✹

Wanted! HELLION. Once known as BOOKER FINCH. Aged THIRTY-SIX. Uses HE/HIM pronouns. Current bounty: ✹300,000. Portrayed by BOYD HOLBROOK. Works for the JACK ODYSSEY GANG as a ROBBER. 

Written by Jem (she/her).

The clock strikes six, and Farrier admits to himself that sitting around and waiting for something to happen is not productive. Hauling his ass out and making sure the horses are taken care of is something that he can do, so… even if he mutters the entire time as he uses the inn’s back-room sink to (slowly, slowly, so slowly) fill buckets with water. When he steps outside, the sun is already setting behind the horizon. The wagons and horses are eclipsed in orange, and more than that, the horses are snippy, like they know that he’s an hour late.

Assholes.

He usually starts with the worst of them (so, Angel to start with) and works his way to the ones who behave themselves well enough. He’d never admit to playing favorites, but Fleetwood and Bastard never put up any big fuss. They don’t bite, or try to kick, or knock him over when they drink. He watches as Fleetwood more or less puts his whole damn face in the basin and considers sleeping outside tonight.

He hasn’t been able to really rest since the robbery, and sleeping inside might mean a visit from Twelfth. If she were to shoot him, the horses would at least throw a fit, and then she’d probably be caught red handed. If he were inside… fuck. He can hear Old Halo now, saying you shouldn’t have told them, but it’s not like he’d been thinking rationally at the time. Quite the opposite, in fact: he’d been out of his fucking mind.

He’s going for the sacks of feed when he hears it, the rustling inside the wagon. The first thing he does is pull out his pistol, draw back the hammer, and wait to see if anyone pops their head out. Should’ve known better, he thinks, to expect thieves. Except it’s not a thief (in the exact sense) that pokes their head out. It’s Hellion.

Farrier weighs the pros and cons of shooting Hellion now while he has the chance. Bastard whinnies again, all soft and polite-like, as if telling Farrier to get a move on so they can all eat. He looks Hellion up and down, from the ring to the watch to the coins, and holsters his guns. It’s not disbelief that paints his face, because this is, frankly, textbook (that’s what Gull calls them, right?) Hellion. It’s more like disappointment. He wastes no time in walking right up to him, hand out in expectance. “You can have the watch, and the ring, but not the coins. Hand ‘em over, you fuckin’ magpie. Were you planning on doing this all week, or is this a flight of fancy?”

It’s hard to tell, with Hellion. Back in the day, when he couldn’t shoot straight and rode like his leg was dislocated, it was easier, but just how deep his thoughts go into regards to planning is a total mystery. Farrier scoffs. “You’re shameless. Your mother’d be ashamed.” Probably not, but it’s the principle, right? He makes a give-me motion with his still empty hand. “My day was fine, honey, how was yours?”

Farrier doesn’t shoot him on sight, which Hellion decidedly counts as a loss, not a victory. These days, he reckons he’d pay a handsomely to see Farrier take a shot at him, if only to get a glimpse of the animal that lives beneath his well-kept costume of decency and restraint. What a fucking joke. The Farrier he knew—which is to say the real and true Farrier—would’ve shot him in his left foot just to teach him a lesson about sneaking up on an outlaw proper.

He doesn’t balk when Farrier marches up to him, which is perhaps a testament to their shared history, and to the white flag of the age-old truce between lions. The two of them swipe at each other back and forth, all sharp talons, but they never go for the kill, not in any real, meaningful way.

When Farrier holds out his palm expectantly, Hellion cants his head, weighs his options. He could challenge Farrier, make a game out of it. See if he can wear his patience thin, whittle down the chinks in his suit of armor. See if he can snake-charm the wilderness out of him. But walking the tightrope of the nameless thing that exists between the two of them necessitates a delicate balance of give and take, of knowing when to pull back and how hard to push. Push too hard and Farrier shutters; pull back too soon and he retreats. Here, tonight, Hellion pulls back, decides not to pick this battle. 

“So bossy,” he sighs, petulant. “I used to like that about you.” He drops the pouch of coins into Farrier’s waiting hand, but he makes a point of tracing the innermost line of his palm from top to bottom before severing contact. “When the occasion called for it,” he says suggestively, voice infused with the sound of faraway thunder, low and rumbling. 

His only answer to Farrier’s ensuing interrogation is a one-shouldered shrug. He stole the ring and the watch and the coins for the same reason he does anything else: because he felt like it. Farrier ought to know that, because he does know Hellion—or did, at least. Some things change, he supposes. Others don’t.

“My day was fine,” he says, voice affected with indifference. There’s a pause, a beat; a performative intermission meant to draw out the space between the calm and the storm. And then, lightning strikes: “Twelfth almost died today.” He lets the gravity of that fill up the space between them, lets it settle, stifle. 

You’re always alone. Brontide hums at the statement – however harsh it may seem, it is said without malice, and they know it to be true. They’d learned a long time ago to become comfortable in solitude – grown accustomed to the sound of their own thoughts rather than the sound of their words, though this was a habit formed out of necessity rather than enjoyment. The first time she’d found herself terribly, painfully alone had been after the death of her father – a self-imposed exile which quickly became something more inescapable. 

It was a skill, Brontide thought, being able to survive on one’s own – a skill she suspected HELLION was far more adept at than even she was. They’d noticed that he seemed to spend much of his time alone – and they’d noticed that he seemed to prefer it this way. For Brontide, solitude was more requisite, particularly these days. It was difficult to miss the stares and barbs that were often thrown at them following their return – some members of the gang had yet to move past it ( though she couldn’t quite say she blamed them for their hesitancy ), and any words spoken to them seemed laced with a new, unfamiliar brand of venom. 

So, solitude became a safe haven.

“I suppose that’s true.” She says, shoe scuffing against the dusty ground as they take in the sight of Hellion. He’s barely looked up once since approaching Brontide – instead preoccupied with the divinity in his hands. They suspect he’s managed to acquire this since arriving in Eel, subsequent to the train robbery, and it almost makes Brontide chuckle. Even after they’d all walked away from the train ✹250 richer ( it could have been more – had she and Old Halo not distributed some of the winnings among the passengers, the concern that the other members of the gang would find out taking root at the back of her mind ) and yet it wasn’t enough. For some, she supposed it would never be enough – though simply getting rich was no longer the incentive it had once been for Brontide. 

