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[dreaming_cowboy]

Spike generally makes out that he's pretty oblivious. He makes out he's a lot of things, and many of them can be pretty convincing to those who only know him at a surface level. Which is a lot. That's part of the whole deal

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[velation]

It's been some months now since that day Faye Valentine sat out in the jungle with a foolish man, arm draped around her shoulder. Months now since she decided to make a promise of the sort she swore to herself would never happen again, one that relied on the other half to be trustworthy, and one that was only shaped for his gain. And tonight, for whatever reason, she wonders if it's about time to break it

[dreaming_cowboy]

He slides onto the seat next to her, without looking over, and absently raps his knuckles on the bar. He figures he can; he's here enough.

It's practically a local.

No, screw that, it is, isn't it? It's local to him, and he's local. Nothing to be but local, around here.

"Can't believe you still have those," he says. As an opener, it may be lacking, but it's honest.

[velation]

Today, the anger isn't worth it. She can see the movement from the corners of her eyes, still a touch unfamiliar for the lack of blue, and so she closes her eyes, just listening to the sound of his voice. It's crazy, but the desperate desire to turn back the clock to how things were, to before they found that stupid tape and before Spike got wind of Julia, still aches in her chest. Maybe, she thinks to herself, that's what being homesick means. No matter how accustomed she's grown to the island, or how much she's coming to terms with Spike so changed, none of this feels like home yet. Nor is Faye sure that it ever will.

She's been known to be rather stubborn, heels digging into the earth whenever possible.

"I promised someone I'd quit," she replies, holding the box out in the direction of the voice. "Want to help me keep that promise?"

[dreaming_cowboy]

It occurs to him in a disconcerting moment that he may not be the only one for whom life moves on, shifts in unanticipated ways. He certainly didn't anticipate that.

True, he tries not to anticipate anything, because it limits one's ability to react, narrows it down to a set of prepared responses. Rehearsal removes the ability to move with the situation; as in combat, in life.

Still, he doesn't even have an immediate off-the-cuff response to that one, and stares at the packet for a long moment.

"Are you serious?" he says, not taking it.

But ready to swipe it the moment it looks like it might be withdrawn.

[velation]

She doesn't move at first, save for opening her eyes and glancing over at last. Perhaps she's just curious to see his reaction. It almost pleases her to see him taken aback, right up until the point that she realizes what it means. That maybe she's starting to change and grow roots, and the very thought writhes in her stomach and makes her nauseous, a quickening. None of that shows on her face, however, Faye still able to roll with the punches- or maybe it's simply that everything seems to matter a little less now, after everything that's happened in the past. Relatively speaking, this is nothing more than a blip in history.

"Do I look serious, Spike?" she grins, eyes still a sharp green and cutting through the dark as her hand starts to pull back. "Unless you don't want it."

[dreaming_cowboy]

His hand moves fast enough to present the possibility he's one of those presented with a power, today.

"No sense both of us going without," he says, pulling a cigarette out of the freshly acquired packet and then pausing. "...I don't have a lighter."

He doesn't carry one. Because, in practice, he doesn't smoke, either.

Mostly because he never has cigarettes, to be fair.

[velation]

Immediately, her brow furrows- but this seems to be yet another of a million questions she doesn't want to ask. Not today, not ever. Of course, the possibility that the island's given him an extra gift or two for the weekend doesn't carry as much weight as the rest of it. It seems these days that Faye's most comfortable around the transient, ephemeral, anything that slips between her fingers. Because then, she doesn't have to feel guilty about turning her own back.

Spike being anchored, on the other hand, is a whole other story.

"What does it say about me that I still do?" Faye asks, tugging a lighter from her pocket and tossing it lightly in the air. He'll catch it. He always does. And then her hand is left free to push her glass forward for a refill.

If she's not going to smoke, she may as well drink.

[dreaming_cowboy]

He catches the lighter with the hand not placing the cigarette between his lips and sparks it up.

"Depends why you're holding on to it," he says, with a shrug, closing his eyes against the blessed, blessed cigarette.

[velation]

"Old habits," is the easiest answer to give. But it's not entirely true.

