#foxwar

instinctively, she flinches. florek’s been dead for over a year, but men raising their goddamned voices still puts her on edge. still has her bracing for a slap and the berating that will follow. it isn’t every raised voice that does it. and it isn’t every man. the right cigarette-laden rasp will remind her of her mother, which gets the same reaction from alice. this asshole’s assholery isn’t even directed at her, but something about it sets her on edge. makes her grit her teeth before she, without thinking, snaps back. “would you mind being an asshole literally anywhere else? you’re ruining my morning.” 

“so what? because i’m a girl i’m supposed to be squicked out by blood?” ember scoffs. teenage boys. they never change. he reminds her of her lab partner in high school biology: a big dumb jock who’d asked something similar before mutilating the poor frog on the tray. she woke up with mr franklin worriedly leaning over her on the floor because she’d fainted. so, sure, she was squicked out by blood then but ember wasn’t that girl anymore. she’d died and come back as a fucking ghost. she could deal with some blood. maybe she’d show him her real face, see if he freaked - he’d probably enjoy it. she crosses her arms, lifting her chin haughtily. “c’mon. let’s see it then.”

it’s all most everyone he knows wants to do to him. it’s all he wants to do back to some of them. some of them, he tells himself when he knows it’s only frank he cares about. they’ll become ensnared with each other again - that’s the way it has to be, the way it always has been and always will be. but that’s neither here nor there, at the moment. billy wets his lips, tasting metal when the split in his lower lip cracks open again, as he stares at isaak. “i’d be insulted if it were as simple as that,” he sniffs, smooths the pad of his thumb against his trigger finger. “nothing’s ever simple with you. so let’s cut the bullshit cat and mouse. you want something from me. what is it?”

“well, at least you know you’re a creature of habit.” tanya leans against the bar when she speaks, dark eyes flitting over arthur in a quick head-to-toe swipe before taking in the rest of the saloon. the heat of the day is winding down, providing a small reprieve for work to be finished without suffering too terribly beneath the sun, and the saloon is nearly empty. an hour or two and that’ll change, bringing in characters familiar and not. arthur’s reappearance here is something of a surprise, but then, it ought to be. “didn’t think i’d see you showin’ your face here again though.”