“I wouldn’t need it.” They quip, “If it came to that.” Though even Brontide knows this is something of a stretch – particularly if they were to come up against Hellion. They’re not as quick as they would usually be – too preoccupied within their own thoughts to notice everything around them as they should have been. It was a lapse, and Hellion was right to call her on it – though Brontide would never let him know this, her pride just a little too strong to allow it. Instead of focusing on her own shortcomings, Brontide instead turns her attention back to the divinity in Hellion’s hands, watching as he meticulously counts it, “That’s not from the train.” They note, “Where’d you get it?”

I wouldn’t need it, they say, if it came to that.

That, finally, distracts Hellion from the divinity in his hands, and he abandons his pursuit of counting and recounting, turning the scope of his full attention to Brontide. “You think so?” he asks, one eyebrow hiked high—a challenge. Frankly, he does think so. He’s heard the stories in all their many and varied shades, and the only common thread that runs between them is this: in their heyday, Brontide was the stuff of legends, an outlaw as ruthless as the desert, and twice as likely to wring you out, dry and dead. Hellion doesn’t have a vested interest in gossip or hearsay, mostly because he doesn’t give a shit about anyone or anything beyond his pursestrings, but he’s tangentially aware that most of the gang thinks Brontide’s gone soft. They haven’t, and Hellion’d bet on that—and handsomely, too. 

He knows their lot—he is their lot. He sees in them what he knows lives in Farrier: wilderness. You can break a stallion, saddle him, shove a bit in his mouth and pull the reins taut, but never can you tame a stallion, not in any real way. Farrier and Brontide may be bridled by whatever ghosts live in the cobwebbed cathedrals of their hearts, but a little slack on those reins will reconcile them with their native wilderness—Hellion’s sure of it. 

That’s not from the train. “No, it’s not,” Hellion concedes. “If I relied only on Jack Odyssey for divinity,” he says, “my bounty would be halved, at least.” He shoves his winnings into his pocket and takes up residency next to her, shoulders braced against the wall. “My”—he pauses, searching for the right word—“extracurriculars”—maybe not the best choice—“make up for the deficit of our fearless leader’s bad calls.” And the resounding repercussions, he doesn’t say, because that would toe the line of bold-faced insurrection, and far be it from Hellion to ridicule Jack Odyssey in front his favorite child. Brontide doesn’t seem the tattletale type, but he doesn’t know them well enough yet to make a final judgment. 

“Do you get bored out here alone?” he asks. Does the loneliness bother you? is what he means, and they both know it. He doesn’t particularly care one way or the other, but he’s at least half-curious about the crux of the matter, eager to juxtapose his own solitude with hers, to compare the two and take notes.

“You need to get off your high horse, man,” Cain replies—and then he wonders, whether something like that had actually happened before, tries to remember a time when he got himself into some deep shit that Hellion had to get him out of. But he can’t remember anything like this, not really—should it happen, Hellion having to save him, that would be like the end of the world, truly. 

And then he chuckles at how his mind immediately steers him the other direction. "Should things ever go completely south between us, you can have a go at me. I’m not gonna make it easy for you, though.” Cain’s not entirely sure which option sounds better—getting obliterated by who knows how old piece of Old World architecture or being hunted down by Hellion. Latter, possibly, and probably for all the wrong reasons. Cain would even enjoy the hunt, wouldn’t he. But not that he’s expecting a fallout like this anytime soon. He’s had enough of that with Brontide. 

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. I’m gonna scale that thing everyday until we leave, just you fucking wait,” he says, nonchalant, like his little climbing project is the most common thing in the world. “You all need to have a little bit more faith in me. Hearing everyone assume that this shit is gonna kill me is getting boring.”

A weird sense of self-satisfaction hits Cain when he sees Hellion crack a smile and his face turns just a little smug at that. He leans his back against the base of the wheel—the most stable part of it—and crosses his arms in front of his chest. “I can do that for free if you ask nicely.”

‌

“Bastard?” he asks, playing stupid for no other reason than to strike a match against the short fuse of Cain’s temper. “He’s not that high a horse,” Hellion says conversationally. “I’d say six hands, tops.” He shows Cain his best full-toothed smile, all congeniality—and none of it sincere. For good measure, he takes a step to his left, just out of range of Cain’s left hook should he feel so inclined to take a swing at Hellion. “If it’s a measuring contest you’re interested in,” he says, voice slick as rain, grin lopsided, “let’s leave the horses out of it.” 

I’m not gonna make it easy for you, though. Hellion laughs at that, and it’s an unexpectedly hearty sound, almost genuine; not a trace of cruelty to be found in it. “I would expect nothing less of you, my friend,” he says, lips cleaved with a smile that you can hear in his voice. The “my friend” bit is two-toned: on the one hand, Cain is an almost-friend, at least—they play and work well together, and there’s a sort of thread of understanding that runs between them; on the other hand, that thread of understanding lends to the truth that they are, above all else, wolves, and each of them would shoot the other point-blank if it came down to it, friend or not. Should things ever go completely south between Cain and Hellion, it’ll be one hell of a showdown.

I can do that for free if you ask nicely, Cain says, and again, Hellion grins in spite of himself. “A pistol-whipping on the house?” All cheek, flippant as ever. “You growin’ a soft spot for me, Cain?”

Old Halo pressed her lips together at the mention of Farrier. Hellion had a funny (read: irritating) way of taking the friendly groundwork she’d built up and making her feel as though it were made of eggshells. “Well. Perhaps he doesn’t think of those days as good anymore,” she commented, voice light like it wasn’t meant to be a jab - though silently, she thought that perhaps that had been going a little too far. She hardly wanted Hellion to know just how much he got under her skin by talking about the time before she met Farrier.

His question distracted her from thoughts of Farrier, though. She got a bewildered little smile on her face, obviously trying to figure out whether that was a joke or not. “To the end of being kind to the person who thanklessly takes care of your injuries?” When that didn’t seem to evoke anything in Hellion, she tried, “To the end of Gull having less work so that he’s not preoccupied with your sorry ass if we have some sort of crisis?”

Don’t take it personally, he said, and her expression brightened further. Was he genuinely concerned with her feelings? Cute. “Yes, everything went smoothly with Brontide and I,” she lied smoothly. “But I was asking about you. Did everything go okay?” She inclined her head. She didn’t think she’d heard anything about Hellion having problems with the robbery, but she couldn’t deny that it was strange how he’d avoided her question. “You know you can talk to me. I won’t go running to Jack.” With some exceptions.‌

Perhaps he doesn’t think of those days as good anymore.

He’s unsure if she means it to be a blow, but it lands as one all the same, and his hackles rise in answer to it. So she has teeth, he thinks. So she bites. It’s the first whiff of something sinister he’s ever smelled on her, and he’s left reeling from it in a way that muzzles his quicksilver tongue, spares her the prick of counterattack, of his bite. 

