I disclaim.
I flick off my skintenna feed and step into the shower.
I let out a small, relieved sigh as the warm water washes over my skin. I bask for a few moments, grateful for the running water. Just because I'm a Cutter doesn't mean that I don't enjoy simple luxuries every once in a while.
But I'm hardly relaxed.
Even though it feels nice to soap up in something that isn't a frozen river in the wild, I can't let myself sit back and enjoy a nice, long shower. There's something bigger on my mind, something that's been keeping my mind from being crystal clear—icy, we call it. It's been bugging me all day, since we got back to the city after another failed scouting mission.
I suppose that I could always give myself a cut—even in here, in the shower, without my ceremonial knife. I could take my fingernails, use them as claws, drag them down my arm. I think about doing it, but I shake my head. I'll be icy soon enough. The Boss wants us to get together for a meeting—and a meeting usually means a group cutting session, the Boss' way of making sure that we all stay icy. It's nice of her, making sure that our minds don't stay bogged down with things that could make us slow to react.
But until then, I'll think about my current predicament: catching the New Smoke.
The Smoke's name is fitting. Right there, just before your eyes. But difficult to catch with your hands, not matter how special and surged they are.
They've been teasing us for a while now, taunting us in their new sneak suits, tossing arrows at us like some vicious Rusties. But I wasn't going to let them get away with any of this. They have Fausto, and there is no telling what they were doing to him—right now, as I breathe in the scent of a freshly-opened soap packet.
I rub down and try to think about the mission today. It was more recon than retrieve, but we had still gone in, ready to rescue Fausto from the grips of the Smokies.
I can tell that some of the other Cutters are losing faith. They're starting to think that we won't find him, or if we do, we won't find the Smokies, or that if we find the Smokies, we won't find him.
But something in my chest—something that pounds every day with anticipation, racing with the thought that maybe—just maybe—today will be the day that we find him—tells me that he's still alive, and he's looking for me. He's okay—not seriously injured at least, and he won't give up trying to come back to me. That's what I believe, and I'm convinced that he feels the same about me. I won't give up looking for him, not as long as the Boss lets me. And even then, I'll always have a hope. Maybe I'll be able to sneak off every once in a while, try to find him on my own.
These past few days have been absolutely awful without him. I can't bear to think about being without him forever.
After I've rinsed off and I feel the bottom of my feet start to prune, I shut off the water and reach out of the shower stall blindly, grabbing my towel. I pull it back inside the stall with me and pat my face dry, getting the water out of my eyes, and I dry myself off before wrapping the towel around me. No one's around to see me, but I guess old habits die hard.
I chew a toothpaste pill and I rub my head with another towel, drying it enough to run a brush through it and feel satisfied about how it will look when it's completely dry. I start to get dressed, and I'm just pulling a shirt on when the door opens.
My first instinct is to yell at whichever Cutter didn't stop to think about knocking, but I stop and gape instead.
It's Fausto.
My second instinct is to yell his name and throw myself at him despite the fact that I'm half-dressed. And here, in his arms, I feel whole again; complete. Something has been missing since they took him, but now it was back.
"I missed you," I whisper in his ear, and I hold him tighter to me, almost unable to believe that this is really him standing in the washroom with me, that he's actually here.
It felt unreal, almost; Fausto in my arms again after the past few nightmarish days. But it's actually him and he's actually here. Words can't even begin to describe the gaping hole he had left behind in my life. Fausto had been my first friend as a pretty. He'd helped me become a Crim. He was the reason that I was here, as a Cutter, a special Special. He and I had gotten so close when Tally and Zane had holed themselves up, trying to stay bubbly all the time. Shay had stuck with us for some time, but after a while, she'd gotten bored with trying to hack hoverboards all the time, and she had left us to go create her own clique—the Cutters. But even after the Boss left us to stay bubbly in her own way, Fausto and I had stayed together, a team, and each day we'd gotten closer.
And I could still remember the first day he kissed me. He'd been getting frustrated, unable to keep the bubbleheadedness that came along with being a pretty at bay long enough to remember how to hack the boards so that they wouldn't show up on the city interface. He had paced for a while before I stood up from my perch by his window, trying to calm him down.
And then he kissed me, and the rest, as they say, is a bubbly history.
"I missed you, too," he says, and he hugs me so tightly that I feel him crushing me a bit. But I don't mind in the least.
"What are you doing here?" I ask, pulling away slightly to look in his eyes—they're brighter than his normal dark, almost-black green, shining a deep, rich colour, like precious emeralds. "We've been so worried about you—are you okay? What did they—"
But he kisses me and cuts off the onslaught of questions.
And that's pretty much kind of okay with me.
Kissing him makes me icy again, and suddenly I can feel every inch of his body touching mine. I can feel each individual strand of hair as I run my hands through his messy brown locks. I can feel his heart, pounding in his chest against mine, and I can feel the room around us, still warm and humid from my shower.
Man, I've missed this—the feeling of his body so close to mine, the feel of his lips against mine, his hands in my hair, the smell of him…
But then we pull apart and I sniff, and I wrinkle my nose a bit. He certainly smells like he's been roughing it for a while, and it makes me wonder what he's been doing. But under the smells of sweat and dirt and the wild, I can still smell Fausto, the scent that is utterly and completely his, the scent that I've been missing and once I tried to find, snooping through his scarcely-used bedroom. But Tachs had caught me and had laughed, and I hadn't been back to sniff his shirts since.
"I love you."
The words are whispered and hushed, and I feel my heart beat wildly in my chest, my flash tattoos spinning. It's hard to breathe and I take in a shuddering breath, feeling my muscles relax, turned to liquidy mush.
"I… I love you, too," I say, and he smiles at me that impish smile of his and he leans in to kiss me softly on the lips.
"Get dressed," he mutters, and he pulls away, grinning at me ear-to-ear.
"You have a lot of questions to answer, young man," I tease, pulling on a pair of pants. He hands me my favourite pair of grippy shoes and I wonder where he got them as I slide them on, feeling them mold to every contour and curve of my feet.
"Do you trust me?"
The question is sudden and his voice is different. He's looking at me with a sudden intensity and it's impossible for me to look away from his eyes. He looks so serious and I'm compelled to answer him.
"Always," I say, and I know that I mean it whole-heartedly. I love Fausto, and I trust him with my heart, my mind, my soul and my life. He's the most important thing to me in this world—even more so than staying icy—and that's saying something for a Cutter.
"Good," he says, and I see him give me an apologetic look that's out of place.
I open my mouth to ask him what's wrong, but I never get a chance to say the words. My world goes suddenly black, my body detached from my mind, thought escaping me.
A/N: So there you have it. I'm rereading the whole series for about the third time, and I've remembered how much I love the characters of the series. I'm half-way through Specials, and I can't quite remember what's supposed to happen after Tally and Shay set off to follow the Crims on their way to the New Smoke. I'm sure that I'll get to that part of the book later today, and this one-shot will soon prove to be invalid and shaming.
So expect some edits in a while, if this turns out totally wrong.
Cheers!