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Epithymy Chapter One

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When it came to bar fights, Chrollo had a couple of rules of thumb. They were simple rules, really. Almost more like universal truths than actual guidelines he expected to meet. The first was to avoid them at any costs, the next to get out as quickly as possible. When both of those failed, he had only one rule left to deal with the aftermath: Don’t fall asleep anywhere without a lock.

This rule had come about over the course of the past month, and if Chrollo were asked why, he would have to answer that it was frankly just common sense. Bar fights lead to grudges. Grudges lead to ambushes. Perhaps it wasn’t the same for conflicts between surface dwellers, but Chrollo had walked these grassy lands far too long to trust that anyone up here might stay their hand should they find him defenceless and vulnerable in some field or communal area.

It was because of all of those reasons that when Silva limped his way out of the bar, Chrollo in tow, and decided to make camp in some clearing not even a stone’s throw from the wrecked bar, Chrollo had vehemently put down his foot and told him in the kindest possible way to think again.

“Oh, it’ll be fine ,” Chrollo muttered under his breath, sitting with his back against a tree so he could keep an eye on as much of the makeshift camp as possible. “You worry too much. No one would walk the five minutes towards the woods to kill the Drow lurking in their midst.”

Silva let out a muffled snore, not awake but somehow still seeming to know that he was being mocked. The hunter had collapsed into his bedroll the moment they stopped moving, a bit bloodied around the knuckles but boasting not a single injury of his own. Chrollo had no idea what to think of this man he had attached himself to, but at the very least he worried him an idiot if he fell asleep so easily after downing half the bar’s men in a fist fight started on Chrollo’s behalf.

Chrollo sighed, closing his eyes to the darkness that seemed as bright as day. It had been hours since they had settled down to rest. Hours of nothing but hooting owls, rustling leaves, and the other performers in the night’s orchestra. Exhaustion didn’t cling so heavily to Chrollo’s bones as it did to Silva’s, but he could admit to the day taking its toll on him regardless. It was hard to brush off instinct and caution. This new world above the loam didn’t trust him, and Chrollo would be hard-pressed to trust it in return.

Silva was shifting now, his breath coming a little faster. Probably on the verge of waking up, if Chrollo had to hazard a guess. Silva was definitely the first human to lower his guard so easily in front of him. Trusting a Drow to sleep at his side. What an odd man he was. Odd, but waking. Chrollo bundled himself tighter in his cloak, finally letting himself give in to the sleepiness tugging at his eyelids. It was an unspoken guard shift, but it was enough to help him relax enough to rest.

There was a resounding of pops and cracks as Silva forced himself up, and then the shifting of fabric as he stood. Chrollo slowed his breathing and let the quiet sounds soothe him, proof as they were of Silva being awake.

He was on the verge of sleep when he felt Silva’s eyes on him. Chrollo kept his breathing slow, trying not to let it bother him. He had just been watching Silva too, so fair was fair he supposed. Grass crunched and Silva let out a tired sigh. “Still asleep? Figures.”

Well, that was a little rude, all things considered. A flush of light teased Chrollo’s eyelids as Silva stirred the dying fire. Its warmth teased Chrollo. It would be alright to sleep now, right? Just for a few hours. Silva made no move to shake him to his feet, so Chrollo took it as a yes.

The soft breeze teasing through his hair made it all too easy to give in. Chrollo drifted off, chin tucked against his chest, letting Silva do whatever it was he did when he woke up. With his eyes closed, it seemed like Silva was pacing. Perhaps he was cleaning up the camp? The quiet hiss of a drawstring being opened was nearly buried in the shifting and cracking of the fire.

Chrollo’s ears twitched at the sound of clinking glass. That was an odd sound to be hearing now. Did Silva have some in his bag? It was hard to imagine given the man’s work that he might carry something like that around with him. Chrollo did and he could attest to it being one of the more challenging things to keep from being jostled, especially in fights. Silva was muttering to himself, his voice tugging Chrollo from his doze.

“Gotta be something here,” the hunter was saying under his breath, punctuated by another round of clinking glass and furtive, shifting sounds. “Where are you from, brat? You have to have something on you.”

Who was he talking to? The only one here was Chrollo, and there was no way… He opened his eyes, angry beyond words. Chrollo looked through the darkness, knowing instinctively what he would find in front of him. Silva was on his knees, wrist deep in Chrollo’s satchel. Brow furrowed and mouth tight, the human looked intently into the depths of Chrollo’s bag, rooting around inside as if he had a right to invade a person’s privacy any time he so chose.

What did he think he would find in there? Chrollo narrowed his eyes and let his hand fall to his thigh, fingers brushing over the six daggers sheathed in their small pockets. He pulled one loose and palmed it, letting his cloak fall to the ground in a silent heap. Silva was holding one of the small vials up to the wane light, taking in the clear liquid inside. He was going to get himself killed if he didn’t stop rooting around in things not his.

