They said he was going soft, real soft. Soft like the congealed grime in the cracked sidewalk outside of All Foods, and until he sat down on the transit seat Dum Dum ignored all that noise. Soft? Him? Hot bullshit, not worth the rebuttle save for a pointed glare and a dare for somebody, anybody, with the balls to “say that a-fucking-gain” to say it to his face and see what happens next. That's all it would take, a dare, a promise for violence, and no one would say a peep, not to him.
But fuck, maybe he was. Maybe a part of Dum Dum was a little tender, because why the hell was he riding the Metro?
Dum Dum frowned at the quiet comment that pulled him out of his mild existential crisis. Her head rested on his legs, dark hair fanned over his canvas cargos and smelling like amber and sweat, something heady that made his receptors spin. Shit, could fucking huff it.
Maybe Cappie hadn't meant for him to hear it, her observation, but then she spoke again in that soft drawl of hers that was born in a place far away from California.
“The tracks, how it kinda jolts,” she added before taking a drag from her cigarette. “Swear I can feel each fuckin' one.”
“Probably do. Shit's run down.”
Hazel eyes flickered to consider his point before drifting off with a new line of thinking he wasn't privy to. Full of weird ideas, her mind, like taking the Metro that afternoon because “I haven't tried it yet”, or going to holes in the wall that even Dum Dum didn’t give a second glance to, or exploring alley ways to see some graffiti, or dive bars and uppity clubs with too high of cover charges. And he took her, followed her down every Unknown like he was her fucking tour guide. Every fucking time, because fuck, who was he to tell this Aldecaldo princess with the thick ass, sunset eyes, and the survival instincts of a paper bag, “No”?
“Fuckin' soft,” grumbled Dum Dum.
The cigarette was waved before his red optics, tendrils of smoke that curled in his nose and mixed with the sweetness of her skin.
“Yeah,” she crooned. “Fuckin' are.”
Drawing his cyberware has taken years off my life, friends
And look, I actually wrote something!