#reidak

Because he knew there was blood on his hands (hardly a surprise: his own were stained in the same manner), and if he'd truly been as meek a creature as he looked his permanence on Odina would have been short, painful and brusquely interrupted; but it was that little conjunction, that "for", which stumped him and gave him pause.

Killing at its core is a selfish act. One kills for money, for food, for vengeance, for boredom, for an opportunity, for their life, for their comfort. Killing for someone implied a transaction - after all, what mattered to him if some poor fool happened to have ticked off the wrong being? Nobody, under any circumstance, would have cared to get make heads roll at the fussy demands of the first fat Muaka with too much self-importance to get their own hands dirty. There had to be an incentive, and profit is the most reliable one.

Idiots who killed for someone out of some demented Hordika instinct got themselves in more trouble than it was worth. It was a waste of time and energy, and what would you get out of it? Companionship? Gratitude? Defense? Bah. Too temporary, too ephemeral, too volatile. Look at their lot when they'd split from the Dark Hunters: who would think it worth it to risk their life for a bunch of knives just waiting to get lodged in their back?

But the problem was...

Well, the problem was that he knew the answer.

Avak would kill for him.

Avak had killed for him.

He'd torn a Bone Hunter to shreds, and maybe if Reidak hadn't stopped him he would have tried to carve his way through two more at the cost of dying, all for the crime of having drawn a drop of the Earth Skakdi's ichor - something so small, so trivial in the face of his Adaptation--

And yet.

Reidak could feel the warmth against his back.

Avak ran as hot as a Ta-Toa, even in the freezing dead of night, and kicked and shivered and curled up tighter and tighter the whole time in the vain hope of holding onto the heat that instead, traitorously, bled into the sand and rock until it faintly stained black armor. It sank into the scars like golden paint, dripping upwards, inch by inch... It was so damn cold. It must have felt so comfortable to hold him, if his stupid spikes wasn't so perfectly knife-shaped.

His claws ghosted over the wound the other had stitched close, feeling the difference between the tendons' toughness and the sensitive flesh very carefully.

He was the Fikou's shield. His barrier. Of course he'd stuck to him, of course he'd fought for him - without that hulking earthly mass to cover his ass he wouldn't last a day, maybe not even half of a day in this blasted alien world populated by overly aggressive, excessively intelligent, lizard-riding, sword-waving, fleshy, furred bastards.

It made sense, perfect sense. If he hadn't had the luck of being made as prime a specimen as he knew he was, he too would probably whine and scuttle in the shadow of the nearest wall of protodermis he could find just to be assured a bit of safety.

And yet.

He kept feeling the closed wound, the trickling heat, the shifts so close yet far of an antsy body trembling beside him.

"THAT'S FOR KICKING MY GIRL'S ASS, YOU BITCH!" they (she?) yelled, and with a lightning-quick change of pose kneed Reidak directly in the stomach, making him double over into a fist.

The easiness with which his boyfriend was getting pummelled (a deeply unnatural situation) had Avak start sweating.

He darted glances all over the packed room in a panic: if this vindictive lunatic was having such a breeze throwing down, he didn't want to be anywhere even just vaguely near the aforementioned girlfriend in case she was present - sure, the other man had had his own storied life before meeting him and could have picked more than one fiight with who knows how many women, but what if it was someone Avak had also been involved in the kicking of whom's ass? Granted, there was only three he could think of (of which two he wasn't sure counted because they'd retaliated pretty successfully) and what were the chances that the fateful lady whose face had been scraped into the hround could be Dalu, or Hahli, or-

He was almost startled off the chair when an incredibly flat chest appeared almost directly in his face. His eyes gazed up, mouth half open in some kind of hiss, and he froze.

Yellowish eyes framed by braids looked back down at him.

"Hi," Gali Mata said almost stiffly.

Avak wished he'd worn his usual hoodie instead of his "club attire", as he called it.

Just to give himself some additional coverage other than his glasses to better hide away the pile of ashes he would have loved to combust into right about this instant.

Of course.

Of course it had to be her.

Well, time to pull out good old reliable plan B.

"I forfeit," he wheezed.

The woman blinked for a moment: "Oh," she settled on replying eventually, "Well, that's a relief."

She did not sit down next to him. Which, while appreciated, didn't exactly soothe him either, as the height difference between them was even more pronounced than usual and the albatross wingspan she had in place of shoulders casted an ominous shadow over the little man that certainly did not put him at ease.

The sound of wood being shattered had their heads bolt to the side to find their beaus still locked in vicious combat, now trading punches and kicks and more unusual means of harm as they rolled on the ground with the mangled remains of a table in an ever expanding vacuum as the other patrons wisely attempted to escape their brawl before getting sucked into it.

It wasn't very clear who was winning, but considering the guttural noises of pure bloodlust coming from both parties it was safe to say they were moving onto the second phase of their two-way boss fight, which would probably feature some horrifying lycanthropic transformation worth several pretty pennies in collateral damage and at least a dozen hundred shards scattered across the pavement between shattered glasses and at least one very like defenestration if the two decided to take it outside.

Reidak was still getting the nose punched into him.

It was still disquietingly unnatural.

Steadying himself as much as he could, Avak pointed at the commotion: "Is that your, uh..."

"Girlfriend, yeah."

Ah. Good to know. "Can you tell your freak of a woman to not give my boyfriend a reason to get a new tetanus shot?"

Gali, rather unexpectedly, snorted with gusto at his attempt at sarcasm and waved in an almost reassuring manner with a sort of half smile: "Kiina's aggressive, but she doesn't bite."

A yowl pierced the air.

"OW, FUCKIN'-" Reidak bellowed; with a harsh shake of his arm he finally dislodged his opponent from the limb, deep indents still visible on the sleeve of his jacket. "YA BIT ME!"

"AND I'LL DO IT AGAIN!" Kiina barked back, and without even massaging her sore ass she launched herself right at him again to stay true to her promise. She missed slightly, leaving herself open just enough for the man to bite her instead. "FUCK!"

Maybe they should intervene.

Or, uh, Gali could intervene, Avak concluded as he watched the woman spring right into the action much faster than he could have ever tried, jumping in the midst of the warzone and joining the renewed wrassle with an almost enviable lack of self-preservation or common sense.

He could just... Hang back. Until everybody got this whole thing out of their system.

Yeah, that sounded sensible.

It took a total of maybe two, three minutes, in no short part thanks to the repentine intervention of a few other patrons galvanized by Gali's reckless leap directly into the jaws of the beasts, but at last the two brawlers were successfully separated; they retreated to their respective corners of the ring to lick their wounds in the arms of their respective partners, each with their own set of battle scars in the form of half bleeding noses, cut lips, black eyes, and purplish polka dot bruise patterns a bit all over the place.

Reidak groaned as he struggled to pull his hair pin off without ripping any hair, leaning down so that his boyfriend could press an ice cold drink to a particularly large abrasion on his cheek: "That asshole was trying to shave me with her bare hands," he hissed. "She's got some damn tough arms! And a good grip!"

"I'm glad she went for you," Avak noted: "Pretty sure I'd still be hanging in her chompers, getting thrown around like a dog toy..."

"Heh! Y'must have blended in with the chair," the other teased him.