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Getting partnered up with Xo was... It was fine. It was about as good as could be expected, considering how they met. Bullet had no intention of giving up alcohol, but he knew Angela's threat had been very serious, so he'd kept his drinking to off-hours. Xo didn't seem to like that, though. Actually, Bullet hadn't been able to find a single thing Xo did like. Except yelling. Did yelling count?

Xo hadn't said another word about the dream thing, so Bullet was left wondering if it was just something his drunken mind had conjured, or if he had really played a prominent role in Xo's dream. He didn't want to think about it if Xo really had dreamed of him.

Despite his attitude and constant glare, Bullet found himself enjoying Xo's company. He had a good heart, and strong morals, and Bullet could only respect that, even if he didn't have those qualities anymore. He was sweet and caring in his own way, and Bullet thought that if Xo wasn't so determined to hate his guts they might have been good friends.

Today, they were clearing a bandit camp near Brisbane, and it seemed to be going fairly well. It would go well, as long as Bullet could avoid doing anything to piss off Xo, a task Bullet now believed to be impossible.

"Hey, Xo?" he calls, turning, but when he looks Xo isn't by his side, like he had been moments ago, "Xo? Where are you? Where'd you go, buddy?"

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Xo hadn't meant to bolt the way he had, not without a warning, but he was afraid if he'd waited a second longer he would have been too late. Off not too far in the distance, he'd spotted a bandit caravan, and after squinting at them for a long moment he saw something that made his blood run cold. They seemed to be laying traps on the ground; Inquest designed skritt traps, no less, and the memories of the time Xo had spent locked in an Inquest lab come rushing back to him. Drawing his hammer from his back, he rushes at the bandits somewhat tactlessly, but his lack of planning doesn't stop him from disposing of them quickly. He swings the head of his hammer into the face of one, then whirls around to smash the other over the head. When they lie on the ground in front if him -- dead or unconscious, he doesn't care which -- he stares at their bodies a moment before rushing to check the trap. He disarms it quickly, without much harm to himself other than a scratch, but to his dismay he spots several more in the distance. This area was near a large skritt metropolis, and he knew they wouldn't be able to resist the alluring baubles that were affixed to the traps, and wouldn't think long enough to suspect a thing was wrong.

He glances over his shoulder before rushing off, following the path of the traps and desperately hoping he doesn't miss any. There's a young skritt at one of the traps already, eyeing the bauble curiously but not quite reaching out to touch it yet.

"Don't!" Xo shouts, dropping his weapon and waving his arms wildly, "No, no, no, get back! It'll snap your neck, move!"

"Hey!" the skritt starts to protest, "This shiny is mine, I saw it first, I --"

Xo slides onto his knees next to the trap and pushes the skritt back with one hand, before taking his sword and nudging the bauble with the blade just enough to make it snap shut. He heaves a sigh of relief and looks at the startled skritt out from under his tangled mop of hair.

"You still want it?" he asks, trying for a joke, but his smile comes out as more of a grimace.

Bullet looks back the bandit camp almost longingly, then silently says goodbye to his hope of getting this job done fast and getting back home quickly. He turns back toward where Xo can be seen by the glint of his hammer in the distance, knowing Angela would kill them both if they got separated. He heads off in a jog, mildly annoyed the whole way.

His annoyance melts away when he catches up to Xo and finds him gently handling a young skritt, speaking to them like an equal, and his finds himself filled with affection instead. Xo's rare moments of kindness and gentility seemed to outshine his usual demeanor, and Bullet slows to a stop just in front of him, raising his eyebrows at him.

"You do remember our order were to clear a bandit camp, right?" he says, not really all that bothered by it, just annoyed that he wouldn't be home as soon as he thought.

The soft expression Xo had been giving the young skritt hardens when he hears Bullet's voice, and he looks over his shoulder to shoot him a glare.

"I did kill bandits," he snarls, standing up to pick up his hammer off the ground. He turns away, looking into the distance a moment and, not spotting any more skritt traps, stows his weapons and turns to Bullet, crossing his arms. His contempt for his partner had been growing rapidly, as Bullet crushed the hopes he'd held for him at every turn.

"What good is clearing a bandit camp if they've still got shit lying around that can kill people, anyway?" he huffs, "I thought the point was to get rid of the threat."

Bullet shrugs, leaning down to pull some bread out of his pack and offer it to the young skritt, who sniffs it carefully and then takes a piece.

"The point is to do the job we're getting paid for," he says, his annoyed words undermined by the way he's smiling at the skritt and offering them more bread. He stands, sighing and brushing the dust off his pants, looking around, back towards the camp.

"Shall we?" he says, gesturing towards the camp, "Angela will be furious if we're late."

Xo's lip curls, but he doesn't protest, instead sheathing his weapons and following after Bullet.