In one swift motion, Chrollo stood just behind Silva. With one hand he snatched up the vial, and in the other he held the small dagger to Silva’s throat. Silva went stiff, his hands letting go of the bag to let it fall roughly to the ground.

“Good morning, Silva,” Chrollo murmured, turning the blade to follow the movements of Silva’s head when he twisted slowly to meet Chrollo’s eye. “This isn’t how I envisioned our first day starting.”

Silva managed a tense smile, and in the next moment, had Chrollo’s wrist seized in his iron grip. He yanked hard and threw Chrollo off balance, but Chrollo rolled with the fall and took Silva down with him. The dagger and vial fell harmlessly to the grass, narrowly avoiding being crushed in the scuffle.

“What do you think you’re doing, brat?” Silva hissed, using his considerably size to his advantage. Chrollo was fast but it didn’t mean much when off his feet. Silva snatched up his other wrist, rolling himself to hold Chrollo down with his body. He was warm, nearly burning against Chrollo’s skin. After nearly a month of being on his own, Chrollo could barely handle the proximity.

“W-what do you think you’re doing?” Chrollo gasped, shelving that thought for never. He tugged at his wrists but, failing to free himself, met Silva’s eyes instead. His face felt so warm. He hoped the human couldn’t tell. “I certainly didn’t pay you for this.”

Silva gritted his teeth at that. “You attacked me,” the human grunted, as if that excuse was justification enough for pinning his employer.

“You were digging through my things,” Chrollo bit, narrowing his eyes into a pointed glare. “Is this how you treat all of your clients? Get off me before I hurt you.”

Scoffing, Silva did just that, letting go of his wrists first and then climbing off of Chrollo. The moment he could, Chrollo sat up and rubbed at his wrists, feeling bruises already beginning to bloom. “You couldn’t hurt me,” the mercenary muttered, leveling himself onto his feet to go kick out the meager fire, extinguishing the thought of breakfast with it. “Fucking brat.”

What a pompous ass. “I heard that,” Chrollo said, grabbing his bag and checking inside, making sure everything was safe and accounted for. His clothes were a bit rumpled, his poison vials out of order, but thankfully none of them had been cracked by Silva’s rough touch. Biting his lip, he pushed them all to the side, ignoring the disorganization for the moment. Was it still safe? Chrollo dipped his fingers past the flat inner pocket, feeling for the hard shape hidden just out of sight.

“I didn’t take anything,” Silva said, jolting Chrollo from his thoughts. “So if you’d like to get your shit together, I think it’s past time we get moving.” Chrollo looked up and Silva glared back down at him, his bag and weapon already shouldered. All that was missing was his foot tapping to show that he thought Chrollo was wasting his time.

“I don’t appreciate being spoken down to,” Chrollo muttered, gathering up his bag and bedroll, wrapping himself in his cloak. The morning was cool, if it could even be called morning yet. Darkness still outweighed the light, but if Silva thought himself able to see enough to progress, then who was Chrollo to argue? The grass was still slick with dew. Shouldering his bag, Chrollo wrapped his arms around himself, glaring at the human.

“You paid for protection, not conversation,” the hunter grunted, stomping out the remains of the fire.

“I paid for a partnership,” Chrollo interjected, walking in front of the hunter to glare at him properly. “Not for you to treat me like an idiot you can push around.”

Silva laughed. “I work alone, brat,” he said, shaking his head as he shouldered his large axe. “No amount of money can buy yourself a place as my partner. You’re a tagalong, if anything. I don’t plan on restructuring my life around you, so get used to being disappointed.”

Maybe embroiling Silva in a bar fight so soon after meeting hadn’t been the best way to endear himself to the hunter. Chrollo frowned and kicked at the dirt, letting the conversation die.

At least the rest of the world wasn’t as inhospitable. Chrollo could travel the surface three times over and still never quite quantify the amount of green the world held. Burgeoning light climbed up the far horizon, painting the sky with pinks, golds, and purples, the sun warming his chilled skin in a comforting wave. Birds sang, insects chirped, and despite the clinging, lingering darkness, morning took root as it always did. Chrollo smiled softly as he walked, counting out his footfalls in time to his breaths. Not even the hunter’s sourness could spoil the joy he felt in the wake of all before him. There really was nothing quite like this down below. The Underdark stole its color where it could get it, but up here, beneath the sun, the surface overflowed with abundance.

Not many of his kind ever saw this kind of beauty. Chrollo had to wonder how many of them cared, or if they even thought about the loss. Probably not many.

The sun had risen high in the sky by the time Silva saw fit to break the silence his rudeness had imposed.

“So,” he began, startling Chrollo from his thoughts with a gruff voice. “What is a Drow doing above ground anyway?”

