you're a mess, good god, you're a mess

[scubatankfilledwithfarts]

It’s all fun and games until someone loses-

There were no actual fun and games; Badou has a tendency to stick his little snub nose into things and Dave has no idea where he gets it from. He’d followed after him, skipping [as if the boy bothered with anything spring-y or skippy at this age, too cool for it] in his shadow [breaks his back on the cracks] as soon as he learned how to get outside the apartment.

Monkey see, monkey do. Running information, products, messages are a walk in the park, even for Badou’s, at the time, short legs. Stake-outs are boring enough to keep him from running his mouth [again, he did not get that from Dave].

Time is relative, years turn into a decade. Jobs get harder, payoff sucks. Self-claimed destinies are forged in iron determination [katana are folded over at least 7 time until they’re ready but he’s only been folded once or twice] —he hates this city but sometimes the people aren’t so bad. One day he’ll be a part of something big.

A snub, runny nose quickly grows into a piggish snout [not a dog because while pigs don’t snarl they’ll eat anything down to the bone] that looks down [up] at Dave like he’s hot stuff. It gets harder and harder to raise a child and make a living. But Dave’s dreams are big, bigger, and they rise until they meet the horizon—he will make a difference or die trying.

And the living is downright dangerous. [he wouldn’t have the soaring of his heart as it bounces around his ribcage otherwise] There will always be thugs and the fuzz on his back, bruises and black eyes and rolling around in trash for treasure that’s filthier than anything at the bottom of a toilet bowl.
He realizes people on the campaign trail are a whole different ballgame. They have everything to lose and will use all avenues to stamp you out, eradicate your very existence. Their thugs have upgraded to goons, complete with pieces that can’t be traced easily, with communications that aren’t like playing telephone through a fog horn.

Dave runs-- that’s one thing that doesn’t change. Runs until his lungs are this side of bursting, until he’s backed in a corner and a war-cry is all that’s left of the desperation that lights a fire beneath his steps, sharpens teeth from serrated edges to points that will tear someone’s throat out. He can practically feel the cement around his ankles once they get a hold of him. The bodies don’t float up from the sewers down there.

A crate topples from above like a miracle, like a stupid freaking movie, and the sounds his adversary makes is an embarrassingly movie-esque squeal as he hits the ground. What’s worse is the familiar gangly body that hops down from above, monkey-clinging to the second goon, fingers find eye sockets, war cries edged with hysteria.

“Are you kidding me, kid?!” is all Dave has time to scream before he’s cuffed in a headlock, arm wrenched too high to be comfortable, so much so that his entire world narrows into that burning, overwhelming pain. The adrenaline must have burned all the fear out of him because all that remains is rage.

Finite rage that could burn mountaintops and raze cities to the ground faster than Godzilla with the runs.

Dave isn’t sure how he throws his new best friend off, but one moment his arm is useless and holds him back and the next it’s useless at his side and his own personal goon has slammed into nearby scaffolding.

Two left. Badou’s is down, whimpering on his knees. Badou, spurned by something that must be Nails stupidity [he’ll admit this only this once], reels back his foot to connect with a crotch but Dave catches him around the waist with his remaining arm and books it until the cows come home. He’s aware of Badou’s glee, aware of that shine from victory in his eyes, in the spike of joy in his voice [that covers for the fear, the quivering of his limbs in Dave’s hold, the way his heartbeat runs a marathon where he’s pressed against
Dave’s side] but the words go in one ear and out the other; Dave is empty of all thought.

But one.
“…..ou.”
He feels more than sees more than hears Badou pause. “Hah?”
“…..ill you.”
Feels more than hears the little brat climb up around his good shoulder, knees cracking into his ribs, to look at him. “You bootybothered? Repeat that, will ya.”

Dave takes that moment to set them down in this convenient alley only a smidge rank-smelling, tosses Badou onto a box in the corner, unclenches his jaw that’s been practically wired shut so hard his head hurts, to scream,

“I’m gonna friggin’ kill you, you little shit!”

Even the cats boning or fighting to the death in the nearby neighborhood are silent. Badou crosses his arms. Sighs like he’s weary of this, like he went through something.

“This is the thanks I get, huh.”

The audacity? Of his own blood? “Thanks? Why would I thank you for sticking your big nose into my job! I was doing just fine without your ‘help’!”