"Stay out of trouble," he says to the skritt, with a glance over his shoulder, before turning his attention back to the man in front of him.

"I thought our job was to make these roads safer," he says, his resentment clear in his tone despite how hard he was trying not to break into a fight here and now, "Do you care about anything other than money?"

"I don't really care about the money," he says, looking blankly back at Xo, "There's just... no reason to do more than the job." He shrugs, not wanting to go into it further, yet still oblivious of Xo's mood. Thinking of this as more than a job, a thing to do, had only ever brought him failure and heartache, and he wasn't interested in dredging up those feelings again.

Bullet leads the way to the bandit camp, which is small so they clear it easily. Bullet takes a token from the leader to prove they're dead and starts back, but as they walk down the road Bullet begins to smell something foul, and when he realizes what it is his blood runs cold.

The toxic alliance is still around--though alliance is a strong word for it. It's a lingering poison that won't fade for a long time, and Bullet knows this as they move into the shadow of the towering offshoot.

"We can go around," he says, pointing into the woods nearby, where they could cut through and avoid the toxic creatures altogether, "They won't see us in there."

"Are you kidding me?" Xo hisses, keeping his voice down so as not to draw the attention of anyone or anything that might be lurking nearby, "This place is a deathtrap for any unarmed civillian who decides to take this road.

His blood was boiling, now, and he was fighting a losing battle with his temper. He draws his hammer and shields his eyes with his hand as he looks out ahead. He could see them in the distance, Toxic krait and sylvari defending a large metal roadblock. They didn't seem to notice him and Bullet, not yet.

"There's a lot of them," he says, losing the presence of mind to keep his voice at a whisper, "but we're armed, we're professional killers for fuck's sake! We can't just walk around, not when we could easily take them out together!"

Xo's reaction is predictable, but that doesn't make it any less terrifying. Bullet hasn't fought them since the last time, since he'd had to kill two toxic sylvari who had raised him, and he wasn't about to start now, not when he wasn't even getting paid for it.

Bullet shakes his head slowly, backing away, the only hint of his inner turmoil was the wide, round shape of his eyes.

"No," he says, his voice more form to cover up the waver of fear, "Leave it for the pact to clean up, or the seraph, or whoever the fuck's out here. It's not my job. And it's not yours either. Come on, Angela will skin us if we're any later than we already are, someone else will take care of this." He doesn't think Xo will go off to fight them on his own, not that many, but he doesn't know for sure, and his anxiety jumps up a notch.

"No," Xo shouts, "No! No, no, no, we're not leaving it up to someone else, who knows how long it'll be til someone else hgets here!" His blood is boiling so hot it makes his face burn, and he turns to Bullet, poking him sharply in the chest and making no attempt now to keep his voice down.

"Just because you're a bitter, miserable, drunken coward who doesn't give a rat's ass about anyone but himself doesn't mean you can take it out on me, or any of the other innocent people these Toxic freaks might hurt. But if you want to go sneaking back home with your tail between your legs to get your lousy fucking paycheck, fine, I'll do it alone. I don't need your sorry ass anyway, and I was a fucking moron for ever thinking I did."

With that, he bolts off in the direction of the toxic sylvari, waving his hammer over his head and yelling to draw their attention.

"Hey, you! Assholes!" he shouts, causting several of them to whirl around to face him, "I've got your poison right here, come get it!"

Xo's words sting, mostly because they're true, and Bullet stumbles back a little when Xo pokes him, more out of surprise than actually feeling the poke. When Xo runs off Bullet's vision swims, because he knows Xo is being reckless and is probably going to end up getting killed, but he knows he can't face the toxic alliance, not now, not alone.

Bullet turns and runs, Xo's voice saying coward echoing around in his head. He gets a few minutes down the road and stops, the panic ebbing a little and allowing him enough thought to realize that Xo's in real trouble. He uses the special communicator to call for help, and it takes a few minutes for Bjorn and Traenan to get to him, and those few minutes of waiting are hell.

They run back and find a lot of dead toxic creatures, and when Bullet sees Xo collapsed in the middle of them his heart stops. Traenan rushes over to him, touching him gently and rolling him onto his back.

"He's alive," Traenan says, his scepter glowing blue as he holds it over Xo's body, "But badly injured. We need to get him back to the camp."

Bullet helps them get Xo's unconscious body to the nearest camp, where Traenan gets to work healing him. Bullet only stays until Traenan gets Xo stable and then heads back, to report to Angela, but also to drink until he can't see anymore.

The first thing Xo feels upon waking is pain. The second, as the memories come flooding back to him, is panic, and his eyes shoot open fast to look down at his injuries. His body isn't as battered as he'd feared it would be, but it's much worse than he'd prepared himself to deal with, much more serious if his partner had been there backing him up.

His partner.

He grits his teeth at the memory and sits up fast, faster than he should have.