Chrollo wrinkled his nose and held tighter to the strap of his satchel.“You sound like you’ve been holding that in for a while now,” he observed, noting how Silva’s jaw went tighter. “Did your little rummage through my clothing not give you the answers you wanted?” The human didn’t balk though, holding his head high and glaring back at Chrollo without much heat. Defensive, really. Chrollo wondered how used to company Silva was.

“I’d think anyone would be curious,” the man said, hefting his axe higher onto his broad shoulder. The metal shined dully in the mid-morning sun, the worn engravings along the head Dwarven in design. “I can count the times I’ve seen a Drow on one hand and still have fingers left over. You’re a rarity up here.”

“Careful,” Chrollo sighed, “or you’ll make me blush.”

“Just answer the question”. He slowed his quick pace a little, angling towards Chrollo once they were abreast of one another. “You wanted to travel with me. The least you can do is be a little forthcoming about yourself.”

Chrollo raised a brow. “And how forthcoming have you been, Hunter Zoldyck? I hardly know much about you outside of your reputation. Why don’t you give a little first, break the ice as they say.”

“There isn’t much to say,” Silva said in a way that told Chrollo he was purposefully being obstinate. “I’m a hunter. I go around hunting bounties.”

“Yeah, but where are you from?”

“Around,” Silva grunted.

Chrollo frowned. “How old are you?” he tried asking, crossing his arms. “I can’t tell if you’re old or not. You humans age so weirdly.”

“You can’t tell?” Silva laughed a little, giving him an odd sort of look. “I guess I can’t tell your age either. I’m forty.”

Only forty? Chrollo cocked his head in disbelief. “That’s not old at all. I’m way older than you if that’s it,” he murmured, his eyes narrowing as he thought on it. “Is that old to you?” How long did humans live, anyway? It would be a problem if he just wasted his money on a human who would keel over if a stiff breeze rolled through. It would probably be too late for a refund at that point. What a bother.

Silva shifted his pack higher onto his shoulder, letting out a tired sigh. “It’s old enough to feel. Are you going to answer my question now, or are you content to bother me about my age for awhile longer?”

“Why?” he chuckled, nudging Silva’s arm with his own. “Are you sensitive about it?”

“Don’t get cocky, brat. I’ll knock that grin off your face in a heartbeat,” the hunter warned, cold blue eyes flashing dangerously in the bright morning light.

Chrollo couldn’t help it. He laughed into his hand. “You are!” he exclaimed, dodging the wide swipe Silva made for him easily. “You’re so sensitive. What a treat. It’s good to know I didn’t hire a gargoyle instead of a partner. What a waste of money that would have been.”

“How many times do I have to tell you that we aren’t partners until it sticks?” Silva said stonily, stomping off ahead of Chrollo, making him jog a little to catch up. “You aren’t working with me. The way I see it, you’re just a brat I have to put up with until you get bored of this.”

This again? “There’s not much you can to if you don’t plan on working with me,” Chrollo huffed, glaring at the man’s broad back. “I’m not going to just sit patiently and wait for you if you feel like running off to chase a bounty.”

“You will if you expect to keep traveling with me. There are rules I expect to be followed. Rules you agreed to abide by when I took your money.” Silva eyes were heavy when they landed on Chrollo. “I’m in charge. What I say goes, and that means that if I tell you to sit and wait for me to finish a job, you will sit where I point and stay. I’m not a babysitter. I’ll leave you behind if you can’t keep up. I’ll ditch you if you refuse to listen.”

“I can see why you don’t do these sorts of jobs more often,” Chrollo scoffed, sending a stray pinecone flying with an annoyed kick. It soared up ahead, skidding along the dirt and grass and disappearing in a patch of weeds. “You’re actually a beast, aren’t you? No concept of proper etiquette in you.”

“I don’t want to hear that from a Drow.” Chrollo startled a little when another pinecone went shooting past him, traveling far further than his own had. He turned and stared at the smug looking hunter. Silva didn’t grin, but it was a close thing. “And there are more rules. No sassing me, is another. Don’t test my patience. Don’t try to get chummy with me. I’m not being paid to be your friend.”

Chrollo grimaced. “You don’t have to worry about that,” he simpered, batting his lashes just to make the human scowl. “I wouldn’t dream of befriending a man like you. Even I, a dastardly Drow, have better taste than that.”

Silva’s face was hilarious, frozen in some mixture of shock and anger as it was. Chrollo laughed and kicked another pinecone, nearly tripping when a hand snatched him by the collar and yanked him back before the kick could connect. “What did I say about sassing?” Silva asked tersely, holding Chrollo by the scruff like a disobedient cat. “I’ll charge you a fee for every infraction. Don’t think I won’t.”