Lucky girl. 

He drops the matter altogether, and his temper quietly unfurls within him like the loose thread of a sweater plucked by anxious fingers. He grabs that anger, holds space for it in between his ribs; stores it for later, in the ring, when he can loosen the reins on it. He feels half-sorry for whatever decidedly unlucky bastard has to go toe to toe with him.

He scoffs at her next rebuttal. “We all have our jobs to do,” he says matter-of-factly. “You make sure Jack doesn’t get us all killed, Gull makes sure we don’t get ourselves killed, and I make sure we have a means of staying alive. All achieve the same end, really.” He cants his head, looks at her with equal parts resignation and indifference. “It’s not my job to alleviate Gull’s workload.” His voice is weighted with finality, like he’s made up his mind on the matter and won’t budge. He has, and he won’t. 

And speaking of jobs... “Won’t go running to Jack?” he repeats back to her, incredulous. A sharp-cut scoff puffs out of his slanted mouth. “Doesn’t that come with the job, advisor?” he sneers. Intent on redirecting the conversation without kicking up the dust of suspicion any more than he already has, he levels her with a steel-edged scowl and asks, “Do you have 250 divinity in your pocket?” He doesn’t wait for her answer, because he knows it’s a resounding yes. “Then I reckon everything went okay.”

WHERE: Hellion’s quarters WHEN: Feb 4th

He was a busy man. There were wounds and tears in the gang coming back from the heist that Gull had to see to. Thankfully, it wasn’t a stressful circumstance but it keeps the man busy to make sure that everyone stays alive and is in one piece. He’s thankful for that much. Gull has never truly done well when a member of the gang has perished. He has a hard time not blaming himself for such losses.

But once his station is set, and the moon has been hung high in the sky, Gull begins to pace with boredom, rubbing his hands together even though they’re dry and clean. An anxious habit, he knows it. But he decides that it’s due time to exit from his domain. 

He grabs his little kit, and grabs the last of him jam that he had saved for a special night. Their heist was successful, Gull thinks that’s as special as any. There’s some left at the bottom once he lathers it onto his bread, so he takes it with him. 

His bag of medical supplies is tucked under his arm, jar of jam in one hand, piece of jammed bread in the other. When he reaches the room of the other, he nudges the door open with his foot, biting on his lip nervously. He’s always a little uncertain which Hellion he’ll get, but it’s never stopped him from trying. Like turning over a deck of fifty-two cards, he’s waiting for his specific one. It’s a good thing he’s a man of patience.

“Either you came out fine from the train or have gotten better with your stupid persistence to avoid me.” He announces himself to the other, leaning against the door frame, his knuckle, the one holding onto his toast, lightly nudges back his hat, which felt too low. As his hand comes down, he bites onto his bread and holds up the jar. “Do you want some of my jam? There’s about a spoon left.” 

He asks the question simply, but he’s had a hard time trying to refrain from sharing pieces of himself with Hellion since their lives crossed paths again. Gull thinks the gesture of his jam is as good as any. It’s the finest thing he’s got and it would be nice if the other could look him in the eyes more often.‌

Just about the only problem with a six-figure bounty is that you’ll find an axe hanging over your head night and day, day and night. If there’s any one thing Hellion can count on in this world, it’s this: there will always be someone who wants him dead. He’s lived like this for some time now, so it’s become second nature to keep his eyes peeled and his ears open, always at the ready should he find himself caught in a foe’s crosshairs. 

And so when someone approaches his room at Raven’s Rest, he’s listening, and he’s at the ready. None of the gang, he thinks, would seek him out in his quarters, except for maybe Rambler, or Paragon—but both know better than to sneak up on a wolf in his den, and would no doubt have trumpeted some kind of warning signal. In one smooth motion that’s more reflex than conscious action, he pushes himself off his cot, reaches for his shotgun, cocks the hammer, and aims the barrel of the gun at—Gull? The door swings open to reveal a familiar face, and it’s by the grace of sheer instinct, of the split-second, intrinsic knowing that this is not a man he wants dead, that stops him from pulling the trigger. 

“Well,” he drawls, looking all too bored considering the gravity of the situation, “that would’ve been unfortunate.” He lowers his shotgun just enough that he can make eye contact with Gull, despite his longing to look other way. “Who would I’ve called on to patch up the gaping hole in your stomach?” he asks, poking Gull’s lower abdomen with the barrel of his shotgun before slinging it over his shoulder.

Either you came out fine from the train or have gotten better with your stupid persistence to avoid me. “Can’t it be both?” Hellion jeers, flippant as ever in the face of an earnest attempt at reconciliation.

He’s discomfited by Gull’s peace offering of jam, mostly because he’s as bad at receiving kind deeds as he is at giving them. He sees the olive branch for what it is, but he’s spent too long living in the trenches of his survival instinct to remember how to reach out and take it, or how to want to reach out and take it, for that matter. “Not unless there’s whiskey at the bottom of that jar,” he mutters under his breath. 

He becomes acutely aware of his surroundings, that it’s just him and Gull here, held in by four walls. Suddenly, the room seems too small, the air between them too thick, rife with tension, and there’s a hot itch that begins to climb up his arms, neck, and cheeks. He runs a hand through his hair, a nervous tic perhaps only Gull knows about from ages past, and blows out a long breath through his nose. “Is there no one whose life you ought to be saving right now?” he asks, and his words cut a little sharper than he means them to.

OPPOSITE — @hellionsun outside the silver lining gambling hall, nearly a week after the robbery

In an occurrence as rare in the history of their game as Hellion’s moments of victory, Rambler was the one flipping the coin this time. Perhaps it was an impulse stirred by the inextricable association between the gold and the covetous man in question, or perhaps it was simply a call for Hellion to answer when their paths inevitably crossed. Rambler wasn’t quite sure, having only recognized the relevance of the action long after he had pulled out the coin while on his way to the gambling hall.

With Rambler bound by constrained movement and Hellion caught in a ceaseless prowl in the gambling hall, the two of them had barely spoken since the robbery, so now that Rambler was at more liberty to wander, he had decided to seek the other man out. He had caught grumbles and jokes among the others about the way Hellion had, apparently and quite believably, become as constant of a fixture in Silver Lining as the gambling tables, and he was now putting the knowledge to good use.

Intent on inviting Hellion for drinks at the Atlantis rather than settling in Silver Lining, Rambler leaned against the wall by the entrance and bided his time for the man’s emergence, lulled by an inexplicable certainty that Hellion would leave soon. He watched the exiting patrons, indulging in a private game with himself by guessing the winners, the losers, and the spectators from what he could observe of them, twirling the coin all the while.

