Dorian was staring at a bullet, which was hovering several inches away from his face. .45 caliber, from what he could tell, and probably hollow point, judging by the way it flattened after it impacted the invisible wall in front of him. If he had been a few moments slower, it would have done that inside his head. He broke eye contact with the armed men on the other side of that wall for only a second, just to see whether any of his colleagues had taken cover in time.

They hadn’t. As such, he no longer had any colleagues in this part of town. A shame; he liked Ramon and his associates, and he admired the little money laundering / drug distribution operation they had going in this dry cleaners.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

Being the fine, intelligent young men that they were, they must have thought the invisible object blocking their bullets would stop existing if they shot more bullets at it. The invisible wall continued to exist, despite their careful calculations, and the majority of those bullets ricocheted off of it, shredding some of the clothes in the back of the dry cleaning establishment and making a terrible noise that hurt Dorian’s ears.

click click click

Empty magazines. Or were they clips? As a hardened criminal, Dorian felt like he should really – goddammit now is not the time to think about the technical terms for gun parts get out get out get out!

The back door burst open. Dorian nearly tripped over himself, shaking with nervous energy and the fear of death, as he sprinted down the alleyway. The angry armed men followed, fumbling with their clips, or magazines, or whatever-the-hell-they-kept-their-bullets-in, trying to ready their contraband handguns to let off a few more shots.

A nearby homeless man decided that there were much better and safer places for him to warm his hands on a trash can fire. These places would probably have less gunfire and more actual fire, each of which he would greatly appreciate.

There was warmth, and light. His petitioner came to His side nightly as the hours grew long and the moon low, and held his hands to Him in silent prayer for His blessings. After days of wandering in this hellishly cold city, Bennu had at last come into his own.

And when-so-ever His flames ran low, the hobo was quick to put more newspaper on top of him.

All was well with the ancient god. Granted that his accommodations were a bit... lacking, but all temples started small. At least he was warm again. And his feathers were picking up quite a well-smoked aroma. He had found His kingdom, and His people. Well, person. But his congregation was a growing one; when he'd come to New York he'd had no followers, and now he had at least 110% more than that.

...That is, if modern warfare didn't chase his lone parishioner away.

The bird at the bottom of the bin rustled his head up through the tangle of blackened cardboard and plywood, and out into the chill Autumn air. With a shrug of his wings, he stood still taller, until one golden eye rose above the edge of his metal sanctuary.

...Yes, that was his hobo, running away. Modern men: they simply had no faith that their gods would actually protect them. That's what they got for believing in distant deities, who withheld their judgments until death. Bennu, now; Bennu had always been ready to deliver hellfire in the here and now.

The gold eye narrowed, and turned on the culprits. Several men, with inelegant metal guns in their hands, giving chase to a single shaking target. Heh. He reminded Bennu of someone, with that curly mess of hair. And the long legs, with their ungainly ground-eating pace as he fled from imminent doom. He even had the same way of stumbling in abject fear of life and limb, and glancing back with—

--That angular face. Those eyes. Bennu had mistaken a few faces in his day, but he would never forget that one.

In a roar of flames, the phoenix rose from the trashes.

The trailing man with the attackers was given no time to repent, and his soul was by no accounts saved.

A roar of flame. Screams.

Dorian pretended to bump into an invisible wall, then hid behind it. He turned around and saw a – was that a bird? – surrounded by flames. One of the gunmen had just become extra crispy, and the other three had stopped to wave their guns at the bird and show off their colorful vocabularies.

He didn't know what the hell was going on here, but he didn't need to. Whatever it was, it meant that he had the advantage. Now was his chance for revenge. He drew an invisible pistol from an imaginary holster. It made a satisfying click as he pulled the hammer back, though his targets wouldn’t have heard it. Just as they opened fire on the bird, he squeezed a round into the back of the gunman closest to him.

The man crumpled underneath him; the scent of burnt offerings filled the air. The fiery bird turned its golden eyes on the remaining three. Their mouths moved, but all he could hear was the steady silence within the veil of his own flames.

He didn't really care what they had to say. Shout, scream, or plead; it was all a moot point. They were dead. They had been dead since he decided it; nothing but meaningless noise could come from them now.

The men were reading their weapons.

The fire surged upwards as the guns went off, engulfing the bird in a blinding white column that wreaked havoc with their aim, particularly as the bird they were aiming for ceased to exist. The flames didn't so much settle as they shrouded; the feather-haired man who took the bird's place was distinctly naked, but the reds and yellows banked against his skin left him anything but unclothed.

The first thing he did? Punch the first face he saw. From the screaming and rolling on the asphalt, he judged that he'd have to come back to that one. In a moment.

Another was crumpling, struck from behind by something far more subtle. Not even he had seen what it was. But then, that was hardly a surprise.