Chrollo shrugged his hand off his collar, fixing his cloak around his shoulders with a frown. The cool air teased his bare shoulders beneath it, and he hurriedly covered back up, the morning air too crisp for that just yet. “As if I couldn’t afford it,” he huffed, rolling his eyes. “How much would I have to pay to change your temperament entirely? Another hundred? Two?” He shot Silva an unimpressed look. “You don’t intimidate me. If you think that’s how you’re going to deal with me, you’re very mistaken.”

“Rich brats like you are exactly why I have rules in the first place.” Silva upped the pace even more, passing Chrollo with nary a backwards glance. “You think you can do what you want, that nothing applies to you so long as you’ve enough money to throw at the problem until is disappears.”

“I’m not rich,” Chrollo shot, jogging after him, refusing to be left behind.

“Then how did you get the money to pay me?” Silva slowed up a little, but not much. His curiosity seemed to do it, or his disbelief at least. “Did you steal it?”

Chrollo held his bag closer to his side. “I’ve things to sell,” he said stiffly, dearly wishing Silva would drop it.

A pale brow raised. “So you did steal it,” he chuckled. “Leave it to a Drow to pay me in stolen coin. No wonder it was real gold.”

“Excuse you,” Chrollo shot, stopping in his tracks. “My lover likes to spoil me, and a lot of the gifts he gives are worth a lot of money. Some pawnshops don’t care where they get their wares, even if that means dealing with a Drow. So stop making assumptions about me. You don’t know anything about me.”

Silva gave him a look, one that Chrollo wasn’t quite sure he liked. “Sounds like quite a lover.”

“He is. He’s a far more impressive man than you are.” Chrollo looked at the dirt, at the rocks along the road. “He’s skinned men alive for daring to look at me, let alone speak to me the way you’re doing now.” Silva gave a mirthless laugh, not intimidated in the least. “Why did you leave if you had all of that down below?” he asked. “Seems to me I’d stay down where my lover has all the power instead of trusting all my safety to some rude human hunter.”

This really was the last thing Chrollo wanted to be discussing today. “Because for all the gifts he’s given me, he still doesn’t seem to understand what I really want,” Chrollo said sharply. “Can we change the subject? I don’t want to talk about him right now.” Not to some human who looked at him so judgmentally. “And what of you? Do you just go around killing people for money, then? Don’t judge me for how I get my coin when you took it eagerly enough.”

“I don’t kill them unless it’s more profitable,” Silva said, failing to rise to his bait. “And it’s almost never more profitable. I’m no saint, brat. I don’t care where you get your gold so long as its real.”

Chrollo took in Silva’s rugged appearance. The way he moved was slow but purposeful, no waste or excess to his stride to suggest he ever did things that went against his habits. It showed conviction. Intent. Silva caught him staring and returned it evenly, his jaw going a little tight at whatever it was he saw.

“If you’ve got something to say, then say it,” Chrollo said evenly, wondering what he could be fixated on now. His gaze wasn’t on Chrollo’s body. It stayed upwards, not quite meeting Chrollo’s eyes but close. “Something wrong with my ears?”

“What are your earrings made of?” Silva asked flatly, walking a step closer to Chrollo to get a better view.

Chrollo frowned, his hand coming up to cover the one closest to Silva. “Why?” he shot back, curling his fingers around it carefully. “What business is it of yours?”

Silva’s look was patently unimpressed. “I’m curious. Humor me.”

“Turquoise,” Chrollo said in a clipped tone, wondering if he shouldn’t have taken them off. No one had bothered to look too closely at them, usually too focused on them rest of him to bother. “They were a gift.”

“From that lover you ran from?” Silva asked, his voice breezy in a way that Chrollo didn’t like one bit.

Before Chrollo could reply, the sound of muffled voices filtered past them on the wind. Given the distance they had traveled from the last village, Chrollo hadn’t expected to see others on the road, but a look back forwards showed him the outlines of just that up ahead. He wrapped himself all the tighter in his cloak and tugged the hood over his face when Silva gave him a pointed look. Annoying, but probably a good idea to avoid attracting attention.

Chrollo followed Silva towards the side of the road, giving plenty of room to let the group pass. “I don’t see how it’s any of your business at all,” Chrollo grumbled, crossing his arms to look at Silva, keeping his face away from the people nearly upon them. “I’m not selling them.”

“I wasn’t going to say you should,” Silva said, arching a brow in annoyance. He kept glancing at the oncoming travelers, putting a hand in front of Chrollo to push him behind him, letting the hunter meet them first. There looked to be five of them, adventurers if their weapons were anything to go off of.

Chrollo glared down at Silva’s hand and pointedly shoved past it, walking at his side nearest to the men. He lowered his voice, but he didn’t bother softening his frustration. “Then what were you going to say?” he asked, ignoring the men even as their voices began to grow closer, their raucous laughter rending the air.

“I don’t know, brat, maybe if you stopped assuming the worst I’d be able to tell you.” Silva glanced at the oncoming men but sighed, moving back to Chrollo. “They’re too fancy to be flaunted like that,” he said, his words muted. “Don’t wear them up here. Or at least take them off when you take off your cloak.”