At one point, he smiled to himself, then suddenly flipped the coin with force, as though throwing it to someone. He straightened at the same moment that it smacked onto an open palm, training his smile upon Hellion as he turned towards him. “So the pull of a single coin really is that powerful, huh? Feels like I’ve finally found your leash, Hel,” He teased. “Maybe a little predictable and uninspired but it seems effective enough.” He grinned, then abruptly flattened his expression, though his eyes didn’t lose their humorous glimmer. “You’d better give it back, though,” With a pointed glance at the divinity in Hellion’s hands, he continued, “Sure doesn’t seem like you need it.”

‌

He senses him before he sees him. There’s a palpable shift in the room’s energy, one that makes Hellion wonder if all that “just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean you can’t believe it” bullshit Rambler peddles has some truth to it. It’s been some time since he’s seen him, and he doesn’t realize it until now. A familiar sensation that’s caught halfway between excitement and exasperation and aggravation creeps up on him, and it occurs to him that he’s come to associate this feeling with Rambler, and that he hasn’t felt this way in days, which means he hasn’t seen Rambler in days. It’s a curious thing, but he doesn’t care to dissect it beyond surface level. 

That Martyr-forsaken coin lands neatly in the palm of Hellion’s hand, and it takes a concerted effort not to smack it against Rambler’s cheek with an open palm. Instead, he takes stock of the coin—it’s sun-up, face-down—closes his fist around it, and hides it behind his back. “Face or sun?” he asks by way of greeting. He doesn’t know why he bothers anymore, because Rambler always guesses right, but the game has become something of a creature comfort to him, in a backwards sort of way.

Feels like I’ve finally found your leash, Hel. Hellion levels him with a pointed, sharp-cut look that seems to say, Do you really want to play this game tonight, Ram? Are you so keen on a catching a bullet in your good leg? He doesn’t say any of that, though, mostly because he doesn’t need to; Rambler already knows it, he’s sure. Instead, he flashes him a chilling smile full of teeth and asks, “And who’s holding the other end of the leash?” It’s a dare, and maybe a little bit of a test, too. If Rambler answers wrong, he may very well end up catching a bullet in his good leg by night’s end. Speaking of... 

Hellion jerks his chin at Rambler’s bandage-bound leg. “Didn’t see that one coming, soothsayer?” he deadpans. He doesn’t ask Rambler about it—doesn’t ask him if hurts, if he’s feeling better, if he’s okay. He’s alive, so what else is there to say? Live another day.

“I’m keeping the coin,” he says decidedly, flipping it up in the air once for sport and then pocketing it. “Consider it restitution for the damages of your company.” Hellion begins backing up towards the gambling hall’s exit in slow, slinking steps, slate-blue eyes fixed on Rambler’s darker ones all the while. He can tell just by looking at Rambler—his posture, the twist of his mouth—that he has no intention of staying here and every intention of leaving, no doubt with Hellion in tow. He pushes the door open with his back, holds it there, and waits expectantly for Rambler. “And where are we going tonight, prophet divine?” he jeers. 

Old Halo laughed under her breath, sitting back in her chair as he tested his new hand wraps. She might have been insulted, if she cared enough what Hellion thought of her competence. Instead, she just said, “I’m advising you on this, if you hadn’t noticed. Do you really need more divinity? You must have plenty already, and you won’t be any use on our next job if you get yourself pummeled before then.”

She made a face. “Besides, I doubt Gull needs the extra work. Between Rambler launching himself into danger based on a feeling and Cain threatening to throw himself off the Wheel, I’m sure he has quite enough on his plate. Wouldn’t you like to do something nice for him, for once, and not get yourself hurt?”

She looked toward the ring, then back to Hellion. She got the sense she wasn’t making much headway convincing him. “I didn’t come here to advise you on this, though.” She leaned in a little, clasping her hands together atop the table. “I just wanted to make sure you’re doing alright…er, relatively, I suppose…and ask how the job on the train went for you. I’ve actually been meaning to find you for a while. Are you avoiding me?”

She didn’t really need an answer to that. She got the sense that, like many in the Jack Odyssey Gang, Hellion wasn’t her biggest fan. Why was what she couldn’t answer. It frustrated her to no end.

‌

“Any attempt to advise me is wasted breath.” He pauses meaningfully, skips one, two, three beats. And then: “Our dear Farrier could’ve told you that.” It’s not a jab so much as it is a thrown gauntlet: we have a common interest, you and I. “But then,” he sighs, voice deliberately charged with something wistful, “he doesn’t talk much about the good ol’ days anymore, does he?” The good ol’ days, as in: the days before you; the days with me. It’s another gauntlet thrown: we have a common interest, you and I, and we stand on diametrically opposite sides of him—a blue-eyed devil on one shoulder, a soft-mouthed angel on the other. 

Do you really need more divinity? she asks, and he scoffs, affronted. Does he need more oxygen since he’s already had so much of it? Does he need more food tonight since he’s already eaten this morning? He offers her no answer, due in large part to his waning tolerance and his reluctance to debate the matter at hand. You can’t argue with nice. 

“Do something—nice? For—Gull?” he repeats slowly, like she’s speaking a language he never learned, like he can’t wrap his head around the idea of kindness for the sake of kindness, no strings attached. She is, and he can’t. “To what end?” he asks, and it’s a half-genuine question; he really wants to know. What purpose wold that serve?

A shout of victory cuts through the din of clinking glasses and cheers and laughter, and he looks over to see one of the fighters in the ring holding up her arms in triumph. One fight down, one more to go until he’s up on the docket. 

“I avoid everyone,” he says flatly. And then, because he can’t stand that forlorn look on her face, and because it reminds him of his sisters, he tacks on, “Don’t take it personally.” He’s not as skilled a speaker as Courier, or Paragon, and he hasn’t the faintest idea how to cunningly sidestep her questions about the robbery, so he evades them altogether and reroutes the conversation. “Well, you’re alive,” he observes, “so I reckon you and Brontide made out fine on your side of the train.” He doesn’t care, really, but he’d rather talk about her role in the robbery than his. 

Hellion’s laugh echoes between the two and for a couple of heartbeats, Twelfth’s eyes leave the bandits and look at the man who she’s meant to call company, half of the duo that’s meant to keep an eye out on the train station ( though, all she’s met with is someone that is far too quick to surrender to boredom and not easily predictable because of it ). Twelfth looks at Hellion and they can’t decide whether to be annoyed by the reaction or shudder at it, letting the laugh run down their spine like a bad feeling. 