"Doc!" he shouts, "Doc, Doctor, what's wrong with me, can I walk? Please tell me I can walk, I gotta go find my partner, he's -- ohh, I'm gonna fucking kick his fucking ass, that worthless piece of --"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Traenan says, leaning over to put a calming hand on Xo's shoulder, "You'll be fine, but you're not going anywhere right now." Traenan says, putting gentle pressure on Xo's shoulder to keep him in place.

"Bullet's fine, he called for backup after you almost got yourself killed," his tone has a note of scolding to it, but it's gentle, "And left before you woke up. I don't know what you said to him, but he looked pretty rough." He gives Xo a pointed, but brief look, turning away to check some of his bandages.

"Fuck that guy," Xo scoffs, reaching for the water near his bed and downing it like it was liquor, "He can go right to hell. Where the hell is he, anyway? Fucking human prick. Fucking jackoff asshole coward, he would have left me to fucking rot sooner than lift a fucking finger to help someone else. Fuck him."

His voice starts to shake with rage, and he spills water down his chin into his lap.

"Fucking scumbag," he swears again, and he moves to stand up.

"I'm fine," he says, but wobbles when he stands up. His dominant arm was still in a sling, and it takes him a moment to steady himself with his left, "I'm going to go find him, at whatever shithole bar hes collapsed in this time."

Traenan frowns, steadying Xo when he wobbles. He wants to insist that Xo stay and heal completely, but he knows that he won't, not in this mood.

"Xo..." He says gently, stopping them before they can storm out, "Bullet... Had a damn good reason for why he didn't fight with you, and it wasn't just that it wasn't the job." Traenan knew immediately what had happened as soon as Bullet said the word toxic, and knew that while Bullet's actions seemed selfish and uncaring, there was a deeper meaning.

"Just... Cut him some slack. You don't know him that well yet," Traenan says, releasing Xo and giving him a small smile, "And check his apartment first, I don't think he'd be at a bar tonight."

Xo looks at him incredulously, and is about to open his mouth to chew Traenan out for taking his side, but he loses his will at the expression on Traenan's face, resigning himself and sighing quietly instead.

"Right," he huffs, "I'll head over there. Thanks, doctor."

He leaves the clinic and makes his way down the street, hobbling slightly, until he comes to Bullet's apartment, which is thankfully on the ground floor. He knocks on the door with his uninjured hand, a little softer than he'd meant to; he was tired.

"Hey, asswipe, open up," he says, leaning his forehead against the door, "I need to talk to you."

Bullet hasn't actually had that much to drink when he hears the soft knock, at least not by his standards. He startles at the sound of Xo's voice, as Traenan had told him he wouldn't be up and about for a day at least. He jumps up to open the door, worry creasing the skin between his eyebrows, more concerned for xo's wellbeing than the probably beating that awaited him.

"Xo?" he says when he opens the door, his expression worsening when he sees the bandages Xo is wrapped in and the way he's doubled over, "Get in here, what are you doing walking around? You almost died today!" He ushers Xo inside and sits him down on the couch before he can get a word in, checking his bandages automatically.

"Yeah, no thanks to your sorry ass," Xo grumbles automatically, despite his surprise at Bullet's concern. He loses the will to punch him in the nose like he'd wanted to, but still swats weakly at his hand when Bullet stops to check his bandages.

"What the hell are you doing?" he snaps, though it lacks his usual venom, "Get off me, man, what are you trying to pull? You ran off and left me to fight an army by myself and now you're all worried about my injuries?"

"I'm sorry," he says miserably, moving back when Xo snaps at him, "I... I couldn't. I'm sorry." He swallows, taking a couple of steps back and wringing his hands nervously.

"I can't... I haven't been able to fight Toxic, they..." he starts, realizing Xo deserves a better explanation than 'I couldn't,' "The sylvari who raised me, they... Turned Toxic. And I killed them." Saying it out loud takes his breath away, and he has to stare intently at a spot on the floor and focus on his breathing until his head stops swimming.

"Sorry, I should have... If you want to switch partners it's okay."

Xo opens his mouth to make more cutting remarks, but Bullet's explanation leaves him speechless, and for a moment he can only stare at him.

"I...oh," he says, severely understating his surprise, and he sits down hard on the couch again and rubs his forehead.

"Well...shit, that's --" he starts to say, but cuts himself off by clearing his throat. He spots the liquor Bullet had been drinking out of the corner of his eye and reaches for it quickly, pouring some out into a nearby glass and hoping being inebriated would ease the tension. After missing a beat he reaches over and takes Bullet's half finished glass to fill it as well.

"Man, I'm...your partner, you should tell me about shit like this," he scolds lightly as he drinks, with none of his usual sharpness in his tone.