“Hey, you’re the one who got your bigass forehead into trouble! Again! If it wasn’t for me you’d have gotten shanked out here! There’s no use being a lone wolf if you get your butthole skinned.” Badou truly believes this with all his heart, and Dave can’t resent him that—

Actually yes he can. “I’ve been doing this since I changed your diapers! If you hadn’t gotten involved I could still punch you with this arm—” he carefully cradles his arm to his chest, tries not to jostle it. Can feel something rising to the surface as potent as any magma at the edge of a volcano before it spills over.

“You coulda messed up the job! You ever think about that, Badou? About what’s at stake here?” Badou could have gotten hurt. He could have gotten hurt because Dave isn’t good enough yet. Still.

Clearly he hadn’t. Badou freezes, stricken by fear, by the reality that crashes down around his ears poking through that stupid bowl cut. As quickly as it settles over his young face does his expression darken.

“Do you? If you were such hot shit you woulda made it big by now.”

Talk about ice in the veins and heat in the face. He doesn’t have to look in the mirror to know his ears are probably red from the fury that bursts forth. Like the edge of a glacier, then a frozen tundra of wasteland, Dave says, his turquoise eyes hardened to shards of ice [and crippling, stunning, inferiority],

“Find your own way home, then.”

A chill races up Badou’s spine before his expression hardens in turn and he turns tail to do just that.

He doesn’t come home for 3 days after that. Or maybe he does—there are still traces of him leftover, snacks half cleaned up and laundry strewn about. The bed’s been made, too.

Dave isn’t worried--- he’s got his arm to take care of, has to clean up his mess, search for new info like a shark scenting the water for blood [he feels more like a hound seeking a dirty sock right about now].

He isn’t worried. But he does saunter into the smoke shop, regular vigor exaggerated and loud, to a knowing look on Daniela’s face.

“He isn’t with you, huh.”

Dave drops the hand framing his too-smirking mouth. “So what? He’s not attached to the cord or anything. I don’t need to watch him 24/7.” He makes an even larger, exaggerated show of perusing the cigarettes when they both know he’ll get the same crappy brand every time. It’s so he isn’t forced to face the judging look in those eyes.

“Remember how I said I envy you, that you have a brother like that?” Her tone is light—it sheds the judgement he assumes is in her gaze. He should know better; it isn’t there.

[that’s the guilt talking, Nails]

“Yeah, yeah, he’s so cute and great—you know I’m starting to think you’re in love with my baby brother, D.”

She sputters. That’s better. His smile feels just a little tight and ill-fitted when he finally looks at her, red faced and all.

“I’m not—that’s not the point— why do you always--What I mean is, he worries about you, you know!”

Dave scoffs. “He doesn’t need to—I’m there as steady as the sun rises in the east and my ass does too. What, did he come in here crying to you about it?”

She prods him in the chest. “Again—the point, you’re missing it. He believes that, too. That you can do anything—and he wants to, too. He’s proud. And definitely scared of missing out, of not looking cool in front of you.”

Missing out. Like what he does is anything to miss. But his lip decidedly doesn’t wobble at proud.

“He’s just worried about the rent.”

“He’s worried his big brother hates him.” Daniela corrects, softens. Her eyes are always so soft it’s easy to miss the point here.

And that makes his heart shudder at the sound. His entire soul shudders like someone’s walked over his grave. Dave sighs.

“I haven’t sold him to an evil circus. Yet.”

A brilliant smile is his reward. “And he hasn’t sold you to a furry swinger party yet.”

“Stop—”

If he walks home with a spring in his step it’s because he’s gotten a free pack of smokes. That’s all.

Dave waits until nightfall for the light and familiar footsteps before he makes his move. He waits for those footsteps to linger near, as they have every night, before he strikes—in one fell swoop he swoops the gangly boy into his good arm, to screaming and a knee in his nose, now, his fingers coiled to the root in mirroring red hair, his elbow in the little brat’s belly, and,

“What the hell what the HELL go to HELL you stupid idiot ass! Eat shit, go lick a donkey’s butthole, go—”

“You first, you little bastard!” Dave crows right back, because really, truly he should have known it would be so, so frustrating. It’s a pattern and he missed it by a mile. Or maybe he was dreaming of a heartwarming reunion.

Badou pauses in his arms. Looks at him, considering. “You’re a bastard too.”

They don’t say sorry. They don’t say it was my fault. [“it was your fault, actually.” “Shut THHHHEE HELL UP!”] They don’t say I love you. And Badou definitely spits in the mac and cheese he makes at 4am.

[‘I love you, Badou’, he tips to the sky, up and up and up, and when he smiles there’s blood in his teeth]

[then he falls]