If old habits were all that mattered, she wouldn't have picked a hut. Redtail would be out of fuel. Her clothes would be worn threadbare, her hair kept trimmed at that same, easy length. The picture now is slightly off, her red shirt still hanging easily off of her shoulders, but her hair teases at her collarbone now, long enough to run one's hands through.

She kicks back another drink, not yet pausing to breathe. "I don't like it here," she admits, softly.

[dreaming_cowboy]

He takes another slow drag on the cigarette before responding to that.

"Is it the place you're against," he says, tilting his head back to regard the sky he has no chance of escaping, of passing beyond. And if he did, apparently there's nowhere to go beyond it, anyway. "Or staying in it?"

He'd like it fine, if he was passing through long enough to round up some stray bounty and then move on. It still wouldn't be his favorite place -- too small, too well-behaved -- but it wouldn't itch the same way.

[velation]

She takes a soft, smooth inhale before answering, even just the scent of tobacco in the air calming her down and easing her tensed nerves. Maybe second-hand smoke still counts as cheating, she thinks idly to herself, but it's a bit too late now, the past having apparently whisked in through the door and taken hold. Like a spill that can't be forced back into place, instead bleeding everywhere, blurring everything in its path. Her fingers stretch and trace over the grain of the wood of the counter, endless circles ringed one around the other.

"If you have to ask that question," she says, voice low and quiet. "Then apparently you never really knew me at all."

She peeks up, and his familiar profile still seems to hit her with a shock. "But something tells me you already know the answer."

The both of them are made to run.

[dreaming_cowboy]

"Yeah," he says, blowing a smoke ring upwards and then pointing through it, hand in the loose shape of a mimed gun around Faye's lighter.

No bang, though. Not right now, at least. "Same answer as mine."

[velation]

The smoke dissipates before it reaches the ceiling. Simply dusts the air with gray before it's gone altogether, like it never was at all. Reminds her a bit of the man standing right beside her, a man she still doesn't understand, for all that she feels she knows him better than most people ever can. You don't know Spike Spiegel until you know his past. You don't know his past until you've been there for it, Vicious' words pressed against one's skin like a sharpened blade.

Does anyone on the island really know Spike?

She reaches out with a quick hand, tugs lightly at the collar of his shirt. Not playful, not demanding; she simply makes a point.

"Could have fooled me. Until you decided to sit down, right here, right now," she replies. "Why?"

[dreaming_cowboy]

He looks over at her, on that. Faye has a talent for garnering attention; generally, he's ignored it or deliberately paid no mind -- in the past, at least, in the world as seen through the other eye -- but sometimes it doesn't pay to.

And sometimes she just has you by the shirt.

"Because being stuck in one place isn't the same thing as sticking there," he says, and the laidback note he usually runs with is not exactly gone, but played an octave lower, perhaps.

[un_gloved]

It could have been worse, really, than changing colors. Rogue had experienced what it meant to have powers in more ways than most, had run the gamut from full body physical changes to being able to reach out to people with her mind- all stolen, of course, but still experienced- so really, it could have been a lot worse than changing colors.

The tongue thing was freaking her out, though. It was so embarrassing to have both a heavy accent and a lisp that she'd resigned herself to just not speaking. Turning colors head to toe was also attention-getting, and while she didn't hate it with any particular strength, she didn't like the idea of people being able to see her go through something emotionally, and she hated the idea of what they saw being open to interpretation. A guy creating ice out of nowhere had made her turn not just beet red but ruby red from head to toe, and that had been kind of mortifying

[velation]

Slowly, her fingers release the collar. All that she wanted, after all, was to point out again how much things have changed for him, how aside from those eyes, sometimes... she thinks that he's damned near unrecognizable. It's the brush of hair continually against her shoulders that makes her wonder. If Jet came, what would he think? The only one who can objectively speak now to whether or not Faye Valentine has finally lost her edge at last. Faye's gaze lowers and lingers again on that shirt, on how when she doesn't make eye contact, he's indeed a stranger.

Or a friend that only remains on the cusp of her memory. It's always like this. Everything fades. Everything wears away with time. And the very sensation of something slipping between her fingers again makes her hand twitch, tempted to pull out the Glock again, just to have something to help her leave a lasting message. One that makes it clear