A bad feeling that’s almost immediately justified. 

Twelfth’s eyes land back on the bandits but their nostrils flare up at Hellion’s lack of care. They never expected him to try that hard to help them; the most they thought they’d see — or rather, hear — was Hellion say something to the bandits, something other than the immediate submission he seems to have taken to. Perhaps a warning, a mean stare to make the bandits feel less inclined to get closer but he gives them nothing. Absolutely nothing. They can’t help but still be disappointed for some unknown and frankly irritating reason yet, at the same time, not at all surprised. 

There’s a sharp, exasperated sigh that leaves Twelfth’s nostrils. Eyes still on the bandit leader ( but always aware of the rest of their sorry excuse for a group ), the former Family member plays with a non-existent ring on their finger, a tattoo that doesn’t move but still burns whenever they pretend to move it. The Mother taught them a lot, teachings that will not be tossed to a dust storm and forgotten. 

Before the leader can get any closer, too close for comfort, Twelfth raises their gun and points it at the middle of their forehead. “I said that’s close enough.” Voice is sure, unshaken and harsh. It’s sad how easily their frustration slips through the cracks. They’re not ready yet, they realise, to stand so close to a man and aim at their head, finger so steadily on the trigger and no hesitation seeping in.

( Mother, if you’re here with me, don’t let me forget what you so lovingly taught me. Don’t let me forget how to kill a man with a quick and sure shot, even if I used that same teaching to kill your son, my brother. )

“I know my partner here might come off as a coward,” Twelfth starts, spitting out the same word Hellion used for them only seconds before, “but don’t confuse me with him.” If Hellion wants to be of no-help so he can sit back and enjoy the show, then he’ll get the shit he deserves for it. “Any of you take another step, you move another inch or reach for your gun and you can watch your leader’s brains splatter on the ground in front of you.” Twelfth doesn’t want to, they really don’t— not because they will lose sleep over it but because they know it’s not the smartest move to start shooting near the train station. 

Despite the fact they’re not the biggest fan of it, Twelfth keeps to their word— the leader tries to reach for their gun and Twelfth pulls the trigger. It’s surprisingly easy to shoot just about anyone when you’ve already shot your brother, your family, your heart. They train their gun on one of the others and ready themself for what is a very fragile situation: the rest will either scurry away or they’re actually a lot more reliable than Hellion could ever be and they’ll try to avenge the head of their little group. Twelfth is ready for either.‌

I said that’s close enough. Twelfth’s warning cuts through the air with enough force to send a little chill hopping down the knobs of Hellion’s spine. His eyebrows shoot up high, surprise surprise softening the hard lines of his face. It’s not the command itself that galls him, no—it’s the bite behind it, cold and hard as steel. If he wasn’t watching Twelfth with his own two eyes, if it was Paragon reciting this story to him, he’d write it off as a one of the raconteur’s make-believe anecdotes, well-woven but untrue. But he is watching Twelfth, and he sees them, clean through, for perhaps the first time. 

And then she calls him a coward, and though his pride bristles, and though his instinct is to raise his hackles, to bark and bite, he refrains, if only because he knows a fishing lure when he sees one. She’ll have to do better than “coward” if she intends to bait him into sticking his neck out for her. Would that Paragon were here, or even Rambler; Paragon, who knows well enough how sway the immovable needle of Hellion’s compass with well-placed words, and Rambler, who knows how to ply him with games and tricks, cloaks and daggers. Pity for Twelfth that both are far, far away from here. 

You can watch your leader’s brains splatter on the ground in front of you.

Hellion thinks she’s bluffing, and so, too, does the gang’s leader, apparently. Turns out she’s not bluffing, not by a long shot, and the gang’s leader pays handsomely for his error in judgment. Hellion lets out a low, impressed whistle as the rest of the small gang stares in horror at their felled leader, whose brains are indeed splattered on the ground before them, as promised. “Good shot,” he muses, and he means it.

The gang has a choice to make now: tuck their tails or bite back. He watches them as they no doubt weigh the pros and cons of flight or fight. He banks on them opting for the latter, so he makes quick work of running his own list of pros and cons.

Pro: if the gang advances and Hellion aids Twelfth, he’ll get to fight or kill or both, which means he’ll get to scratch that ever-present itch of his.

Con: if the gang advances and Hellion aids Twelfth, Twelfth will live another day—or rather, Twelfth will cry about their dead brother another day, and then another, and then another.

Pro: if the gang advances and Hellion doesn’t aid Twelfth, she will perhaps not live another day, which might awaken something monster-like in Farrier, which will be great fun.

Con: if the gang advances and Hellion doesn’t aid Twelfth, one of his fondest sources of entertainment will be dead, likely, and he’ll be a little bored without Twelfth’s at-times-diverting company. Also, he thinks the gang might not be too happy to hear he left one of their own for dead.

In the corner of his field of vision, he sees one of the gang pull a revolver from his waistband. Fight it is, then, not flight. He huffs a petulant sigh as the right call grows clearer in his mind’s eye. “Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, using the toe of his boot to kick the barrel of his shotgun up off the ground and into his hands. He cocks the hammer of his shotgun quickly, smoothly, like he’s been doing it all his life, like it comes as naturally to him as breathing. He has, and it does. Before the gang can retaliate, he fires, cocks the hammer, and fires again. He does this twice more, until none of the gang are left standing.

“You’re welcome,” he says emphatically to Twelfth. It’s a frankly ludicrous remark. You’re welcome for hanging you out to dry and watching you almost die for sport, and then deciding to come to your aid in the eleventh hour to avoid being drawn and quartered by the rest of the gang. “What a waste of gunpowder,” he laments.

While the Wind has brought her comfort during days gone by, today it carries the voices of the ghosts that haunt her.

You’re not ready for this, kid. Never have been, never will be. What the fuck have you ever done to help? Nesta screwed up. Again. Try and fuckin’ keep up, Wind’s Mercy…

They swirl around her head like impatient vultures, beaks eager to snap at dying prey.

Amity. Nesta. Witness. It doesn’t matter how many versions of herself she wears, the futility of her very existence remains the same. Ever-present, ever-mocking.

A desperate attempt to prove those ghosts otherwise yanks her forwards, and the clumsy swipe sends her sprawling onto the dusty ground. Dirt jumps into a cloud around her, soon to settle on her clothes and skin. The drying sweat on the back of her neck was already itchy, and the added layer does little to quell the troubling sensation. It’s distracting, though not enough to bear the blame for her failure. Not when she seems to embody the word.