"About time you helped, Ta—"

That's the point where the remaining man shot him. It hit his left shoulder; a clean, close-range shot that sent the bullet straight through. The god looked down at his wound.

The utter detachment in his eyes should have been terrifying, to anyone with a survival instinct.

"Did you want this one," he asked his old friend, leaning a little to the side to see around the man with the gun, "or may I have the honors?"

The remaining gunman was acting like he’s never seen a bird turn into a flaming, naked black guy and punch one of his friends in the face before. Dorian couldn’t say that he had, either, but he wasn’t exactly phased. Sometimes, a bird engulfed in flame turns into a naked black man and punches people in the face; this was just a fact of the world, and Dorian could deal with that better than most.

Apparently, the naked dude was under the impression that he and Dorian were bros. Dorian didn’t have a problem with that. In fact, Dorian had never been happier in his life to run into a naked guy he didn’t know. The typical naked person Dorian met on the street at night was far less pleasant.

Fiery naked guy could care less about getting shot. The shot didn’t hit anything important, at least. The man with the gun probably could have nailed him in the face, if he didn’t insist on holding the gun sideways like an idiot so he couldn’t aim.

Did Dorian want the last kill? He rubbed his chin, mulled it over, and ultimately shrugged. As long as the guy got seriously wounded, it was all good. But he appreciated the gesture! This guy was seriously considerate; the other possibly-insane naked men wandering the streets that night would do well to learn from his example.

Said last kill decided to open fire on the mime. The bullets bounced harmlessly off of the invisible wall between them. He gave the hapless thug a disappointed look: really, guy? You still think that’s gonna work?

“Oh f#@% me,” moaned the thug.

As last words went, Bennu had heard better. As last actions went, he'd seen better, as well. Turning one's back on a vengeful god? No matter the age into which a man was born, that had never been deemed wise.

It was what it was, though. Some were born to light the world on fire; some were born to become ash. Bennu settled a hand on the moaning man's head, and obliged him his fate.

"Much appreciated," the black man said with a cordial nod to his curly-haired companion, prodding the newly charcoaled corpse with an idle foot. The mortal had clearly been trying to kill his old friend, so the kill by rights was his; but it the guy had shot Bennu. If ever the god had needed an excuse for fiery retribution, that about did it.

Which reminded him.

They were alone, right? Besides the guy he'd punched, who seemed to have passed out; or at least, the rolling and screaming had ceased. Bennu furtively glanced around.

Yes. They were alone.

"Also; oww. If we ever meet that time jumper again, we need to find the man who invented guns, and shot him. Agreed?"

They were alone. That meant that the immortal god could press a hand to his wound and properly cringe now. Oww blood loss oww.

Or to put it more eloquently: Oh f#@% me, this hurt.

…Time jumper?

…Apparently, the probably-insane naked man thought that they were old friends, and that they had gone on all kinds of adventures together. While Dorian was happy that the crazy naked guy saved his life, he didn’t like the idea that this guy was going to stick around, and that he had the power to kill him, and that he might decide to kill him as soon as he realizes they aren’t old friends.

Unless this guy was from the future-dream. He didn't think this guy was from the future dream. He would remember a guy with power like that.

Dorian answered that comment with a smirk, and several moments of eye contact.

Then, he knelt down next to the man lying on the ground with the bullet wound in his back, careful to avoid the small pool of blood next to him, so it wouldn’t stain his pants. With barely-audible elastic snaps, he mimed putting on a pair of latex gloves (it never hurt to be too careful) and checked the guy’s pulse with two fingers.

Already dead. The lucky bastard must have had his heart on the right side of his body, where the bullet wound in his back was. Lucky, because Dorian could have interrogated him otherwise. But the mute noticed a bulge in the man’s pants pocket. He plucked a wallet out of it, removed the driver’s license inside, then returned the wallet to the dead man’s pocket.

He held the license up for bird-man to see, whom he had been trying desperately to ignore for the short time it took him to get it. Maybe, the gesture would make it seem like they were still old buddies, or at least collaborators. There wasn’t much time for bird-man to look at it before Dorian stood and pocketed the thing, but he could probably figure out that it was a driver's license.

With a quaint level of caution, his old friend checked to make sure his target had expired. Or was he just raiding the corpse? Yes, definitely raiding the corpse; for an identifying token, it seemed. Bennu saw the dead man's portrait in a stunningly lifelike miniature before his friend tucked it away. For safe keeping and future retributions, no doubt. The guardian god strongly approved.

Of his friend's silence, he approved less. All that fiery manifestation of aptly timed divine intervention, and all he got was a smirk? A smirk, followed by what could almost be perceived as an attempt to ignore him.

Not that Bennu didn't know exactly what he'd done to earn that.

