Inspired by a Johnny Cash t-shirt lying in the middle of the floor of my room. Takes place post series.

If you're interested in the song, let me know. :)

ssg.x.

You wanna swing that hand
In the basement
The kid wanna swing that hand
In the basement
Drop your medicine, six white sons
The young snake's got my name

"Find the third eye."

Third eye. Right.

What third eye?

"Bottles of booze don't have third eyes. They don't have first or second eyes, either."

"Just focus, alright?"

Faye's arm stretched out before her from beneath the thin, sticky fabric of her tank top like a near-limp noodle, her gun rattling at the end of it. She squinted after using her free hand to wipe the film of perspiration that settled on her porcelain skin. She closed one eye. She closed both eyes and swallowed the hard lump in her throat. She reopened both eyes, shaking her head and sighing. Spike stood straighter, the hand wrapped around the neck of the bottle of bourbon above his head tightened.

"Come on. Get your arm up. Iron it out," Spike instructed.

"Seriously, this is stupid. Don't we have some cans and a fence somewhere so we can do this outside?" Faye insisted. "Let's forget that I don't get this whole third eye thing for a second, okay? I can't help but think that this sudden confidence you have in my abilities to shoot straight is almost completely alcohol-induced."

"This confidence you speak of rests solely in my abilities as a teacher." Spike jiggled the bottle nesting in his styled-for-no-style hair and grinned. The liquid sloshed musically against the glass walls that contained it. "Come on. You can do it."

Faye's eyes narrowed again, trying to locate Spike's third eye. His other two eyes were dark and glazed. The dingy t-shirt he wore clung mercilessly to him over a sheer coating of sweat. The dizzying heat of the afternoon had permeated the evening, slowly asphyxiating the pair. Spike swayed gently, momentarily losing his footing and grinning stupidly. Earlier this evening he'd downed five shots from the same bottle he suggested Faye use for her final exam in Professor Spiegel's sharp-shooting class.

She reset her shoulder and refocused on the bottle. Despite the suffocating heat in the hangar tonight, Faye felt goosebumps raise on her legs and straight up the length of her axis.

"I could blow your head clean off your shoulders," Faye said helplessly. She didn't mean for her voice to come out sounding so damn weak.

Faye had decided to go along with the game for the same reasons she ended up going along with any of his games. Because they were his games.

Spike smiled crookedly at her, "So long as it's clean. My arm's getting tired. Take the shot."

Faye held the gun and took aim, steadying her trembling with her other hand around her wrist. She ignored Spike's eyes rolling. This wasn't how he taught her to do it. She closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger, throwing both hands and the gun off to the side of Spike's head. The gun went off, the stray bullet launched into the setting sun.

There. Now leave me the fuck alone.

Her eyes opened milliseconds before Spike's did. She could see the skin creasing around them as they strained to stay shut. She could hear his steely breath leaving him, his shoulders relaxing, the liquid within the bottle he held rocked from side to side, slowing to stillness as his hands stopped shaking.

He hadn't meant for her to see him that way. And he hadn't meant it to cause him to fly completely off the handle the way it did. This wasn't the way this was all supposed to go down.

"What the hell was that? You fucking idiot! That was nowhere near me!" he shouted.

Faye flinched, barely looking him in the eye, "That was the point."

"Jesus, you're absolutely useless, you know that?" he spat, bringing his arm and the bottle down to his side. He walked heavily to where the discarded gun lay on the floor, his eyes picking up the colours of the sinking sun.

"What the hell did you expect? Why would I take the chance of hitting you instead of that bottle?" Faye's hands went to her hips after another swipe at the sweat gathering on her forehead.

"I thought you'd be thrilled at the opportunity," Spike said, disgusted.

"You just had the misfortune of catching me on a good day, is all! Talk to me tomorrow or the day after that! Six out of seven, Spike! Six out of seven days of the week you can count on me wanting to split open that thick skull of yours!"

Faye had figured it out and Spike cursed under his breath when her eyes met his with a slow, simmering anger he wasn't used to swallowing from Faye. She growled vehemently, "Next time you want to pull a stunt like that, count me uninvited. Build yourself another suicide machine."