Tracking an animal is easier than tracking a person. As often as she’s thought of Hellion as the prior, he doesn’t have a tell. Not like elk or buffalo. They tense up, nostrils flared. Some even bark out a warning. Hellion, on the other hand, only seems to relax. Then again, predators have little to fear.

Witness glares up at Hellion’s moving mouth, no doubt spewing some sort of snark. One word blasts out from among the rest: owe. It’s a word Witness is more familiar with than she’d like. She knows it well, the jagged shape of it, spoken like glass sliding down her throat.

Still, Hellion’s helping her, and even though Witness knows it isn’t out of the kindness of his (absent, most likely) heart, she has to take what she can get. He’s skilled, and if he’s willing to dig his own grave and teach the gang’s very own grim reaper a trick or two, who’s she to question it?

Witness pushes herself to her feet with a grunt, defiance in her unblinking gaze as she fixes it on Hellion’s unimpressed one. She dusts off her top, her arms.

“Any actual tips?”‌

“On finding me a cigarette?” he asks flippantly, cheeky as ever. “Farrier’ll probably be your best bet, but if you can’t pickpocket me, you sure as hell won’t be able to pickpocket him, which leaves us at an impasse.” He huffs a long, drawn-out sigh, as if he’s mourning the loss of someone beloved to him, and not rolled tobacco.

Hellion drops the charade a moment later, good humor giving way to something far less pleasant but of far better use to Witness. Gone is the light in his eyes, however dim, and gone, too, is the amused slant of his lips, however cruel. He’s all business now, nothing personal.

She doesn’t wait for him to offer her a hand up, which means she’s learning, at least, because he wouldn’t have, and he never will. He makes a mental note of that small sign progress and tucks it away neatly. 

Her brow is scrunched up with visible frustration, and he reaches out to tap, tap, tap the crease there. “Stop trying to prove something, for one thing,” he says, pulling his hand away before she can think to do something impish, like bite it. “You reek of emotion,” he says flatly, and the way he cuts his voice, cold and sharp-like, makes his opinion on the matter clear. “Which is fine, if you’re keen on catching a bullet before you ever get a chance to try and put one in one us.” It’s a blasphemous thing to say, but he knows Witness, so he knows there’s at least some truth to it. Still, he infuses his words with enough levity that they can be written off as a bad joke, if she wishes it so. Joke or truth, it matters little to Hellion—he’s unbothered either way. If she doesn’t want to put a bullet in any of the gang, fine. If she does, also fine. Based on her performance here today, she’ll be shot dead by him or one of the others before she can even think about pulling the trigger. 

“You’re too loud, for another thing, which I know you know how not to be, because I’ve seen you hunt—and well.” He begins circling her in slow, leisurely steps, like a bobcat taking stock of its prey. “I suspect that’s due in full to all that emotion, too.” He circles her once, twice, and on his third round, he pauses mid-step, braces the barrel of his shotgun between her ankles, and swings it like a pendulum, toppling her once more. “And you don’t pay half as much attention as you ought to, for another thing.”

They’d been in Eel just about a week, but Old Halo still hadn’t managed to speak one-on-one with Hellion. She’d checked on just about every other member of the gang, but Hellion had evaded her grasp. Somehow, they kept missing each other. Finally, she decided she’d seek him out. It wasn’t difficult to find him, when it came down to it. She just had to check the one place she wouldn’t go.

The Silver Living Gambling Hall was full of rowdy drunkards that made the place feel more crowded than it actually was. Even with a train stop, Eel wasn’t that large, but most of people who traveled through made a stop at the gambling hall. The claustrophobic atmosphere was part of why Old Halo had been avoiding checking it out. The other bit was that she had absolutely no interest in gambling all her divinity away. Risking her life on Jack Odyssey’s missions was gambling enough for her.

She looked to the people fighting in the ring first. Neither of them were Hellion, and she permitted herself some small amount of relief. Relief that dissipated when she caught sight of him sitting in the corner. She groaned to herself, then hurried over.

His questions merely made her roll her eyes. “Neither, thank you very much.” She clicked her tongue as he gnawed at his hand wraps like some sort of wild animal and pulled up a chair to sit down next to him. “You’re a disaster. Come on, give them here.”

She set to work changing his hand wraps, glancing up at him only to say, “Wait, does that mean you’re getting in the rink again? Hellion. Shouldn’t you quit while you’re ahead?” She pursed her lips. “Besides. It’s hardly fair of you to beat up on a bunch of malnourished townsfolk.”

‌

He reckons he must have some heart, however black, however shrouded in thorns and bramble, because he doesn’t draw his gun on Old Halo when she approaches, no matter how loudly his instincts bellow in protest of it. It’s not that she’s a threat, no, of course not—it’s that she’s...the opposite, which, frankly, is much, much worse. The acts of service, the good deeds, the warm smiles limned with some kind of unmistakable, unnamable goodness—he doesn’t know what to do with it all, with her. It unnerves him—she unnerves him—and he tries at every turn to avoid her company. He’s not given the opportunity to do so today, though, backed into a corner as he is, and though he wants desperately to raise his hackles, to bark and bite, he doesn’t, if only because she’s unimaginably difficult to be cruel to. 

Alas, his energy and patience are waning by the minute, so his temperance may be short-lived. 

Hellion half-rears back in his chair when she moves to undress his hand wraps, and if he didn’t think Farrier would shoot him dead for it, he might’ve broken her wrist on impulse. Did no one ever teach her how to engage with a wild animal? He thinks not, if her lack of caution is any indication. 

He reeks of tension, discomfited by her attempt at...nurturing, or whatever it is she’s doing, but her wrist bones are yet intact, so he counts that as a victory. He lets her continue the thankless job of changing his hand wraps, but he watches her with a predator-like scrutiny, eyes tracking each tic of each of her muscles. You’re a disaster, she says, and he scoffs at that. “I’ve been called far worse by far worse,” he says flatly. 

He’s wary, more than a touch keyed up, and he’s perhaps the only sorry bastard in the room who would rather be getting bloodied up in the ring than sitting opposite an Old World saint. “If I quit while I was ahead,” he muses, “my bounty would be half of what it is.” He flexes his left hand to test the strength of her knots. They hold up impressively. “And if life was fair”—he spits the word like its a curse—“we’d all be out of jobs.” We, Jack Odyssey’s Gang. “Speaking of,” he says, “shouldn’t you be—I don’t know, advising someone on something somewhere?”

