unrelenting_rhapsody | You know, it's probably the carbon monoxide levels....

Who: Dera and Yama
When: Some time after the damn company softball game.
What: Well, and then there were Thunderbirds.

Dera leaned his head back against the overly warm metal and giggled tiredly. Yes, he giggled. It all seemed so damn stupid now. It had been a normal day after all. Yama had been stretched out in the break room after the morning workouts, and he'd been reading a book, his legs draped over his partners...granted, it was a safer book than normal, but no point in taking chances. So, yeah, a normal afternoon mingling with the other agents before getting called off to the office.

It seemed a good week for monster migration. Everyone was getting pulled, their personal assignment? Get their asses to California and tag the first pair of Thunderbirds anyone had seen in decades. Tag. Like they were fucking Bald Eagles or something.

Sure, they were endangered and sure they were awesome as fuck and all that? But tagging. For fucks sake! Their lead had suggested drugging the cattle being stolen so the birds would sleep. Simple plan. Yeah.

Except the fucking BIRDS HADN'T EATEN THE DAMN COWS. One of the pair had scooped up unripe burger and they'd flown off, they were halfway along the flight trail in tailing the pair when the damn things came back. He'd been the one to reach out and grip Yama's wrist; they couldn't kill the birds...plus a sword would be a VERY BAD IDEA with LIGHTNING BIRDS. It wasn't exactly magic, his partner's powers might not cancel out a natural ability like energy conduction.

FUCK FUCK FUCK "Kiss the dirt!" DOWN DOWN DOWN!

The birds were grabbing more cows.

THE FUCK WOULD THEY NEED MORE COWS FOR?

In hindsight he should have figured that one out; when they ran out of cows to snag they went after anything that even moved. Or after anything that had a bioeletric impulse system. He was pretty sure they sensed nerve conduction. And it kinda fucking hurt when they got picked up by giant birds and yanked upward fast enough to force a nosebleed and then blacking out.

Why did normally private creatures migrate across country borders?

Nesting.

FUCKING NESTING.

The thunderbirds were set up in the local electric company; the factory burned coal and coke if the scrubbers and smoke stacks were any indication. And more importantly there was always a dim layer of smog before the tops of the exhaust vents were visible. The birds were practically invisible in their chosen heights. They had pulled the top scrubber out of one stack and were stuffing cows (and agents) down in the space between the main cycler and the outer steel plating. Apparently babies preferred their meat smoked. He came to with his head stuffed at an awkward angle under Yama's arm, his chin bearing the brunt of his weight since most of his body was wedged above his damn chin and against Yama....and cow. Well then. He was kind of grateful he hadn't broken his damn neck in the drop?

The birds were sitting at the top of the smoke pipe. They were blocking smoke release.

And CO2 release.

And that was probably why he giggled helplessly once he managed to wiggle off his damn chin. "Shiiiiiit....this can kill us!" Carbon Monoxide poisoning was not a dignified way to go really.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I don't whine." Except that came out sounding suspiciously like a whine itself. It was entirely possible he was putting it on, but also entirely possible he wasn't.

But he had to push up to his feet again to grab the bottom of the ladder, just when he was getting really comfy, too. He nodded for Gokudera to go first; they'd found over the years that it was a lot easier for Gokudera to set the pace and trust Yamamoto to keep close enough for his powers to work than vice versa. The last thing they needed was frogs on a helicopter.

"If I hit a bruise you whimper," he pointed out. "Do you know just how fucking heart breaking that is? I swear you do it on purpose!"

But yes, time to leave their oxygen deprived and meat packed cocoon and get the hell toward home for showers. Ye gods.

Which, of course, meant that Yamamoto's first words as he flopped onto the bed of the helicopter, edging over to make way for the agent to pull the ladder up after them, were, "Hey, tell him I don't whimper, okay?"

As often as they both came back slightly off after missions, the agent just blinked at both of them instead of calling their mental health into question out loud. Whatever this was, he was obviously not getting in the middle of it.

