The ancient-looking Buick is paint-primer gray and looks as though it belongs to someone's poor-but-not-indigent grandmother, down to the twelve-year-old election bumper stickers and the bedraggled red love beads hanging on the rearview mirror. No one would guess, looking at its unassuming exterior, that the rebuilt engine can run like a mint condition Maserati, or that the glove compartment held two sets of fake registrations and a pair of semi-automatic pistols. Holly's hands, clad in black leather gloves, grip the top of her oversized Fendi handbag. The seatbelt does little to keep her still as the vehicle careens up and down the unlit tenement streets. If this were a respectable neighbourhood, they would have attracted the attention of traffic cops a good half-hour ago.
Not that it matters, of course. She would only have had to say her name, her real name, and they would have backed off. Let alone make a mention of Dare.
But in this forsaken block, an old car driving too fast the wrong way down the one-way streets is the least of the police's concern. A typical beat cop on the lower East side knew what the odds were, what he was up against. And that which led to wild nighttime chases also led to a knock on a loved one's door at an unseasonable and inauspicious hour, a lot of unhelpful platitudes. Holly doesn't look at the man driving the tin bucket, or the sleek black sedan in hot pursuit. She knows that there are at least two guns pointed at them from the vehicle behind them. It's a toss of the dice whether they'd aim for the driver or the tires.
For once, Jack keeps his goddamned mouth shut, his hands cool and competent on the steering wheel as he zigzags crazily through the rat's labyrinth of alleyways and side-streets and abandoned parking lots. Holly allows herself one glance through the passenger-door mirror, takes a deep breath as she reaches into her handbag with her left hand, slides the right towards the glove compartment.
"When you come up on that warehouse on the next block, make a right, then a sharp left, towards the service entrance."
Jack does, and in the one instant that their pursuers lose, falling for the feint, she pulls loose a Beretta 950 Jetfire from her purse and catches the driver straight in the forehead even as the bigger, bulkier Smith and Wesson blasts out the passenger side front tire. Before she can even say another word, Jack swerves again, and the shot that would undoubtedly have hit her, coming from the passenger in the black sedan, flies wide, pings off pitted concrete. She fires the Smith and Wesson again, and three shots later, the black sedan has crashed spectacularly into a telephone pole. A few streetlights flicker, and Holly lets herself exhale slowly. It was a close call, again. This time, Jack had the wherewithal not to get himself almost killed.
The ancient-looking Buick drives out of the maze of alleyways, makes its way towards the freeway. They're a good fifteen miles away before Jack turns his head and shoots her a crooked grin.
"You managed to not get hurt this time around," Holly sniffs, studiously avoiding any comment on that nickname. She'd only encourage him, after all. "And I suppose the fact that you didn't require for me to spell it out for you on the driving bit, you deserve some commendation."
"I wasn't about to let you get hurt," he says. His voice is light, but so matter-of-fact that despite its gentle tones, the words are an emphatic declaration. The rearview mirror reflects blue eyes that glint hard as the blue steel of a polished gun-barrel. "I'll never save you, like you saved me. I'd die for you before it got to that point."
The bald-faced words make her breath catch in her throat. She doesn't want to acknowledge the sentiment behind them, but lying would be a waste of both their times. Jack's stubborn and infuriating, brash and occasionally uncouth, but he's not stupid and she hasn't been able to successfully click off her feelings since long before that last, fateful mission.
"Sweet of you to say. I'd kiss you if you weren't driving," she says, trying to affect a levity and nonchalance she doesn't feel.
The reflected eyes sharpen and the car swerves onto the shoulder, comes to an abrupt halt. Two clicks later, their seatbelts are undone. His arms cage her in, his eyes sear into hers. "I'm not driving now."
She feels the ends of her hair brush his fingertips as she tilts her head, silently counts out three heartbeats. And then their lips meet in a clash of tongues and teeth and fire as his hands yank her hair back and her fingers, still gloved and scented like gunpowder residue, pull him all the way in.
Prompt:
A/N: R/J by request. Docks/Noirverse.
