in the newly silent park, the thought fills her head entirely: if he has enough wit in him to be an ass, then her concern has been entirely misplaced.
unfortunately, she’s not blind to the way his suit stains into a deeper blue, nor the bandages that peek underneath. another faye would have been hard-pressed to snap back with something⸺ one that wasn’t a beggar posing with the dignity of a chooser. the corner of her lips twitch with the need to scoff, voice shaped by the bite of a hiss, “ i could, in exchange for a ride. ”
faye stands, proud from not reaching for his shoulder and spitefully squeezing like she would’ve wanted. “ you have way more experience getting shot, though. i’d rather just make sure you don’t faint in the process. ” she saunters ahead, the click of her heels reverberating. to act as though she doesn’t see the familiar pile of battered steel they pass by tastes bitter under her tongue, but no grimace betrays her.
the infirmary is small like an afterthought, mint-green and doorless. a tired sigh: the shelves have been looted, and the lights don’t even work. she gestures for him to sit regardless, rummaging wherever her height allows her. two thin strips of bandages and a quarter of an antiseptic is the last of what she can find, let alone find usable. “ lady bounty might’ve been on your side, but lady luck ? not so much. can you make do ? ” she tugs a stool her way and sits before him, mouth drying at the sight: he’s pale, pale enough to notice in the dim lighting. faye swallows thickly, rolls her shoulders, and begins unraveling one of the bandages for him. “ . . . this makes us even. ” and it sounds as if she actually has kept score. for less than two heartbeats, her hands halt the ministrations. “ for letting me keep the video tape, i mean. ”
“ What ever happened to ‘you break it, you buy it’? ” Spike tosses his shoulders in a shrug of dismissal, and at a scalding stripe of pain, smuggles a wince through a clearing of his throat. “ You crash it, you cart it out of here. ” He responds without a speck of tenderness. With an ugly little sneer, even.
. . . Still, Spike follows Faye when she meanders ahead. Sauntering a few torpid steps behind her, he carries with him the wordless promise — the favor, the inevitability — of a tow.
As they walk together through the wide, yawning void of the empty park, Spike thinks briefly of Pierrot. Then, before a feeling can take shape, he remembers that Pierrot is dead and does not matter anymore.
Indifferent, Spike allows the dense, lifeless body of silence to hang gallows - like overhead.
— - Sooner than he had expected, Faye finds the infirmary. . . . Or the sorry excuse for one, anyway. He follows her into the tight, greasy darkness of what he might generously call a shack.
Favoring the idea enough to comply, he sits where she'd directed him to — - - - - and with a sudden, dizzying surge of nausea, the chair rockets up to meet him. As he slumps his weight into its hard plastic, he's careful to keep his expression careless and even.
“ Guess we'll see. ” The answer is casual, but he'd failed to suppress a hiss as she'd begun to peel the browned and soiled bandages from the tender edge of his wound.
When Faye falters, he breathes out a sigh of relief. But the weight of her pause hadn’t been lost on him. He waits for her to clarify, and when she does, it's his turn for pause.
Spike considers Faye for a breath, then two, and then answers: “ Jet's the one who paid the C.O.D., ” by way of telling her not to mention it.
He thinks, before he can help it, of the Faye in the tape. Then, before a feeling can take shape, he remembers that the Faye in the tape was a stranger long dead — long beyond mattering.
When he looks at the Faye in front of him, he sees in vivid color and fullness the only Faye he's ever known. He looks for no one else.
Before he can say anything more, he sucks a sharp breath through his teeth and scowls. “ Jesus, Faye; you're not peeling an onion. ”
baratheonpilled
titsay