fullofmercy | (no subject)

Well, well, well.

She'd been on her way to the hospital -- she'd decided what she told Gren was right and that going back last night was something she shouldn't do -- but nobody could ever accuse her of not being aware, and when she catches a glimpse of the priest, her plans change.

Not drastically, but Spike will just have to wait.

(It's not like he'll care.)

In a matter of minutes, she's perched with all the grace of a slumming queen on the arm of the wooden chair across the table from him.

"Padre. Fancy meeting you here."

She remembers what happened in the spaceport, and her knowing little smile is full of the memory of it.

The last time he'd seen her, he hadn't even gotten a good look--shoot-outs have a way of being fairly distracting--so he takes one now from behind his cigarette. She's got this little "I know what you're up to" smile that glitters in her eyes and she lounges on the arm like it's a throne.

It helps that she's so easy on the eyes. "Faye." He grins, a single, wicked flash back at her and then lifts his eyebrows. "It must be my lucky day." He waves a nonchalant hand at the chess board. "You just missed watching me get roundly beaten. Clearly there is a God, and I made the right career choice."

Last time he'd seen her--even without getting a good look--she'd been backing up her partner, and doing a pretty good job of it, too. She's a good shot, and that's something he'd guessed before but nows for sure now.

What he doesn't know is how good a glimpse she got of him, or of that cloth-wrapped cross that's leaning so innocently on the window behind him.

As if inspired by the haze of smoke hanging around him, she crosses her legs and reaches into a pocket to pull out a cigarette of her own. "Or maybe I just have very good timing."

For just a second, a short-lived outburst from one of the old guys sitting at a table a short distance away surprises her into looking over at them, and... hasn't she seen them somewhere before?

Well, she has been out and about in the city a lot in the past few days. Maybe she's seen them around.

On their way back to Wolfwood, her eyes pass that cross-shaped companion of his.

"But tell me, because I'm very curious in addition to having such an enviable sense of timing: exactly what is your official job description, hmm?"

His eyes follow hers to the Punisher, and he takes a long, slow pull at his own cigarette once they meet those smug green ones across from him. "I'm a traveling preacher man, Faye. But it's a pretty flexible job description; kind of like yours is, I think. There are a lot of people out there who can't protect themselves."

There are probably just as many who can't protect themselves from him, either, but he just can't let himself think like that. Who does he want to end up like, Vash the damn bleeding-heart Stampede? Real people don't bleed ketchup, and they fight back.

You just can't save everybody.

But he's not the only one with surprises, here. What the hell was going on back at the spaceport? How were Spike and Faye mixed up in it all?

He tips his cigarette in her direction. "What about you? Was that some sort of bounty operation back at the spaceport, or do you just like trouble?"

There's a delicate arch to one of her eyebrows, but her smile isn't going anywhere.

"And that's what you are? A traveling preacher who offers protection to those who can't protect themselves? How admirable."

She's not even being sarcastic, but there's humor and teasing and even a little appreciation rolled together behind her words.

Well, really. She saw the guns secreted inside that cross. Nicholas D. Wolfwood here is obviously a dangerous man to go up against -- real man of the cloth or not -- and she likes those.

So long as they're not too dangerous.

"As for the spaceport, well, let's just say trouble likes me a lot more than I like it. I didn't have a lot to do with that, but I can tell you it wasn't a bounty operation. I was just there to keep an eye on my partner."

He's got to grin at that. The whole idea of him being some knight trying to help the people is a pretty hilarious one, even if it isn't far from the truth. "Only if you think of me as one of the good guys."

And he's not. But he'd come to terms with that long ago. You've got to break a few eggs, right? "Mostly it's self protection, anyway." There's a purple shine off her hair that reminds him of the woman he'd left back in Mei.

It's just his luck her husband would come back.

Purple hair's the only thing the two have in common, though: he can't imagine Faye behind a counter cooking and chatting with patrons any more easily than he can imagine himself flying with a pari of pearly wings. "I bet that must be a full-time job." He taps off some ash, leans back.