Bullet shrugs, shifting anxiously from foot to foot and watching as Xo pours himself a drink, something Bullet's never seen him do.

"I don't... talk about it," he admits quietly, taking his glass from Xo and then sitting down in a chair that was as far from the couch as he could get without leaving the room, "Ever. Traenan only knows because he was there. I haven't... Talked about it. Since." He stares down into his drink for a long moment before he tips his head back and swallows the whole thing, "You're the first person I've told."

"Well...thanks, then. For trusting me with it," he says dumfoundedly, floundering a little. He'd never interacted with Bullet like this before, without contempt. That wasn't to say he outright hated him; he actually still liked him quite a bit, if he was honest with himself, despite the frustration he'd brought him. Still, hearing himself speak to Bullet in the gentle tone he usually reserved for people closest to him was...odd.

"I didn't know you were raised by sylvari," he says, after clearing his throat and downing more of his drink with a grimace, "That explains why you're...way more tolerable than most humans turn out to be, I guess."

Bullet shrugs, running a hand back through his hair before pouring himself another drink, sipping at it this time instead of gulping it down.

"I don't really think of myself as a human," he says thoughtfully, staring into the depths of his glass, and then he realizes something and blinks up at Xo, "Wait, you didn't know? I thought you, you know... Saw me in your dream, and all that." Xo hadn't brought up the dream again since the first time they'd met, and he can't help but wonder what it was Xo saw, and how it differed from the reality.

Xo's nose wrinkles, and he almost launches into telling Bullet how he couldn't think of himself as something other than human, how he'd never understand what it was like to be anything else, especially not a sylvari, but he stops himself, deciding now was not the time for that kind of spiel. He looks at his drink again and wets his lips.

"I didn't see everything, the Dream doesn't work that way," he says, but he has the smallest hint of a smile now "Honestly, you're going to call yourself a sylvari and say ignorant shit like that? I just saw you. There was a great...darkness, I don't know how else to describe it. You were fighting it, and after you won you rose up out of it. I had the same vision...I don't know how many times. When I woke up, I felt the call immediately. I knew I had to find you."

He looks down again, contemplatively swirling his drink around in his glass.

Bullet frowns, contemplating Xo's dream for a long moment before he shakes his head.

"I don't get it," he says finally, sighing and leaning back in his chair to look over at Xo, "I mean, are you sure it was me? 'Cause the darkness, I remember that, but the beating it and rising up part never happened, not to me. And... Even if it did, what have you got to hunt? That was over and forgotten years ago."

He looks away from Xo, down into his cup again, the dark expression on his face exposing how little "over and forgotten" applied to his past.

"It's not like you could bring them back, and it's not like I've got any demons to fight now," he shrugs, moving to down his glass again but pauses, "At least, I haven't got any I can't handle myself."

Xo looks at him thoughtfully as he speaks, his heart aching a little for him, and then it hits him. The idea that maybe his mission wasn't what he'd thought it had been, that yes, he had been meant to find Bullet, but for another purpose entirely different from the one he'd imagined, had never occurred to him, but as she looks at the sad, drunk man in front of him Xo wonders for the first time if he might be meant for a much simpler task than the one he'd always imagined.

He clears his throat again when he realizes he's staring at him, and wonders whether this notion he's having is something he'd come up with on his own or if the alcohol had helped him along.

"...Everyone needs help, man," he manages to mumble, "No one can do it all on their own, you know. What you've been through is rough."

Bullet peers at Xo, frowning at the sudden quiet and gentle tone he's affected. He's quiet for a long moment, looking at Xo, wondering what he's like when he's not filled with loathing.

Bullet shrugs, swirling his drink in his glass and then sighing, setting it down on the table.

"Sometimes you've got no choice but to do it on your own. Sometimes... it's better that way," he says, frowning, looking away like he hadn't really meant to say that, "Anyway," he says, sitting up and clearing his throat, "Did you need anything else?"

"Nah," Xo says quietly, shaking his head. He knows Bullet was inviting him to leave, but he doesn't want to, not anymore. He swallows dryly, and his voice wavers a little when he speaks again.

"I've had a little much, though. For me at least," he says, avoiding Bullet's eyes and pouring himself another glass, "And...with the shit that happened today you seem like...maybe you shouldn't drink alone tonight, anyway."

Bullet's touched by Xo's gesture, and how he doesn't want to leave, but his throat closes up when he tries to voice his gratitude. He doesn't want to be alone, truthfully, and he doesn't even want to drink that much. He can't say anything, so he just swallows thickly and nods, looking at the bottle of alcohol.

"You know, I think I've got some sylvari nectar around here somewhere," he says suddenly, brightening, "It's been sitting in the back of my cupboard for years." He gets up and goes to search through his cupboards, coming up with a bottle of nectar after a minute of searching. He brings it back to Xo, smiling, having apparently brightened for no reason.

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