If Cain could roll his eyes any harder, he would; instead, he settles on a shove to Hellion’s shoulder. “If you die climbing that thing,” he repeats his words, his tone mocking. “Fuck you. You and I both know it’s gonna take a lot more than this shit to take me out.” In Cain’s head it’s all guns blazing, bullets flying all around him—if he’s not going down in a fight then he doesn’t want it. He believes in destiny—but the kind you design yourself—and it does not include an accidental death. “I still can’t believe they think you’re worth this much. Mine’s about two thirds of yours and, frankly, that’s offensive.”

Cain barks out a laugh, loud enough to make the wheel tremble. “Yeah, and how about you give me twenty and I shove your gun up your ass. That would also be quicker.”

‌

“Fuck you,” Hellion repeats, doing his best—and most obnoxious, admittedly—impression of Cain. “Is that any way to speak to the man who just saved your life?” It’s perhaps a bit of a stretch to equate saving a life to offering to shoot your sometimes-friend-sometimes-foe point-blank in the face for ✹20, but, well—it’s not the most outrageous thing Hellion’s ever said, not by a long shot. 

He squints up at the ferris wheel again, this time taking in the sheer size of it, the massive intricacy, the craftsmanship. “If a ten-ton metal monster can’t take you out,” he muses, plucking a stalk of wheat from the dead crops underfoot and popping it into his mouth, “I shudder to think what will.”

“You were about to accidentally impale yourself on a seconds-away-from-collapsing wheel,” Hellion says matter-of-factly, grinding the stalk of wheat between his teeth. “I reckon your bounty is grossly overpriced, if anything.”

Yeah, and how about you give me twenty and I shove your gun up your ass. In spite of himself, he smiles, mostly because it’s hard to do anything else in answer to Cain’s bone-rattling laugh. Most, he knows, cower from the sound of it, loud and lionlike and decidedly chilling, but Hellion’s always found it to be infectious, and maybe even a little comforting, in a backwards sort of way. “Twenty div? That seems a little steep for the service provided,” he deadpans. “How much are you charging for one of your good ol’ pistol-whippings? Fifty?”

“You’re askin’ the wrong questions, Hel,” Paragon tips his hat as he slides into the booth across from his favorite Robber (a title afforded to whichever one he’s across from in the moment, it’s true).  “How pretty a profit have you already turned?” He corrects in his best impression of Hellion. “Try that one on for size.” The instruction leaves his lips easily as his hands find the snarled knots of those stained wraps—deftly plucking and loosening and plucking and loosening. “I’ll throw my hat in the ring on a night it won’t take my head clean off my shoulders.”

So, turning a profit it is. Since spotting a familiar face in the ring on arrival, he’d slipped his wager in after each round of the robber’s, keeping to the crowd-cover so as to get his before ruffling any feathers. Now that he’s been clocked, the gig is up. Paragon unwinds Hellion’s wraps, careful-like, and drops them aside on the table. Then he holds his hands up, a peaceable gesture. “Now that’s off the table, and I’ve got a little more Div to my sorry name,” he thumps his stuffed breast pocket, “I figured I’d offer a hand ringside.” A grin of his own flickers to life, “—pay the patronage forward, ‘n all.”

Paragon picks up the fresh wraps and spools them out between his fingers, a flash of white like a flag of truce. One brow hitches. 

“That alright with you?”

‌

He’s not so much surprised as he is impressed. Paragon’s greed, though subtler than Hellion’s, and with smoother edges, is half as hearty as his, if not quite so deep-running. It manifests differently in Paragon than it does in Hellion, sure, but greed is greed, and though perhaps Hellion wouldn’t call Paragon a greedy man, he would call him a hungry one—and what is hunger, really, but greed’s sister sin? The road to hell is paved with good-intentioned hunger—or something like that. 

“Always leaving all the heavy-lifting to me,” he chides, clicking his tongue admonishingly. “You’re nothing if not true to character, Par.” It’s a double-edged turn of phrase, and the joke’s on Paragon: does anyone even know your true character? 

I might, he doesn’t say. 

Distracted as he is by their repartee, Hellion doesn’t notice the deft work of Paragon’s hands until cool air washes over his knuckles, now unwrapped. Something in him visibly shifts, and his agreeable mood sobers a little. He’s not keen on help, giving or receiving it, and it shows in the way he tenses up, weighs the consequences of biting the hand that’s trying to feed him. In the end, he puts his hackles down and chalks up his pliancy to indifference and fatigue, nothing else. 

That alright with you? Paragon asks, and Hellion scoffs at that, leveling him with an exasperated look. “If it wasn’t, I reckon you’d run that clever mouth of yours ’til you convinced me it is.” And that’s as close to ‘yeah, it’s fine with me’ as Paragon’ll get from him. “This is it, then? This is my compensation?” he asks (mostly) in jest. Racehorses don’t get a cut of their jockeys’ winnings, he knows, but what’s the harm in trying? “You turn a profit on my blood, sweat, and tears and all I get in return is a helping hand?” He sucks his teeth. “What ever happened to honor among thieves?” asks the honorless thief. 

He’s spent the better part of the past hour rifling through the gang’s carts out back behind Raven’s Rest, pilfering whatever strikes his fancy and whatever he thinks he can pocket without raising any flags. So far, he’s taken a gold-plated watch engraved with the initials D.H., an emerald ring, and a handsome stack of divinity. He wears the jewelry on his person in plain sight, a flagrant display of his offenses, and he find a home for the divinity in the pocket of his coat. 

Quarter’s untimely kink in his plans aboard the train a few days ago has left his pockets wanting, and he’s keen on making up for time and profit lost on account of the mettlesome debtor. Mostly, though, he’s keen on having a little fun, which he’s been sorely lacking since the gang’s arrival to Eel. Pillaging his own gang’s loot is little more than a happy diversion as he bides his time until the arrival of his real happy diversion.

He can’t know for sure that Farrier will show face, but if he was a gambling man, which he is, he’d bet a pretty penny on Farrier making an appearance here tonight. The horses need to be fed, for one thing. And for another, Hellion can only guess at whatever existential crisis Farrier’s moral compass is ushering him towards in the aftermath of the robbery, so he’s betting he’ll turn up here to feed the horses and use the window of solitude to dissect the same thought again and again, until his brow aches from brooding so intensely.

He’s pulling on the drawstrings of a small pouch of coins when he hears the loud clamor of a door swinging open. The quiet din of nightlife all around him falls silent, and even the crickets stop rubbing their wings together, as if anticipating the exchange about to unfold. The only sound that reminds is the soft whinny of Bastard, no doubt happy to see perhaps the only person he’s ever happy to see. Traitor.