"I know, I know," the fire god said, crouching down next to the recently rifled body. "You're done with this, right?" With a level of casualness that spoke of far too much experience, the fire god began tearing the dead man's shirt into wide strips. He didn't particularly mind the bloody patches, either; with an internal temperature closer to boiling water than to the human norm, he generally didn't concern himself much with mortal disease. Also, he was bleeding rather a lot himself. Which was clearly the source of his old friend's studious silence.

"You don't need to say anything. I know I'm being wimp. Now would you stop pretending I'm not bleeding to death, and help me bandage this?" Because oww.

Not that Ta'wiz had ever had much patience for immortals in pain. The words 'suck it up' came to mind, in several languages.

...Wow. That was just asking for a blood-borne illness. However, rather than question the reasoning of the nude, super-powered madman, Dorian decided to keep him happy and do as he was told. At least the guy didn’t want him to talk, he couldn’t tell whether that ‘wimp’ comment was serious, or some kind of attempt at a joke.

He took hold of a strip of cloth and lifted the man’s left arm: a nonverbal instruction to hold it there for a moment while he wrapped the cloth several times tightly around his shoulder. All the while, he couldn’t help but notice that this guy was incredibly hot – literally, he had a high body temperature; let’s not get carried away – and the mime began to wonder if this guy was running a fever. Then again, he was also on fire not so long ago. Being on fire tended to increase one’s body temperature, as several unfortunate young men had just learned.

Once Dorian finished off the makeshift bandage with a tight knot (hopefully, that would stop the bleeding) he decided to try getting the message across that he couldn’t actually talk.

First, he held up a finger to get the man’s attention, making it clear that he was trying to communicate something. Then, he used slow, pronounced sign language to say ’I. Can’t. Talk.’ The guy would have to be an idiot not to figure out the first two words, but the sign language for “talk” involved holding up four fingers and tapping his chin. Not as obvious to non-signers.

Ta'wiz was... pointing. And hitting his fingers against each other. And wiggling them in front of his chin. He'd helped with the bandaging, but he still hadn't said a word; and now here he was, deliberately gesturing as if to convey that he wasn't going to say anything, almost as if—

Bennu knew exactly what this was.

"Oh, come on." The feather-haired god said, keeping his seat on the concrete, and giving his oh-so-mute companion an expression inundated with an eternity of exasperation. "You're still not talking to me? You cannot still be angry. Kingdoms have risen and fallen. Pantheons have died. Men fly in metal airplanes, and speak to each other through the ether across the span of continents. You. Cannot. Still be angry with me."

...He was. He definitely was. It was the only explanation.

What did any of that have to do with… what? Did this have anything to do with that time-jumping guy? Or was this guy just completely insane? Dorian was still leaning toward his ‘completely insane’ theory.

His hands fished through his pockets, finding a pen and a notepad. He wrote three words down on a page, then tore it out and handed it to the naked man. ’Can’t talk. Incapable.’ Just so there wouldn’t be any more bad blood between them, after all of those entirely fictional experiences they shared all those years ago.

Speaking of insanity, didn’t the Sanctuary offer free mental health services? Maybe Dorian ought to drag this guy back there with him. After getting him some clothes, first. The completely legitimate and respectable dry-cleaners would probably be able to help him out there, especially now that its owners were dead. They wouldn’t care. The mute gestured for the naked guy to follow him back over there.

His old friend had no answer to Bennu's exasperated pleas save his continued, flawless silence. More than that: he took out a notepad, and wrote a shot message, with curt underlining. This he handed to Bennu.

Bennu, for his part, took the paper with the patient indignity of centuries. His eyes never so much as flicked to the words; he did not and would not acknowledge the thrill of anxiety that crawled up his spine at the thought of reading them. Reading them, while some one else watched how long it took him to sound the syllables out.

Ta'wiz knew how little the ancient gods cared for reading. Give him language, yes; a culture's language was the framework of its existence. Writing was a purely unnecessary novelty that he refused to take part in.

"Now you're just being a jerk," he said. He kept his eyes firmly on his friend's as he obliterated the note in a flash of white flame.

"I hope you realize," he said, with a return to good humor, "that I won't be leaving your side until you get over this thing, and start talking to me again."

With that divine promise, the phoenix most willingly followed where his jerk of a friend led.

They went through the back entrance. Two dead men still lay on the ground, bullet wounds in their chests and heads. Dorian tried to ignore them, instead heading straight towards the clothes.

That red leisure suit looked like naked-guy’s size, if not a little bigger. It came with a matching pair of pants and a dress shirt. Not the kind of thing you’d wear to blend in, but it sure as hell beat being naked and literally on fire. He snatched these things off the rack and shoved them in the naked guy’s face. Implied: ‘Stop being naked.'