"Hey, don't try to bring them in on this, defend your fucking self!" Dera noted, making a move to punch Yama's shoulder...and deciding he was too tired midway so he just kind of slumped back against his partner.

"Hour to drop point," the pilot offered. "Showers and crash there and a new team will get you back to HQ. We had to scramble everyone to get the damn nest you found relocated."

'Check that shit out, I'm rubbing off on the pilots." Dera chuckled.

Eh... he sort of encouraged slumping, anyway. It was comfortable and there was contact and stuff. Getting some fresh air was nice, too, for a change, and he let his eyes closed as he settled in himself. His mind clearing was helping him notice a few things he probably should let medical look at, but he could ignore it for now. "Don't do that. There's only one of me, I can't be the only person that can stand all of them."

"The language needed help regardless," he snorted, feeling his own eyes drift shut. Fuck this kind of deal. He was putting 'stuffed in a meat larder' on his 'deserves double time pay' list, yes. "I'll just try not to give them any other traits and you'll still have a fucking unique partner okay?"

If anyone tried to argue that they didn't deserve the 'extra, super, no really' hazard pay for this assignment, Yamamoto... well, he didn't know, and he was too tired to think of something properly dire right now, but something. Something would happen, if only because his doing something would keep Gokudera from doing something, and Gokudera's somethings were usually a lot worse than his.

Damn, he was tired.

He snorted half-heartedly. "S'okay, it'd take years for anyone to get as unique as Gokudera, anyway. Can head 'em off at the pass." Whatever that meant.

Yeah, well, the accounting office could try to parse that one when Yama showed up instead of Dera? 'For their own good' wasn't exactly a ticky box they knew about.

"Damn straight. Besides, I'd have to declare myself against my evil clone and hunt it to the death and shit and that would get messy and would scare the pets."

This time, he snickered under his breath, leaning more heavily on Gokudera as he let himself properly relax. A rambling Gokudera was funny. "That'd be bad, yeah."

Yeah, well, everyone knew that Yamamoto stuck with him for the entertainment value and shit. "And then they kill us in our sleep and and things just end fucking bad," he sighed. "Let's not. Did I do the paperwork for hazard pay yet?"

Entertainment value was pretty high up the list, yeah. Right below 'sparkling personality.' "Thought they said we'd maxed out for the year or something." Was that possible? He had no idea. Payroll was a mysterious thing that just happened, for the most part, and he was fine with that.

"Wake me up when we get to base so I can go fucking yell at HR then..." he noted, draping an arm over his eyes. "I check regs on that, hazard pay DOESN'T max out as long as we continue to be placed in hazardous situations and shit."

"If our whole job is hazardous, shouldn't they just always pay hazard pay?" Did that make too much sense or not enough sense? And was the pilot laughing at them or was it his imagination?

"We signed up for a certain level of it..." he admitted grumpily. "But we should get them to evaluate shit better." Yes. Much better.

The pilot was totally laughing at them, bastard.

He'd stop laughing when Yamamoto picked some sort of unidentified gloop off his pants and chucked it toward the front of the cockpit.

"To be fair, most stuff that tries to eat us does it a lot faster. I don't think we've ever been kept for later before." Although there was that one weird time with the dhampir but he still didn't know why that guy had really wanted to keep them around. He hadn't been so bad in the end.

"Hey no throwing things at the driver!" the pilot yelped, shifting to glare over his shoulder.

"Earned it," Dera snorted. "And larder or no larder we fucking earned overtime and hazard on this one!"

Yamamoto gave the pilot a cheerful wave. "Gotcha!"

He would conveniently forget the next time he needed to throw something, but for now, he'd pretend to take the new rule under advisement. At least, as much advisement as he could take anything when he was obviously settling in to take a nap against Gokudera. "Earned a nap, too. Wake me up when we get there."

"Lazy ass kitsune," he snorted, draping an arm across the man anyway. "Fine, you can live, pilot. Not your fault anyway." Technically, so yeah. Fiiine.

"Still filing for hazard."

You know, it's probably the carbon monoxide levels....

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