Chrollo could feel the brush of someone’s cloak against his leg, but he ignored it. “They’re not even that rare,” he argued, gesturing with a hand towards his covered ears. “Don’t people walk around in far fancier things up here? It can’t possibly be that out of place t–”

A hand fixed itself over Chrollo’s mouth before he could finish his tirade. He let out a smothered cry as he was torn from his feet and into the arms of one of the passing men, the others converging like vultures on a corpse to brandish their weapons at Silva.

Despite Silva’s gruff, cantankerous personality, Chrollo had to give the man credit for being all business when it came down to it. The axe was off his shoulder and swinging before Chrollo had gathered his wits, hewing through one of the bandits as if he were made of paper. The man crumpled in a spray of gore, his companions flinching in the face of Silva’s brutality.

“What the hell do you want?” Silva shot, brandishing his axe to keep them at bay. “You picked the wrong group to rob if you want an easy mark.”

A chorus of laughter rose up around them. Chrollo struggled, twisting and fighting against the one holding him. “That’s cute,” the man holding him chuckled, punctuating his jeer with a knife against Chrollo’s throat. “Exceedingly cute, but I think we’re going to be the ones getting what we want today. Try to behave, old man. I’d hate to make you watch your little friend here bleed out.”

“We’ll take your money now,” another said, his long, greasy hair bound into a ponytail at the back of his neck. Chrollo couldn’t see his face from this position, but he had a startling notion that the man was as ugly as his personality suggested. “All of it. Toss it down in the dirt with that axe.”

“That goes for you too,” the one holding Chrollo crooned, his tone painting him as the leader. “Don’t do anything stupid, now. I’ll slit your throat before you have time to regret it if you try.”

Cutthroats and bandits, what mysterious abound on the surface. Chrollo gritted his teeth and tried to keep his face pointed down. “I don’t have any money,” he murmured, tucking his hands beneath his cloak as slowly as he could.

The leader clicked his tongue, tapping the blade teasingly against Chrollo’s skin. “Somehow I doubt that,” he said. He wrapped his arm around Chrollo and shoved it beneath his cloak, patting along his body as if in search of a money pouch. Chrollo went stock still and flushed, meeting eyes with Silva. Panic was becoming hard to avoid.

Chrollo’s cloak must have jostled somewhere along the way, because a moment later one of the men was staring at him, his eyes going wide with something more malign than just glee. “Is that… Holy shit, I think it’s a Drow, boss!” the ginger man crowed, his ruddy cheeks flushed with shock. “This geezer is runnin’ around with a fuckin’ Drow!”

The leader let out a grunt of surprise. His hand stopped its groping and he peered around, trying to see beneath Chrollo’s downturned hood. “You’re shitting me,” he breathed. “What the fuck is one of those doing up here?” When he failed to see under the cloak, he resorted to just tearing the hood from Chrollo’s head. Chrollo closed his eyes to the bright light, but the man was already braying out a laugh, his knife tracing Chrollo’s cheek with glee. “So it is!” he declared, and Chrollo opened his eyes when the hand that had been on his hood dropped to his ass, the man groping him roughly, tearing his cloak from his shoulders. “And such a pretty one, too. We don’t see many of you around here, do we, boys?”

There was a general murmur of assent nearly overtaken completely by Silva’s furious growl. “Get away from him,” Silva ordered, his voice so low that it rumbled like thunder.

All of the blades turned towards Silva but the one aimed at Chrollo’s throat. “Don’t get cocky,” the ginger snapped, his sword pointed at Silva’s spine. “You’re out of your league, old man. Don’t be an idiot.”

“It’s fine, Silva,” Chrollo told him, teeth clenched as the hand moved a little higher, skimming along his bare lower back. “Stand down.”

For a moment, Chrollo didn’t think Silva would listen. He glared daggers at the leader holding Chrollo, his hands tight around the shaft of his axe. Chrollo held his breath and shook his head, imploring him not to get himself killed. Silva closed his eyes tight and let his axe drop to the ground, his shoulders hitched tightly from his barely contained anger.

The bandit’s hot, rotten breath coated the back of Chrollo’s neck as he laughed. “There’s a good man. Smart of you to stop. Are you paying him, beautiful? Bet you aren’t paying him enough to risk his life for you.” The blade dug into Chrollo’s throat as the man began to drag Chrollo backwards, off the road and towards the forest’s thick embrace. His companions stayed on Silva, keeping him from following.

“What do you want?!” Chrollo hissed, struggling despite the pain. Blood trickled down his throat but he didn’t care. “I’ve done nothing to you people!”

“Ah, but we happened to overhear you two chatting,” the bandit explained, and when he buried his nose in Chrollo’s hair, breathing in loudly, Chrollo shuddered. “You’ve got some pretty earrings there. Why don’t you be a lamb and hand them over, along with any other valuables you may have?”