Spike stared silently at the back of Faye's head. She stalked towards the entrance of the ship, her shadow a dark rift in the floor threatening to bury him as it reached towards the toes of his boots with the distance she gained.

"You can't talk to me like that."

Faye chuckled back over her shoulder at him, "Yeah. You're one to talk about overstepping boundaries."

"You don't know--" Spike began uncertainly. You don't know what it's been like. You don't know how much it hurts. You don't know how tired I am. You don't know –

"I don't know shit, Spike!" Faye half-shouted, half-sobbed. "I don't know shit about you and the desire to becomes less and less every day! Do you have any idea what you were just going to do? You were about to make me a fucking fact in your history book! You were going to make me the dumb broad who accidentally took out Spike Spiegel during a drunken round of William Tell!"

Spike opened his mouth to speak before he could think of what it was he wanted to say. He mostly just wanted her to stop shouting at him. He was slowly sobering against the red backdrop of her raw emotions. His head was spinning. No, he hadn't given much thought to this at all. It was a game. It all started as a game. But it turned into something else. The moment he saw her hand begin to shake, the gun floundering within her tenuous grip, he thought about the possibility of her missing.

You want to fuck and fight
In the basement
The kid like to fuck and fight
In the basement
Got a rattle snake, six white sons
The young kid's got my name

The sun was setting and darkness was slowly but steadily setting in. And she was beautiful. Faye was beautiful. Her eyes shone beneath dark lashes bejeweled with tears and her bottom lip twisted against her teeth as she bit it. Any doubts he had of her feelings for him were taken up by the same hot breeze that stirred the dark strands of hair that kept her from him.

The sun was setting and darkness was slowly but steadily setting in and it occurred to Spike Spiegel that it was the perfect way to die.

"Is this the way you wanted us to be together? Is this the only way to have you?" Faye choked. She suddenly began to retch. Bending low to the ground, carefully easing herself onto her knees, she found herself throwing up little more than air and water.

"And Jet," she breathed wiping a hand across her mouth, "he'd never forgive me. How could I explain to him that was the way you wanted it to happen? You and your fucking pride…he'd never believe it was what you wanted. You'd leave me here in the dark with you, you selfish bastard. You'd leave me here alone in the fucking dark." She got unsteadily back to her feet, holding her head against one hand.

Spike watched her, unmoving.

If Vicious had done a proper job of it…

If Julia had thrown caution to the wind…

If…

Suddenly, the bottle of bourbon was up in the air and shattering into thousands of pieces above Faye's head at the mercy of a bullet from Spike's gun. The shards of glass rained heavily on their shoulders, capturing and releasing the light of the new moons in cycles.

Faye cried out as she received the painful brunt of the downpour. Spike's mouth collided very solidly with hers, his arms still down at his sides, Faye's arms around herself as she tried to shield her exposed flesh from the falling slivers. The alcohol burned them both where their skin had been opened. Faye moaned into his lips and his tongue forced its way past her own. He pressed further, tasting both blood and bourbon. All thoughts were off, all senses were go. The knot of Faye's arms came undone, her hands gripped his hips and her mouth came to life, battling his ardour wearing the armour of her own. Her thumbs hooked into the belt loops of Spike's jeans and urged him closer. He groaned his approval.

Spike pulled away from Faye, both disgusted and curious of the way the thread of blood shared between their two mouths ignited a fire in his depths. Spike worked his tongue around the inside of his mouth to dislodge the small shard of glass invading their kiss. He turned his head and spit it out at their feet, lightning crackling in his eyes, fear and arousal shimmering in hers.

He pushed the momentarily forgotten gun out from under his boot and across the room along the floor. He moved in for the kill, firmly guiding Faye to the wall close behind her.

Sex and death. Both explosions of sound, light, and colour. Spike could exchange one for the other. Both were endings in their own ways. Beginnings in others.

Spike dealt Faye the cards for a new game. One she was a stranger to.

And Faye decided to go along with the game for the same reason she ended up going along with any of his games. Because they were his games.

Because she loved to play.

Lyrics from The Kills' Black Rooster were used. Don't sue, please.