***
The ancient-looking Buick is paint-primer gray and looks as though it belongs to someone's poor-but-not-indigent grandmother, down to the twelve-year-old election bumper stickers and the bedraggled red love beads hanging on the rearview mirror. No one would guess, looking at its unassuming exterior, that the rebuilt engine can run like a mint condition Maserati, or that the glove compartment held two sets of fake registrations and a pair of semi-automatic pistols. Holly's hands, clad in black leather gloves, grip the top of her oversized Fendi handbag. The seatbelt does little to keep her still as the vehicle careens up and down the unlit tenement streets. If this were a respectable neighbourhood, they would have attracted the attention of traffic cops a good half-hour ago.
Not that it matters, of course. She would only have had to say her name, her real name, and they would have backed off. Let alone make a mention of Dare.
But in this forsaken block, an old car driving too fast the wrong way down the one-way streets is the least of the police's concern. A typical beat cop on the lower East side knew what the odds were, what he was up against. And that which led to wild nighttime chases also led to a knock on a loved one's door at an unseasonable and inauspicious hour, a lot of unhelpful platitudes. Holly doesn't look at the man driving the tin bucket, or the sleek black sedan in hot pursuit. She knows that there are at least two guns pointed at them from the vehicle behind them. It's a toss of the dice whether they'd aim for the driver or the tires.
For once, Jack keeps his goddamned mouth shut, his hands cool and competent on the steering wheel as he zigzags crazily through the rat's labyrinth of alleyways and side-streets and abandoned parking lots. Holly allows herself one glance through the passenger-door mirror, takes a deep breath as she reaches into her handbag with her left hand, slides the right towards the glove compartment.
"When you come up on that warehouse on the next block, make a right, then a sharp left, towards the service entrance."
Jack does, and in the one instant that their pursuers lose, falling for the feint, she pulls loose a Beretta 950 Jetfire from her purse and catches the driver straight in the forehead even as the bigger, bulkier Smith and Wesson blasts out the passenger side front tire. Before she can even say another word, Jack swerves again, and the shot that would undoubtedly have hit her, coming from the passenger in the black sedan, flies wide, pings off pitted concrete. She fires the Smith and Wesson again, and three shots later, the black sedan has crashed spectacularly into a telephone pole. A few streetlights flicker, and Holly lets herself exhale slowly. It was a close call, again. This time, Jack had the wherewithal not to get himself almost killed.
The ancient-looking Buick drives out of the maze of alleyways, makes its way towards the freeway. They're a good fifteen miles away before Jack turns his head and shoots her a crooked grin.
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"You managed to not get hurt this time around," Holly sniffs, studiously avoiding any comment on that nickname. She'd only encourage him, after all. "And I suppose the fact that you didn't require for me to spell it out for you on the driving bit, you deserve some commendation."
"I wasn't about to let you get hurt," he says. His voice is light, but so matter-of-fact that despite its gentle tones, the words are an emphatic declaration. The rearview mirror reflects blue eyes that glint hard as the blue steel of a polished gun-barrel. "I'll never save you, like you saved me. I'd die for you before it got to that point."
The bald-faced words make her breath catch in her throat. She doesn't want to acknowledge the sentiment behind them, but lying would be a waste of both their times. Jack's stubborn and infuriating, brash and occasionally uncouth, but he's not stupid and she hasn't been able to successfully click off her feelings since long before that last, fateful mission.
"Sweet of you to say. I'd kiss you if you weren't driving," she says, trying to affect a levity and nonchalance she doesn't feel.
The reflected eyes sharpen and the car swerves onto the shoulder, comes to an abrupt halt. Two clicks later, their seatbelts are undone. His arms cage her in, his eyes sear into hers. "I'm not driving now."
She feels the ends of her hair brush his fingertips as she tilts her head, silently counts out three heartbeats. And then their lips meet in a clash of tongues and teeth and fire as his hands yank her hair back and her fingers, still gloved and scented like gunpowder residue, pull him all the way in.
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