“Just do it, Chrollo,” Silva called out, his tone clipped and his fury muted. “We’re outnumbered.”

“You heard him, beautiful,” the bandit laughed, tapping the flat of the blade against his clavicle like a warning. “Listen to the old man and don’t make us do something nasty.”

“My… my lover gave me those,” Chrollo said shortly, staring at the ground. “There’s no way I’m giving them to scum like you.”

The man’s fingers were hot as they toyed with an earring, tugging on it gently in a way that made Chrollo’s ear twitch. “Is that so? A lover who buys you turqouise earrings. Gold mounted too, by the look of it.” He glanced over at Silva with a grin. “Are you the lucky man? You don’t look the type to be able to afford this sort of thing. Or, you know,” he said, his free hand wrapping around Chrollo’s hip in a grip that was far too friendly, “someone like this.”

Silva let out an angry growl, his fists tightening at his sides. “No,” he bit, looking ready to break someone in half. “I’m not the one he’s talking about.”

The leader let out a knowing laugh, squeezing Chrollo’s hip. “That’s certainly interesting, but who am I to judge. Your lover must be awfully worried about you, beautiful. Probably worried sick if you’re expecting someone like this to keep you safe.” The bandits all looked at each other with glee, an unspoken agreement passing from the leader to the others. “A rich lover would pay a pretty penny to have you back too, wouldn’t he? Boys, I think we’ve found something a right side more valuable than a few shiny baubles.”

Chrollo stopped breathing. This was a complete nightmare. “I’ll bite my fucking tongue off before I let you take me,” he swore. Silva was staring, his lips curled into a snarl. “You’re going to die if you don’t let me go right the fuck now.”

“You think so?” the man mused, holding tighter to Chrollo as he addressed his men. “You guys hear that? This little Drow thinks he can kill us.” They all laughed and Chrollo’s mind went blank when a warm, disgusting tongue licked a stripe up his cheek. “Just you try it, kid. Think your lover will mind if we rough you up a little? Pretty as you are, he probably won’t care much so long as you still end up back in his bed.”

They didn’t know Hisoka at all if they thought he would be okay with them breathing Chrollo’s air, let alone touching him. “Your fucking funerals,” Chrollo whispered, narrowing his eyes at Silva. They would only have one shot at this, so he hoped Silva was ready to fight. Chrollo wrenched his head away and stomped down on the bandit’s instep, ripping himself from the man’s arms before he had time to shout, let alone hurt him.

“What the fuck–”

The bandit went down when Chrollo aimed his next kick for his groin. The others near Silva made a move towards Chrollo, weapons drawn, but Chrollo was in no mood to play. His daggers were in his hands in an instant, snatched up from their customary place on his thighs.

“You little bitch!” one shouted. “How dare you–”

Chrollo didn’t bother to wait to hear what he was daring to do. He flung out a dagger and watched it fly, embedding itself in the man’s throat before he made it more than a step away from Silva. Unlike the leader, Chrollo didn’t waste his time on naked blades. The poison worked faster than the penetration. A thick white foam coursed out of the man’s mouth as he dropped like a stone. His companions balked at the sight of his twitching form, but their hesitation just made them easier targets.

“Silva, feel free to help!” Chrollo spun and threw another dagger, this time hitting the ginger bandit in the thigh. He swore under his breath and backed up, the poison needing longer this time to get to working. A sword pointed at him and Chrollo nearly tripped in his struggle to evade. He closed his eyes and heard a wet, bone-chilling sound. When he opened them, he saw the ginger sans his head, Silva panting over the corpse with his cheeks flecked with blood.

“You little bitch ,” the leader hissed behind Chrollo, rallying from the blow he had already been dealt. He rose up from his pained slump, face contorted with rage. “You think you can just do what you want, a Drow bitch like you? You’ve got another thing coming.”

Poison was too kind of a way for this man to go. That much was clear.

“Take care of the rest of them, Silva,” Chrollo said, not bothering to take his eyes off the man before him. “I’ve got this.”

“Oh, do you?” the leader jeered, his pockmarked cheeks flushing. “Let me see it then. Let me see what you can do.”

Chrollo tossed the dagger aside. He had plenty more where it came from and he wouldn’t need it anyway. Not yet at least. They stared at each other for the span of a breath, and then Chrollo was darting towards him, ducking under the man’s lunging arms to cut away at the distance between them. Brawling was as common as breathing on the dark lit streets of the Underdark. This was nothing new. Evade, distract, strike– Chrollo delivered a sharp blow to the man’s ribs and then struck him beneath the chin, sending him to the ground in a gasping, stunned heap.

