When she heard the news, she felt perfectly blank.
Her neat little plan, the one that included not caring, blew up spectacularly.
For two whole weeks her skin became one with the yellow couch, till they smelled exactly the same. Jet cooked for her, brought her noodles and such, but he immediately retreated into his bonsai room, and the rhythmic metallic noises comforted her. At least he was still there.
Big Shot was on; she sat up a bit and cleared some of the smoke away from the screen, setting her butt in the ashtray.
Judy bounced, Paunch laughed, and they rattled off about twenty decent bounties. She even considered some of them. But then she caught something from the corner of her eye, and she started crying even before she realized it was a memory.
It had been a month now. She got up and ran little errands here and there, like getting groceries, cigarettes, nail polish. She even bought a blue, though she figured because it was sparkly it didn't count.
"It's time we earn a little cash."
He said this while reclining in his little room, and she looked through the crack in his doorway into the cluttered darkness of his bedroom.
At his eyes on her, she simply shrugged.
The bounty went well. It was a Madam, responsible for human trafficking all throughout the system.
Her name was Mavis.
"Listen you scumbags, let me go and I'll tell my friends to back off. I'm only going to offer once."
She had big brassy red curls that clumped around her chubby painted face; small brown eyes under a curtain of purple eyeshadow.
She and Jet had merely exchanged looks before Faye held her down and Jet forcibly tied the rag around her mouth.
"Much better."
Unfortunately, Mavis did have friends. Stupid friends, with guns. They shot up her ship so that it looked like swiss cheese. It took her a few minutes, but she realized with relief that she was annoyed. No, she was pissed.
Jet shook his head but couldn't contain his smile as she laid out her plan.
She chose a bar, a shitty little place full of oafs who leered but didn't have the balls to do anything else. It suited her plan, she supposed. All day she had told Jet where she would be, and they hadn't bit. But she had a feeling that this was it.
The saloon-style doors swung open to reveal- a woman. A woman with red hair, and a mouth that looked like it could cut glass.
She didn't even hesitate.
"For Mavis!", she snarled, whipping out her pistol.
And Faye pressed the button.
The soot wouldn't come out. After all of the shit it'd been through, the yellow vinyl was finished. She tied a big yellow bow around the trash bag and watched as it descended, her face pressed against the cold glass.
She had a bruise on her shin, a huge grey-green monstrosity that made her hiss each time she moved it just so. But it was nothing, she supposed. Nothing compared to what he could take. Just the thought of it, of him made her hiss all over again, but for a different reason.
Eleven jobs later and she was in a much swankier bar, filled with potted palm trees and the sound of old jazz. Cocking her head she flushed away a bit of the static and caught the last of Jet's words.
"Sounds good."
The mark was a younger man, hence her expensively tight dress. He had huge tortoise-shell glasses that reminded her of Urkel or some shit. When she had said as much Jet only stared, and she laughed though it wasn't really funny.
"Hello, beautiful!"
...It wasn't him. Rolling her eyes she got up, pushed through the idiots slow-dancing to 'He Hit Me, and It Felt Like a Kiss'.
A hand suddenly gripped her arm, right below the joint.
She saw him, and she felt perfectly blank.
"Fancy meeting you here."
And it was so cheesy, so like him to say something like that.
He looked good.
"You look good."
"So do you."
A pause. She blinked and realized they were outside, by the balcony. A perk of being at a penthouse bar.
"How's Jet?"
She stared into the cold night, and marveled at how she didn't feel anything.
"You could ask him yourself."
Maddeningly, he grinned, and something inside her exploded.
"You're despicable. A fucking disgrace. Maybe we weren't the best of friends, but we were comrades, and I thought even you would've-"
"Come running back?"
Pushing back her words, she leaned against the icy marble rail, teetered a bit, and snarled when he steadied her.
"Fine. So you never cared about us, I get it. It doesn't change anything. Jet still cared."
His grip tightened.
"Did you?"
"Don't."
A wall of white, of soundless, sightless calm started to wash out his face. His beautiful face.
He let go.
Later, she was beyond shitfaced. Hysterically, she thrashed and flailed about, ruining her perfectly nice hotel room. And still, her arm burned.
She remembered once more, when she awoke surrounded by smashed glass and downy feathers.
"Faye?"
She had shuddered, fool she was.
"He's alive. He- he sent us a message. Through Bob, my old friend. He said-"
And she should've known, the way he paused like that, the way his eyes looked.
"He said he's not coming back."