Okay, I've had this one festering in my head for a while, and while this isn't exactly how I intended it, maybe now I can get back to Passive. Every time I try and flesh out the latest chapter this one keeps popping up and making a nusance of itself.

Of course, I could also stop blaming multipable story ideas and fess up to the fact I've been playing way too much Warcraft. But that would be admitting guilt, or something. Not gonna happen.

So- sex, character deaths, questionable mindsets and language. Lemme know how bad you hate it.

Red Bullet

Nothing Good

The first time we have sex, I shove her thighs apart with my knee and when I pinch her nipple she sighs and I tell her that this doesn't mean anything. I tell her that this doesn't mean that I love her and it will never be more than me fucking her. I tell her that and something sour rolls and slides around inside my belly.

We both know it's bullshit. We both know this means something even if we aren't sure what. We both know that it'll always be a hell of a lot more than me deep dicking her, it was even before it fucking started. She knows that I love her in my own shitty way. But knowing all that doesn't keep her from turning her face away from mine every time we start.

After that there are hardly ever any words that aren't actually commands. "Harder." "Roll over." "Use your mouth." This is pretty much all that gets said between us these days. I doubt we'd know what else to say if we even tried.

Her breasts sway and dance in front of my face, hypnotizing me with blush pink nipples as she grinds, all while biting into the cushion of her pout. I can't not watch.

She doesn't look at me, though. It's always eyes closed or head turned. Not that I blame her. I'm a sorry sight, these days. We both are. Only difference seems to be is that while she's busy hiding her eyes, I couldn't look away if I was told doing so would save my damned soul.

When she comes she makes a hitching sound low in her throat that almost sounds like a sob, but Faye never cries, not when we're like this, at least. My fingers drill into her and she arches and groans beautifully and sounds every bit like she'll shatter and I wait for it, but she doesn't- just hangs on to my arm, nails scratching deep and more alive than I ever remember being- my eyes never look away.

---

This time it's in her bunk, but at this point no where on the damned ship is sacred. Jet would boot us both if he'd known we've done what and where. Once even while being lectured at from another room.

But this time is different and my head is swimming from it.

Her back is to me afterwards and I can see the skipping stone shadows of her spine in the awkward light. She's dropped what little meat she had on her to begin with and every breath she takes is highlighted by the shifting of shade and bones. I'm not any better, truth be told. We deserve each other. We deserve what we do to each other.

She's gonna try and bolt. I know Faye well enough to guess that she's about due for a cut and run and I'm more than a little surprised it hasn't happened yet already. Each day I wake up to the ship and except it to be void one Valentine. Still not sure if it's annoyance or relief that I feel when I realize it's not. I can't tell if what we're doing is affection or punishment. I can't tell if I've ever even known the difference.

It's easy to tell she's awake by the way she's holding her shoulders and so I lean back into the bed and warn her stay. She doesn't say anything, she gives no reaction at all. It came out a hell of a lot harsher than I intended but there's no helping that.

I leave the bunk's door open when I go across to the bathroom so I can listen and make sure she didn't brave up and defy me to make a run for the hanger. When she doesn't, I go ahead and flip on the light above the sink. There's blood on my dick.

I was too rough again.

I close my eyes against the nausea and swallow the hot push of vomit back down. Fuck only knows if I'm getting water-bellied over tearing Faye in the delicate or from the drinking that lead to it.

Water is coating my face before I realize the spigot is even on. It's all on auto lately. Eating, smoking, pissing, even killing on a job. It's all habitual. Mechanical. No thought involved. Everything except fucking Faye. When it comes to that I can't help but cave to impulse. I can't help but overanalyze. Can't help but consider.

I turned out a terrible human being.

---

We'll never get married. We'll never have kids or plan for some chicken shit retirement. If anything, within the next ten years one or both of us will be dead and probably long before that she'll realize that she hates me more than she loves me or I'll get sick of the fact she hates herself enough to be with me.

Until then, though, there's shoving and pulling, hot breath against necks and ears and half growled demands.

Until then, there's her silence afterwards and my possessive embraces.

Until then, I get to pretend it's something other than me managing to fuck over yet another person who cares about me.

Until then, I'll have something to look forward to, even if it is a lie I forced on the both of us.

Until then, I'll pretend that I haven't hammered a nail into both our coffins.

---

That same thought about the matching coffins is rolling around in my skull a few months later when it all ends. Jet's already been dead a day and a half, a canvas tarp covering the gore spilling out of his gut and Faye and me are sheltered under exposure blankets in my bunk.

The cold's keeping his body from spoiling as quickly as it otherwise would, saving us the smell. The same cold is gonna kill Faye and me if fate doesn't cough up yet another impossible rescue.

For the record, I'm doubting that last part, I'm just willing death to hurry the fuck up already since we're almost out of drink.

The ship's dead- ripped out of a jump by an exploding gate loop and since no saviors in EVA suits have appeared bearing salvation and cigarettes, I'm running with the thought that it wasn't just the one ring that blew, it was a good chunk of the system. Fate forgot the lubricant, yet again, before it decided to ass fuck us.

The initial hit gutted the hanger pouring the zip crafts into open space and along with it any hope of us ditching Dodge. I'm still not sure what tore Jet's gut open and I probably won't. I should probably stop thinking about it, point of fact.

The impact tossed me up in the air and my face against the ceiling fan, killing the mechanics of the fake eye and adding something banally poetic to an entirely fucked situation. I wondered around half blind and limping with cracked ribs for 45 minutes until I found Faye naked in the bathroom unconscious, wet and bleeding, with the shower stall collapsed under a part of the ship's infrastructure. When she came to another hour later, we realized the blast had destroyed her hearing.

I had to take her to Jet's body to explain to her that he was dead.

Day and a half later we're huddled like blind, mute rats thinking about the fact that the temp in space, especially this close to the Gas Giants, is brass monkey weather, to say the least.

Day and a half later we're holding each other, feigning the poses of careful lovers and waiting for death, too resigned to the fact to even muster annoyance at such a stupid death.

Day and a half later I realize it wasn't even me that got us killed, despite all the predictions.

It's not as much of a relief as one might think.