“How’s that?” Chrollo snarled, kicking the man onto his back. He straddled the man’s chest to keep him down. “You like that?” He balled up his hand into a fist, hitting the bandit leader in the nose, feeling the bone break against his knuckles. “You disgusting excuse for a person.” He drew back and hit him again, and again, and then again, losing track in his need to hurt, in his desire to make the man bleed. He though he could drag Chrollo back to the Underdark? He had another thing coming entirely.

“Chrollo,” a low voice called out from across the road, Silva wiping the blood from his axe on the grass. “Chrollo, you need to stop. He’s unconscious.”

Chrollo pretended not to hear, pulling out another dagger and readying it to slit the man’s throat.

“Goddammit, Chrollo! I said get off him!” Chrollo bared his teeth and stabbed downwards, the blade just barely kissing the leader’s skin before Chrollo’s hands were torn away. Silva grabbed held him in a grip as firm as iron bars, refusing to let him kill the disgusting creature between his thighs.

“Get off me, Silva,” Chrollo hissed, trying and failing to shake off the hunter’s grip. “I’m going to kill him.”

“Normally I wouldn’t give a shit what you did with scum like this, but if you want to waste a hundred gold, do it on your own time,” Silva shot, his hands tightening around Chrollo’s wrists and making no move to loosen. He let out a rough breath and lifted Chrollo bodily away from the prone man.

Chrollo protested the moment his feet left the ground. “Let me go!” he ordered, shoving at Silva until he deigned to set him down a few feet away. He ripped himself free of the hunter’s hands and tried to fix his clothing, his breath coming too fast to really calm down. “Don’t do that. And don’t tell me what to do. If I want to kill him, I will!”

Silva loomed over him, crossing his arms in a way that was meant to intimidate. “You won’t,” he argued. “That man has a bounty on his head, Chrollo. One I intend to claim.”

“Then we can turn in his corpse,” Chrollo hissed, refusing to be cowed by a man who did next to nothing that whole fight.

“And get half the reward? Like hell I’ll let you lose me that much gold.” He dug into his bag for a moment and drew out a crumpled piece of parchment, shoving it against Chrollo’s chest before turning back towards the prone man. “I don’t care if he hurt your pride, or insulted you, or whatever it is you’re feeling. This is business, not vengeance. Learn the fucking difference.”

Chrollo glared daggers at the hunter but unfolded the parchment, seeing it as the bounty Silva was talking about. It had a vaguely sketched likeness of the man lying in the dirt along with a bulleted list of his various crimes. Thief, highwayman, drunkard, murderer. The list went on and on, punctuated with a large set of numbers that boasted the reward for his capture. It was a lot of gold. Almost as much as Chrollo had blown on hiring Silva.

Looking up, he saw Silva already binding the man with rope from his bag, looping some sort of manacles around the man’s limp wrists. “And you think that it’s better to just give this man to the authorities than end him for what he just did to us?” he demanded, stomping over to give the unconscious thief a good kick to the ribs.

“If I held a grudge for every time I had someone try to cut my purse or rob me on the road,” Silva said, looking up with a put upon air about him, “then I would never turn in a single bounty. He’ll get what’s coming to him when I sell him to the sentries. What happens to him after that doesn’t concern me.”

Chrollo bit his lip, the logic of it all warring it out with everything he his mind was telling him to do. “That’s not how Drow do things,” he said quietly, taking a step back as Silva hefted the bandit onto his shoulder, standing up with a muted grunt. “If we were in the Underdark, we would flay him alive for trying to do what he just did.”

“Then I’m glad we’re up here,” Silva huffed, nodding towards his axe still on the ground. “I’d hate to have to deal with the clean up that would entail. Grab my axe, would you? Unless you’d rather carry this guy’s fat ass all the way to the nearest guard post.”

“You’re really doing this,” Chrollo said flatly, his eyes widening when he grabbed the axe and hefted. His muscles strained as he struggled to lift it from the ground, dragging it up and nearly tipping himself over when he tried to settle it on his shoulder the way Silva carried it. How did Silva make it look so easy? This thing had to weigh more than Chrollo did.

Silva laughed a little, smiling as he watched Chrollo sweat. “I really am,” he said, nodding his head in a seemingly random direction. “Now come on. We need to get away from these bodies and get you someplace off the road.”

Chrollo took a step, and then another. He tried to make a rhythm with his movements to keep him from unbalancing under the foreign weight. “Aren’t we going to the sentries?” he asked. The unconscious bandit was hanging like a limp doll, jaw slack and temple bloodied. What an ugly sight.

Leading through some tall grass, Silva slowed down a bit so Chrollo could catch up. “No,” he said slowly, enunciating as if speaking to a child. “ I am going to the sentries. You’re going to sit your ass down and wait for me to get back.”

The axe thumped to the ground, Chrollo giving up on trying to lug it. “Excuse me?” he asked. “You’re not leaving me behind. I told you that already.”

