid picked up his ball and ran back to his friend, nodding at the old man parked down the street along the way.

The old man started his car, ear pressed against a cell phone. "Yeah. We should have known Hiruma was too unpredictable to trust... yeah, well, it's taken care of now."

He pulled out of his parking space and drove off.

At his apartment, Hiruma frowned as Cerberus whimpered at his feet.

"Don't be such a pussy," he said, picking him up and holding him to his chest. He grinned at him. "Shin will be home soon."

.end.