"So Spike was behind it all?"

"Now why wouldn't I think of you as one of the good guys? We tried to skip out on a bill, but that's no crime. Or at least not a serious one," she amends quickly but still kind of carelessly, her smile just as pointed as before.

And self-protection: that she gets.

"Full-time job. You don't know the half of it." Now her smile does actually fade, and she glances sideways with an idle kind of shiftiness but looks back at Wolfwood quickly enough, her cigarette tucked between her lips. "The guy's walking trouble, but he wasn't behind it all. He was just at the spaceport as backup, and he wasn't even supposed to be."

When she removes her cigarette from her mouth, she breathes smoke out in a shapeless cloud and then rests the heel of her palm on the back of her chair.

"Most of what happened after that was all his work, though."

"What happened after?"

This is something he hasn't heard anything about. Suspecting is one thing; hearing it from Faye's own to-die-for mouth is completely different.

It wasn't a bounty. So why would Spike be so adamant on getting Vicious, one-to-one? And where'd that girl, Julia or whatever her name is, come in on it all? "So the is something going on between him and Vicious." He pulls hard at his cigarette, eyes focused beyond Faye while he tries to slot things together. None of them are quite fitting, yet. "And that blonde chick, she's in on it, too?"

Anything she might have been insinuating about him is bypassed for now; this is all too interesting to backtrack and tell Faye his whole sordid story although who knows? she might be interested. He's willing to bet she's got a good one of her own.

Idly, he reaches forward and sets up first the red king, then the black. "Or was she just backup, too?"

"Which blonde?" she asks dryly, but then shrugs her shoulders slightly, watching as he places the kings. "Julia?"

If Spike keeps going at this rate, he'll have a whole collection of blondes. She just doesn't get it. But Julia's the only one Wolfwood would've seen at the spaceport.

"Julia was the one who was Gren's arranged backup at the spaceport. Spike was there..." Because he can't leave well enough alone. "Because he and Vicious have history."

Her pause is obvious.

"Had history."

Her eyes move up from the chess table, past the view of his chest the front of his suit affords her, past the stubborn set of his jaw and the cigarette in his mouth, and finally meet his eyes. In some ways, he reminds her a lot of Spike. In other ways, he's nothing like him.

"Don't ask me what kind of history. I don't know."

It's not a lie, though she has some very good guesses.

"Well, you must've caught me in a confessional mood, padre," she adds in a tone that just barely drips sly sweetness, her own cigarette resting between her fingers about an inch from her mouth. "But I guess that comes with the territory for you, doesn't it?"

Whether he's being completely honest with her or not -- and really, who's completely honest out here? -- she still thinks he makes the best priest she's ever met.

Pausing with his hand over the black king near him, his cigarette caught between two knuckles, he grins at her. "You'd think so. Anyway, it's on the house, for you, Faye."

Not that she's confessing so much as passing along information, and the sad fact is that people only talk when they want to, regardless of topic. He taps at the king's crown with a fingertip, thoughtfully spinning the little figure around its base.

Had history. So that's that for Vicious, and the whole thing is over before he ever really got into it.

Well, that's just fine by him. Who asked him to join in, anyway? Nobody, not even Gren, really, and the last thing he wants to do is get mixed up in someone else's unfinished business.

There's a little bit of honesty in her eyes when she looks at him and says she doesn't know what kind of history Spike and Vicious have--had--and he'll go ahead and take that at face value. As far as he knows, she's got no reason to lie, and isn't it some sort of sin to lie to a priest, anyway?

He almost laughs at that thought.

"So it's over, then?" He doesn't quite glance over at the Punisher. He knows exactly where it is.

Her smile seems more genuinely pleased than openly flirtatious for a moment.

"Aren't you a nice guy?"

The nicest guys probably have little reason for gun, much less a cross full of them, but she generally doesn't have much interest in the nicest guys.