“And I told you that there are rules to this arrangement,” Silva said, turning around to glare at him. He wrinkled his nose irritably when he caught sight of how Chrollo had dropped his weapon. “You think I can just walk up to some armed sentries with you in tow and expect them to hand over gold to me?”

Chrollo felt his lips curl into a pronounced frown. “I’m not a burden for you to abandon at will,” he said, glaring hotly at the hunter. “I held my own against them better than you did. I can keep up with your precious work.”

“This isn’t about that,” Silva said, and Chrollo’s anger stuttered for a moment at the almost begrudgingly proud look Silva wore. “You held your own. I was surprised by it, sure, but you did. That’s why I’m not throwing a fit about leaving you alone here. But I’m serious. I can’t walk up to some sentries with a Drow. They’d kill you on sight and then move on to me for not doing it myself the moment I saw you.”

The grass was thick beneath his feet. Thick and green and speckled with wildflowers. Chrollo stared down at it as his ears burned. Praise was the last thing he expected to hear up here, let alone from someone like Silva. He looked up when Silva cleared his throat impatiently. Chrollo swallowed. He didn’t want to stay behind. He didn’t, but it wasn’t a bad call to make.

“Fine,” Chrollo sighed, plopping himself down onto a patch of soft grass. “Don’t think this is going to be a common thing, though. I’m not going to let you leave me behind all the time.”

“Whatever, brat.” Silva bounced the man higher up onto his shoulder reached down for the fallen axe, navigating it onto his back. “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone,” he said en lieu of a goodbye, turning on his heel and making off towards the road.

He was acting like he knew well enough where he was going. Hopefully that it wouldn’t be a long wait. Chrollo watched him leave, letting out a breath once he disappeared over a hill.

Waiting had never been Chrollo’s forte. He wasn’t patient and he wasn’t accustomed to being kept waiting. For a moment, he pondered following Silva anyway, but in the end he decided against it. As rude as Silva had been in saying it, the fact that the sentries would kill him on sight wasn’t an exaggeration. Being on the surface had taught Chrollo a few things, and near the top of that list was not to trust people to be kind when they had no reason to be, especially to someone like him.

It was just so boring to sit here. Chrollo kicked at the dirt and let out a sigh, throwing himself down onto his back to stare at the clouds as they rolled by. That at least was something novel, the clouds. He had never really seen them before this trip to the surface. They looked unbelievably soft, like spun spidersilk wound in airy little tufts. Chrollo reached up a hand as if he could touch them, smiling to himself. If he managed to hold one, he doubted it would feel like spidersilk. That was something for below. The sky deserved better.

Hours passed slowly, Chrollo giving in to the urge to doze. Lights danced behind his eyes, the soft breeze rolling over his bare skin like a cool, considerate touch. He shivered a little and bit his lip, rolling onto his shoulder as if he could shake off the thought. His hips ached a little from Silva’s rough grip, his shoulder from the bandit’s yanking. It seemed like every touch he got up here was mean. Every touch but the wind’s. What was Hisoka doing right now, he wondered. Chrollo didn’t need to wonder much on what he would be doing if Chrollo were still there.

It took awhile, but Silva arrived without much fanfare eventually. He made his presence known loudly enough to jostle Chrollo from his partial rest, at any rate. Silva stomped his way into the makeshift camp, axe balanced on his empty shoulder and a weariness about him that looked a bit more pronounced than what a simple hike should have prompted.

Chrollo sat up straight and looked at him. “Did it go alright?” he asked. “Did he stay out the whole time?”

“Unfortunately,” Silva said, rolling his eyes. “I would’ve made him walk himself there if he had. Lazy bastard.” He grumbled under his breath like the cantankerous man he was, approaching Chrollo. As he walked, he reached into his pocket, pulling something out that was nearly hidden in his large hand.

“Here,” Silva grunted, dropping a small pouch into Chrollo’s lap. It jingled when it landed, heavier than he expected it to be.

“What is this?” he asked lifting it up. He tugged at the drawstrings as Silva took in the grass around them, tossing down his bag and then himself with a groan of exhaustion. The pouch opened up and the sunlight reflected off the gold in a blinding display. Chrollo’s jaw fell open.

“Your cut,” Silva called out from his slumped spot, dragging his bag under his head as a pillow. “For the bounty.”

“My cut? I get some?” he breathed. “But I thought this was your job, not mine.”

Silva grunted and rolled onto his shoulder, turning his back to Chrollo. “Yeah, well, you took down those men. It’d leave a bad taste in my mouth if I took all the reward for a job I didn’t fuckin’ do.” He sounded rueful, as if he hadn’t expected Chrollo to be capable in a fight. “Now, shut up. Don’t say anything about it. I’m going to take a nap. Keep watch, would you?”

“Yeah,” Chrollo laughed, emptying the pouch out into his hand. As the money settled in his cupped palms, Chrollo had to smile. “No problem.”

Perhaps this arrangement could work after all.

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