Disclaimer: DOGS: Bullets and Carnage belongs to Shirow Miwa.

Author's Note: I'm still waiting to see if my claim for the 30_kisses has been approved, but I'm going to write it anyways because I love them.

Signs of Life

Theme: #19 Red

Haine walked into the church. His footsteps echoing through the pews as they go. It's been a long day for him and frankly, he's glad no one's here. His eyes twitch towards the rows of wooden pews. Most of them are chipped and worn down with splinters lurking at every corner, but that doesn't stop him from the nagging feeling that he should sit down and try for forgiveness.

Forgiveness? Inwardly, he laughs at himself for even thinking that. Far too many years gone, and far too many wasted. And then he thinks of her.

Her innards and blood etched upon his hand. Red like the lipstick women love to smear on. Red like their lips, when they pucker and pout. Red like their curved fingernails, waggling at him to stay the night. And suddenly, there's too much red. It blurs his vision, spinning and twirling, and engulfing just like before.

Haine, Haine. Haine.

It's speaking again, and he feels limp within its clutches. A calmness falls upon his heart and it's a peace that he hasn't felt in a long time. But it's unsettling, and he feels this wave of something lurking in between the lines. This is enough to set him off, and he struggles in the vice-like grip it's wrapped around his neck. He scratches, pulls and finally, he catches something.

"Warm.." His vision slowly starts to clear

He sees blurs of pale blonde across his eyes. His thoughts immediately focus to Nill. Oh god, what had he done.

Images of things he would've given up his life to forget, come raging into Haine's mind. He feels a slight wetness upon his fingertips, and everything in his body screams not to open his eyes, but it's too late.

A sniffle gives him courage. Almost inaudible to human ears, but it was enough. Like a tap to send him over the cliff, so to speak.

All dread leave his body when he sees that Nill is there, with her arms wrapped around him: breathing, moving, and alive. He's afraid to move, or even twitch, because he might just break through this cruel fantasy the world gave him, and see her broken body in his arms-with limbs stretched and placed in ways he couldn't even imagine-become reality.

He scans her body for red and for any sign signaling anything other than her being alright. When Haine sees nothing to be discovered, he taps his pinky gingerly on her back to make sure that this wasn't just another sick fantasy, created by the monster he calls himself.

Finally, he lets himself relax, if only just a quarter of an inch. Haine glances down at Nill and sees that her face was still pressed tight against his blood stained shirt, riddled with bullet holes, and the occasional knife-slash from that day's job.

"Oi..Nill.." He begins, but before he could finish she looks up at him in a way he can't describe. Haine's seen many things throughout his pathetic example of a life, but none could quite define Nill's eyes. It wasn't pity, nor was it hate.

Even if it'd been less than a second, it already irritated him more than Badou did when he didn't have his cigarettes. He just couldn't figure out what it was. The gunman gave a little sigh, and the corners of his mouth tugged to form the closest thing he could give as a smile.

Nill smiled at his perplexed stare, and squeezes him just a bit tighter, as if it could make him a bit more happier.

She saw him enter the church, and was about to bound up happily to him, when she saw him start to through things left and right in a blind fury. At first, she backed away on her honed instinct after many years of running and escaping, but then she heard a tremor in his voice as he screamed and cursed. He was in pain, and Nill decided at that very moment that Haine was a person who had enough pain to last him 10 lifetimes already.

With a little determined huff of bravery-her version of a battle cry, since her vocal cords were as useful as toes without feet-she half-fluttered, half-ran and tackled straight into him. She winced and prepared for the blows, but they never came. Instead, she saw tears bunching up in his eyes like raindrops caught on a spider web.

It muddled his red eyes, and caused them to seem almost pink in color. The tears slided down his cheek, and over his jawbone.

Nill's eyes traced their path until they reached the metallic blood rusted collar, and into the crevice out of sight. It reminds her of the things he may have been through, and all the things she couldn't even possibly fathom happening to him.

It wells up inside her, and she doesn't even realize when she starts to cry with him.

"..Are...you alright?" Haine starts awkwardly, when he catches the droplets and dried tear-stains.

Nill looks back up to him again, and places her hand on his cheeks, and rubs out the remaining tears left around the rims of his eyes. She cocks her head slightly to a side, and gives him a little tender worried smile.

Haine knows her well-enough to see that it was her way of saying "Are you?" It was just now that he was made aware that he had tears. That makes more sense.

His eyes softened out at this and he gives a little nod to reassure her. "Yeah..I guess I am."

She quirks up at this and straightens up so she's at eye level with the albino man in front of her. In one swift motion, she slaps her two palms on each of his cheeks-catching him off-guard- and causes his lips to pucker up like a fish. The little lolita then puffs her cheeks up and places her fore head on his.

Haine's first reaction was to pull back, but after he sees her eyes sparkle with the laughter she'll never be able to express, he can't help but give a tiny half-hearted grin back. He feels her index finger drawing characters on his temple, and realizes that she's signing to him.

Haine was surprised that she knew how to write some characters. He figured that the priest had taken to teaching her how to write after realizing that the only letters she knew, were the ones that spelled her name.

"Bi..shoop..told..meh...you..wi..ked...fwi..sh." Haine stared blankly back at her, with his fish lips. "Bishoop told yooh I wiked fwish." He blinks a few times, as if he heard it wrong.

"Ah.." He makes a mental note to stuff sardines in the blind priest's robes. Live ones. He was already damned, so might as well.

Nill can't contain herself anymore, and she bursts violently into fits of giggles. However the only sounds that come from it, are the gasps of air that she inhales and exhales. After a while, Nill calms down and lays her head upon Haine's lap, as he absent-mindedly fiddled with the ends of her tresses.

It had been a long time since he had visited, and she wanted to make the most of it, because the fear that he might abandon her, like all the others before, was never really far from the back of her mind.

So they sit there in the middle of the church-in the midst of strewn about pews, and broken stained glass windows. They sit there, and a fragment of life-that has been many years lost to the world-comes back to them.