The fact that they don't tend to have bounties on their heads that she can take advantage of isn't all there is to it.

She's not sure why she appreciates the priest here as much as she does, but... she just does. It's not your average priest that'll skip out on a bill with a smile on his face and then go play poker.

"Yeah."

She really didn't like Vicious, but that's not the kind of news she can talk about with a pleased smile on her face. Not after how she found Spike and Julia when it was all over.

Something like that leaves an impression on a girl.

"They're lucky any of them survived," she adds, matter-of-fact, lips slightly pursed.

"And it's a good thing they did, otherwise we'd be having a much more depressing conversation right now. And personally, I'd rather focus on the joy of your delightful company."

He hates the mess of revenge. It only ever gets people killed or hurt, and drags innocent bystanders into the fray for good measure. It has got to be one of the more insane human concepts, which has only made it a more popular one.

Didn't the colonists, way back in history, fight duels to settle this sort of stuff? That just goes to show how ridiculous the entire idea is, and how entrenched.

Talk about fallibility.

Unfortunately, even with the games over with for now, the anonymity of the bystanders involved has been compromised all to hell and back--not that it really matters. Why should he care if anyone here sees what's under that innocent white cloth?

His smoke's almost out; he grinds it into an ashtray next to the chess board. "All kidding aside for a second, I'm glad to hear that everyone's alive. That's sort of good to know."

"Yeah," she agrees around her cigarette, somehow a little mollified by having him call her company delightful. "It is, sort of."

When she takes her cigarette from between her lips, she casually lets it fall and then grinds it out neatly under the toe of her boot.

"You know Spike pretty well?"

She thinks she knows Spike pretty well, in the way that only a partner who's worked with him and lived on the same ship with him for the past few months can, but there are some things about him she doesn't know at all.

"I was just on my way to the hospital. If you were interested in tagging along," she adds, eyes closing as she gives him a smile that isn't all that innocent but very good at pretending to be, "I probably wouldn't tell a nice priest like you to get lost."

She can take care of herself. Conversation -- especially with a handsome guy -- might be a little bit harder alone, though.

"Not really. Well enough to figure out there's a hell of a lot more there than green hair and a blue suit, but he keeps pretty quiet about his own business."

Adopting a furtive look, he lifts his eyebrows and glances from side to side, as if looking for eavesdroppers before leaning close to Faye, cupping one hand around his mouth. "Between you and me, I don't think he's got much use for organized religion."

Well, but who does? He lifts a hand and sighs a little, as though Spike's heathen nature is a personal pain, but he can't keep it up and grins as he stands, dumping his own smoke into the ashtray.

Regardless, he loses a little of his train of thought when Faye gives him that foxy smile. She's all sweet and guile and smug sexiness, and she's a knockout to boot. "Faye, you read my mind. I'll take those odds anytime."

"That's one way of putting it," she agrees, a slight quirk to her mouth, to his general assessment of Spike.

Tight-lipped comes to mind. Maybe even secretive.

(Definitely things like stubborn and reckless and infuriating.)

Jet hasn't exactly been forthcoming about his past, either, and maybe they could say the same about her, but there's nothing from her past -- the last three years, anyway -- that could put them all in as much danger as Spike's past.

Probably.

The worst they'd get because of her is probably some big scary guys wanting to know where their money is. And most of the time those guys look tougher than they really are.

She just barely bites her tongue at Wolfwood's comment about Spike not having much use for organized religion. It seems like organized crime was more his thing.

It's not actually something she thinks less of him for.

As she stands and they leisurely start walking in the direction of the hospital, she glances at the ever present -- has she ever seen him without it? she doesn't think so -- cross he's hefted.

She has to look at it in a whole new light now, and it certainly reflects favorably on him.

"So what exactly gives a priest the idea of carrying around a giant cross," -- her voice isn't loud enough to attract much attention, but the curiosity is very evident -- "with guns in it?"

