CB: Cat and Mouse, -XVIII-
In the middle of dealing the next hand, she freezes, hands hovering over the cards. There are footsteps moving quickly on the stairs. She reaches over slowly and stubs out the end of her cigarette in the ashtray. She glances at the door, and then turns her eyes to mine. "Expecting company?"
"No one's supposed to know we're here, remember?" my voice is more of a hiss than I intended. She doesn't seem to notice.
"That's what I thought you'd say." She frowns and starts to reach for her jacket. Her gun is in the pocket. I saw her grab it as we left the Bebop. I catch her wrist and she glances up at me. "I'd rather go down fighting," she tugs against my hand once.
"Tell me Faye, why did you pick this place, out of all the others on Ganymede?" I ask her in a hushed whisper. "We could've gone anywhere. A better hotel. A boarding house, if you didn't feel like spending the money. But you chose this place."
"Because I've hidden out here before when the heat was a little too intense." She tugs against my hand again. "Spike, let me have my gun."
I lean in closer to her, stubbing out my cigarette with my free hand, and speak in a softer voice as the footsteps outside get louder, closer to the door of our room. "And if you've hidden out here before you know that the place isn't the nicest to be in, right?" My voice is calm, much more so than she is. More than I feel, truthfully.
"So?"
"Be quiet," I caution her, putting my other hand over her mouth. She lifts a hand to grab my wrist and loses her balance, falling across the bed and landing on the cards and trapping my arm underneath her.
For a moment she struggles, but as the footsteps outside grow louder, she goes still. The television is still on, and the only light coming out of it flickers in the dark room, casting colors across her pale skin and the sheets. A silent, moving mural. There is a loud thump that makes the fake paintings on the walls adjust themselves.
Someone just got thrown into the wall outside of our room.
I find myself holding my breath, and glance down at her. Her eyes are closed and she's not even bothering to struggle. The shouting is in some other language and the person, from the sound of it, gets thrown into the opposite wall.
I let her loose and she scrambles up, crunching the cards out of shape, but obviously not caring about that, and deposits herself in my lap. Holding onto the collar of my shirt. My tie pulls against the back of my neck. She presses her face against my neck.
"It's ok, Faye," I say softly into her ear.
She shudders against me, holding tighter. I shift a little, my ribs still bruised from that fight. I'm not invincible, after all. I'm just as mortal as everyone else that I've ever thrown in jail, or shot, killed, or beaten to a bloody pulp.
She's more afraid of all this than she thinks she is.
I put a hand up and cradle the back of her neck, hoping to be soothing. Apparently, it works, because she relaxes against me, her breathing slowing back to normal. Her hands stop clawing and trying to get into my skin.
Her body is once again pliable and soft and suddenly feminine in my lap. Her thin, slender fingers slip inside the collar of my shirt, past the undone buttons to trace the edge of the neckline of my tank top.
Just like Julia. Or like I was with her. Clumsy and unsure of myself.
It's how we are with one another, when we're not fighting. She leans up against me, hands reaching around me to encircle my neck underneath my shirt, and presses her lips to my cheek. I turn and take her lips against my own. I no longer feel the burden of continued existence. I can die now. And that makes living so much sweeter.
