cassie knows she looks like a character from a slasher flick; she's covered in monster guts and blood that's already matting onto her tanned skin. the dried blood makes her lightning-blue eyes stand out even more than usual, a big, fat warning sign to those who would try to challenge her. the monster attacks on new york city are becoming more frequent, each fight more difficult than the last. this one in particular⸺a relative of the kraken?⸺was frustrating as it was exhilarating (which is concerning in its own right).
she's vaguely aware of the fact that her sword is trembling, her roughened palm squeezing the pommel of the weapon tightly. it's the adrenaline, she tells herself. she's in survival mode still, and coming down from the high.
trying to regulate her breathing, cassie takes in her surroundings. the roof she's hovering over looks like a fucked up finger-painting, the only parts not covered in violence are where she and tim had been standing. speaking of tim... cassie took the brunt of the viscera, but tim isn't much better. she watches as he nudges a lump of flesh off the ledge before looking up at her. cassie's moved without thinking, closer to him than before.
❝ sorry, thought i would've taken it all. ❞
her voice is raspier than she expected as she gestures to their general area. the innuendo isn't lost on her. it's the adrenaline, she repeats. except this adrenaline feels different; this feels very much i'm about to do something dumb and stay up all night thinking about it afterwards. cassie can't meet his eyes, but she also can't not look at him. there is something alluring about her best friend after a battle and covered in blood.
⸺GODS, she's a weirdo, isn't she? her best friend kicks ass, and she wants to make out with him because he kicks ass.
it's all she can say before she takes him by the back of his neck and crushes their mouths together. there is no cliff to be jumped, no great risk to be taken; it feels like coming home after a long day. she looks like a fucking wreck (let's be honest, though, when doesn't she?) and she's clumsy in her kiss. cassie knows the general idea of kissing, having watched a ton of romcoms with cissie and greta, and she's doing terrible oh aphrodite help her!
the panic sets in, replacing the adrenaline, as cassie very much realizes that she may have fucked up her relationship with tim. (and she couldn't even give him a good kiss while doing it? embarrassing.) she pulls away, expression doing its best impression of a deer right before it's hit by a car.
❝ i gotta go. i can hear my mom calling me. ❞
and with that, she's gone, leaving tim to handle the aftermath.
an adrenaline-fueled kiss while standing on the ledge of a roof top. @zipkick