let's get these teen hearts beating faster, faster

[attitude]

She sees flashes of her old life in the new walls around her now. The flicker of ash, the hint of a spark — she can smell what accompanies it, smoke, billowing and dark and sudden, the crash of glass in the background, screams buried under the rest. There's a trickle of blood down her jawline, once sickly warm and now dried, cracking with the slightest movement, but Faye pays it no mind as she searches for a better place to hide — the shadows are too dangerous, the rooftops too restricting, and it feels ridiculous for her to be sitting on top of a stone statue in the park, and yet.

The frantic words of passerby have been enough to warn her of what's to come. Fears, manifesting and contorting, fears personified, all geared towards following their targets until they run out of breath. Some impossible thread of optimism twists itself in her stomach, but Faye doesn't keep her hopes raised too high as she stares about her, wondering if there's an end.

She wonders for a second too long.

There's a scatter of gravel in the distance, immediately setting her on edge as her eyes fly open, gun tugged from her hip with a rattle as she points it in the direction of the noise.

"Figures," she mutters to herself when recognition dawns, hesitantly starting to lower the weapon.

Comments

[bellpeppers]

"Yeah," Spike confirms, because it does figure. He looks relaxed enough with a loping walk and rounded shoulders, but there's a tightness making his face pale until she lowers the weapon, and until he walks close enough to get a good look at her. Faye.

It's hard to trust a familiar face here now - down here, Spike wants to say, like he's finally fallen to Hell from Purgatory. Familiar faces so far have tried to destroy him.

But Faye's not the same. Faye's not a dead woman.

Spike lifts his head to yawn (in earnest, he hasn't slept in over twenty-four hours) and stare at Faye a little longer, and then her choice in hiding spot.

"There? You'll have to climb down eventually. There's got to be a better spot to get a wide view. It'd be safer to move on."

No, where are we. No, what the hell is going on. Not even a, you too?

[attitude]

The lengthy stare raises a flicker of suspicion in Faye as she tilts her head, gazing more closely at Spike — the shadows underneath his eyes, the fatigue that weaves into his stance once he relaxes, the slight edge in his eyes. By the looks of it, he's been running more than she has, come across more threats than she has. Maybe she should feel lucky.

Instead, she just wonders if somehow, he's responsible for dragging her here.

It doesn't seem entirely implausible.

"Are you going to share with me where this better spot is?" Faye asks, gaze raised high and staring off into the distance. "Or do you plan on just mentioning it for kicks?"

[bellpeppers]

"Just come with me," he says, breathing hard despite the rambling walk he'd moved toward her in, hiding tiredness and tightness behind his usual disaffected pace.

He nods toward the road beyond the park.

"You're going to run out of ammo eventually. Wouldn't you rather let me finish eating through mine first?"

Which doesn't explain, of course, why Spike would want to let her do it. But he will. So maybe it doesn't need an explanation.

[attitude]

"What, so that we even the score? Settle debts?" Faye asks, brow arching and tone sharper than she intends for it to be, the grating a hint of all that she's yet to settle within herself, forgiveness only the tip of the iceberg. "I'd rather be responsible for saving my own ass."

A flicker of a gaze in his direction, then in the opposite, and she slips down to follow him anyway.

A tip's a tip.

"Looks like you've been having a harder time here than I have, anyway. Nothing's come directly my way."

[bellpeppers]

"I'm not looking to even any scores," he grunts in defense against the edge in Faye's tone. Making way for better shelter in the lead still, he only glances back over his shoulder at learning that nothing's come after Faye. Maybe that figures.

"Nothing?" he asks, even-toned. Like it's just a question anyone would ask. Like it doesn't mean anything to him beyond the confirmation.

[attitude]

Faye cracks an eye open just in time to catch the look in Spike's eyes as he turns back her way. Figures. Just figures that he's somehow the target of a great deal more trouble than Faye's ever been — that's the lesson that's taken her longest to learn. That there are people in the world with far greater debts to settle than herself.

"Nothing," she replies with a slight curve of her lip, tilting her head in interest. "Your turn. What's been chasing you? You gave me a strange look earlier."