“Honey, you’re home,” Hellion deadpans, voice glib. He doesn’t look up, mostly because he doesn’t have to. He’s a gambling man, and he bet on the right horse tonight. “You’re late,” he calls out to Farrier, which is an altogether outrageous thing to say to someone with whom you have no standing appointment. His fingers reach deftly inside of the pouch of coins, rummaging through its contents for sport more than anything else. The texture of the coins, cool and hard and smooth, soothes something restless inside of him, and the sensation emboldens him. He makes no effort to hide the watch on his wrist, or the ring on his little finger, or the pouch of coins in his hands. Let Farrier see. Let him do something about it. You won’t, he silently dares him as he pulls a coin from the pouch and begins flipping it in the air. 

“How was your day?” he asks, not because he particularly cares, but because he’s fishing for a ‘how was your day?’ in return.

If there’s a place where The Faith says bad things happen to people after they die, Twelfth wholeheartedly knows that’s where they are right there and then. Every word that leaves Hellion’s lips only solidifies that belief. 

Twelfth doesn’t mind the slowness of the job, they don’t mind the peace and quiet that it brings ( even if that peace and quiet only come in short bouts, in between whatever Hellion decides to ask about or do to entertain himself at their expense ) nor do they mind the fact there’s virtually almost no living soul around them at that time. It’s a simple job. All they have to do is be quiet and watch the skyline and the surroundings like hawks. 

Perhaps a bit too simple. Twelfth can feel the boredom oozing from Hellion and they know it has a blast radius — unfortunately for her, she’s in it. And, yet another unfortunate thing, they wished too hard for something to distract him and now they have a small group of bandits, hellbent on making it known they recognise Twelfth’s tattoo even without any exchanged words. 

They straighten up where they stand, hand hovering over their holster. Friends of yours? Twelfth can’t help the roll of their eyes, the scoff that soon follows. Maybe they should have realised it sooner ( months ago, really ) that Hellion is the worst person to have by their side when it comes to needing back-up. “Far from it,” she begins, eyes never leaving the hostile bandits, still far away but already too close, “but I suppose I can see why you’d confuse the two.” Casual yet no less truthful. 

Twelfth keeps their eyes on the bandits but once they get too close for comfort, they take a few steps away from the lamppost they’d been leaning on. Back straight, voice loud and clear. “That’s close enough!” she calls out. They could be there to catch a train, there’s always that small possibility, but Twelfth knows danger when they come face to face with it and the three men looked more like the kind of people to rob a train rather than pay a full priced ticket to ride it. 

To be fair, there’s a look on the men’s faces that tells her they’re more interested in her than any handful of wealthy passengers a train might have. “Somethin’ we can help you with?”

‌

I suppose I can see why you’d confuse the two. 

He laughs at that, partly because it’s true, partly because it’s funny, and partly because it’s the first sign of life he’s seen in Twelfth all night, if not all week. Finally, he thinks. 

He marvels at the way their countenance shifts, how they morph into something imperceptibly but somehow altogether different. It’s little things here and there: the scrunched-up crease of their brow, the way they begin to weave touches of steel into their voice, the narrow slit of their eyes, suddenly hawklike. These parts amount to the whole of a predator: sleek, subtle; dangerous. In this light, he can imagine it: Twelfth, one of the Family’s most chilling nightmares. 

The mirage stutters, wavers, and before he knows it, he’s again looking at the Twelfth he’s familiar with: subdued, restrained; half-dangerous at best. Like a child who hasn’t gotten his way, he frowns, petulant, and instantaneously mourns the loss of what might’ve been a little fun. Perhaps there’s some way of drawing the shadows from them again...

Somethin’ we can help you with? Twelfth asks, and he balks at her. 

“We?” he mutters under his breath emphatically as he swings his legs over the bench and pushes himself up to his full height. He counts four of the approaching gang, which are odds he’d bet on any day. Two of Jack Odyssey’s Gang is worth at least four of any other, he reckons; Jack’s lot are meaner, quicker, and a far sight harder to kill than your average bandit.  One of Jack's gang against four of another, however...

The leader of the gang begins to advance on Twelfth, and Hellion unceremoniously withdraws his shotgun from its holster—and braces the barrel of it on top of the ground, using it as a makeshift cane to lean his weight on. Two of the gang exchange bewildered looks with one another, no doubt wondering why the fuck Twelfth’s companion is laying down his arms before the dogfight’s even begun. “I have no dog in this fight, I’m afraid,” he coos in answer to their unvoiced question.

He tips his hat to Twelfth and offers up his best impression of one Paragon’s winning smiles and a cheeky thumbs up. “Holler if you need a hand, partner,” he calls out, but something about the way he says it suggests he might be hard of hearing when she comes a-calling. 

He squints up at the metal contraption as he takes a long, leisurely drag of his cigarette. 

He firstly wonders what this Old World eyesore was used for in its heyday. 

He secondly wonders if Witness she thinks she’s slick, which he reckons she can’t possibly, because he can hear her footfall a mile away, and her stealth, if you can call it that, is reminiscent of Old World bulls in Old World china shops. It confounds him, frankly, because he’s seen her hunt, so he can testify to the expert skill with which she camouflages herself among her surroundings. It’s uncanny, the way she does it—and a far cry from whatever the fuck she’s trying at now. 

She’s been tailing him for the past half hour, from what he can gather, and he’s been less than patiently waiting for her to make her move on him. He hasn’t the faintest idea what she’s waiting for, because he’s been idling here for ten minutes, at least. 

Perhaps not so skilled a thief as you are a hunter, are you, kid?

He knows she’s going to strike because he can hear the rustle of brush behind him, a quiet sound perhaps only distinguishable from the wind to the trained ear of a thief proper. By the time she reaches him, quick hands no doubt angling for the pocket of his coat, he’s already swiveling away from her, putting the heel of his boot in her path instead of his person. She’s either not expecting it or not quick enough to do anything about it, both of which are errors in judgment that will no doubt get her killed. This particular error in judgment doesn’t cost Witness her life, but it does cost her her balance, and it costs Hellion his cigarette, which falls from his mouth in the midst of the small commotion.

Hellion makes a sound of grief at the squandered cigarette, gone before its time. Rest in peace, beloved. He looks down at her with a scowl, arms crossed over his chest. “You’re far better at the hiding part of this game than the seeking part,” he says flatly. He levels her with an unimpressed grimace that, in this light, makes him look a little like his father did on the rare occasion he was sober enough to reprehend his children. “And you owe me a cigarette.”