"Actually, it wasn't my idea at all. The design's mine, but I based it on someone else's." He can still see that damn green apple floating in front of his face, bobbing right around an infuriating smile and blank lenses.

Faye's got no idea who Chapel the Evergreen is, so it shouldn't hurt to tell her the basics, right?

He slants a sidewise grin at her, amused and actually a little flattered by her interest. Hey, she's a girl who likes guns, and that's fine by him. "You like it?"

He could tell her anything she ever wanted to know about the Punisher--that part isn't a secret. He knows every inch of the cross, designed it himself, built it with a little bit of help. Each trigger and buckle is as familiar to him as his suit or his glasses; it all fits him perfectly.

"As for why--well, it's a dangerous world we live in." How he got it is another story entirely, but it isn't one he'll just volunteer--at least not all of the details. Some things are better left to himself, and who knows better what ought to be said than a minister?

Yeah, right.

He made a deal with the devil didn't he? This is just his fiddle of gold.

As she looks over and up at him, her green eyes positively glitter.

"It does catch a girl's eye."

It's as close to a you bet I do, padre as he's getting, but with the piqued interest so obvious in her face, she knows she might as well have said it.

She can hardly be blamed. The instant she saw the cloth come off the cross, saw the guns -- how many was it? at least five or six -- and saw him take one in each hand like it was the only business he'd ever known, she'd almost forgotten she was there to be backup.

(Almost. Until Spike jumped from the balcony.)

"The design is someone else's? Are there a lot of gunslinging priests like you on Gunsmoke?"

It's an idea that makes her grin and almost laugh, but she has no idea. For all she knows, all priests on Gunsmoke are like this one.

It's an oddly appealing idea, but it's probably not the reality of things.

"A lifesize cross just seems a little conspicuous, even on a priest."

"I kind of like the metaphor."

He's got to look down over his shoulder at Faye, but that's not so bad; the view of sly green eyes and shining hair makes it a worthwhile course of action.

"And no. Not that I know of, anyway." he lifts his free hand in a you-got-me expression, and grins. "It's pretty much me and my old teacher, but maybe the others ought to pick it up. You know, being a priest is no reason to not be practical."

He hefts the Punisher on his back, feeling the weight and testing it like he always does, feeling for a slip in the belts, for a weakness in the buckles, for loose cloth, but there's none of that; he'd wrapped it tight as a drum.

It's strange to walk without that steel on his back; he always feels a little off kilter

Slanting her eyes at him for a moment, she abruptly lets out an airy and very feminine laugh.

"Is that what I like about you? Your practicality?"

That isn't exactly how she would've thought of it.

Somehow it strikes her as both very practical -- even a wandering priest has the right to protect himself, and this one has proven to her that he knows the first rule of combat -- and unimaginably inconvenient. His arms have obviously gotten used to it, but she's patted the cloth covering that cross and she's heard the sound it makes when he puts it down: it's metal.

That thing is heavy. But not only does he effortlessly lift and carry it, but not even a couple of city blocks with it at his back has winded him. She's as impressed by it as she is surprised.

From here she can clearly see the hospital building rising above the others around it, and she stretches her arms over her head as she walks, letting her hands clasp behind her head.

"You must really like the metaphor," she goes on, smiling even though her eyebrows knit in a mild kind of skepticism. "How long has that cross been your constant companion?"

It's not just the easy lifting and carrying that makes her think he's had a long time to practice. There's also the fact that he seems a lot more at home with a gun in each hand than you'd think a priest should.

"I don't know, Faye. Is it?" That sideways glance of hers glitters invitingly, but he thinks he knows better than to take it at face value--that or her little catlike stretch. Faye comes off as desirable and interesting--or maybe even interested--but there's a protective layer that's hard to disguise. She'd be hard to get close to, if that were his goal.

Not that I have a goal.

All the women he's met on Gunsmoke are faded, and Faye's so vibrant that she refreshes just like a cool drink would.

But that's just a look she's got; who knows what else is going on under that sleek purple hair? "A while." He gives her an easy grin. "There are worse companions to have on my particular path. It's pretty persuasive when it comes to dispensing the good word, you know?"

They're nearing the hospital but he just glances at it, keeping his attention on the woman sauntering along next to him. "How long have you been a bounty hunter?"

Fairly practiced at the fine art of paying little attention to questions she feels no need to answer, she ignores his first question like a world-class champ.

Except for the smile on her face. It's just too amused to go anywhere, and when she thinks about a giant cross full of guns being persuasive when it comes to dispensing the good word, she's letting out another small half-delighted half-surprised -- she doesn't know why she's surprised at this point -- laugh.

He's no priest she's ever known, even if what she has to go by isn't much, and she couldn't be more okay with that.

"Oh," she starts breezily enough, hands still behind her head, barely bothering to so much as glance for cars before crossing the street, "not long. Months. I guess you could call it the only steady job I've had." Her amused smile fixes itself into more of a wry slant. "And I'm not bad at it, but we don't appear to be very lucky."

Sometimes she doesn't think it's the gig for her, but the truth is it suits her more than anything else she can think of.

"In my experience, bounty hunters have the worst luck of anyone."

He's never known anyone with actual traffic-stopping looks before, and it's a gratifying experience to note how cars pause when Faye crosses the street, even if the drivers weren't anywhere near hitting either of them.

"But they're mostly hunting a pretty impossible quarry, so I don't know if they're unlucky or just morons." More likely the latter, is his personal opinion, considering the bounty hunters he's met so far. Maybe they've just been in the desert too long, but they're definitely addled--the sort of men who join up contests like the Quick Draw tournament jsut because they like shooting up bottles and other men.

Come to think of it, though, he's never known a femal bounty hunter, or ever heard of one, so maybe they've got a different pattern.

Lips together, she makes a half-teasing, half-careless little thoughtful sound in her throat. "Too bad no one told me that before I got into it."

This isn't the first time he's alluded that guy -- Vash the Stampede -- on Gunsmoke with the huge bounty on his head, and as they walk right up to the hospital's front entrance, she can't help but think it's a real shame that she can't tag along if the priest ever goes back for a visit home.

She could probably show the bounty hunters there a thing or two.

"Gunsmoke must be a pretty small place if you've run into that many people looking for the guy."

Even with that kind of reward on his head.

"With so many after him, he'll probably get killed before he gets caught. Then nobody'll get that reward."

"Oh, he won't get caught. And it would take more than all the bounty hunters on Gunsmoke to kill Vash. He's the best gunman I've ever seen."

His admiration might be reluctant, but there are some things that are irrefutable: that the sun will rise, that the desert is wide, and that Vash the Stampede, soft-hearted idiot that he is, is the best shot on the whole planet.

"A whole town turned out to get him one time, and he ended up saving them instead. He's practically an act of God." He half-turns, letting Faye go through the doors first, and follows her with a crooked smile. "And you know that's really something, coming from me, right?

"But no one's ever going to get that reward. It's almost a shame."

She raises her eyebrows a little, taking in his certain tone and crooked smile -- those crooked smiles, she thinks, really work on him -- on the way to the nearest elevator.

"That so? Sounds like you've had a close encounter or two with the guy."

That'd probably make life suddenly a lot more exciting for a traveling priest, especially the kind that carries around handguns by the crossful.

At the elevator, she taps the call button and is surprised when the doors open automatically to let them in. It's after they're both inside and she's pressed the button for the fifth floor that she rests a hand on her hip and eyes Wolfwood just as curiously as before.

"So the guy destroys one town and saves another, huh? What's the idea? Is he looking for redemption or something?"

"Isn't everyone?"

It's only a little wry, which probably surprises him more than it does Faye. In the elevator, he sets the Punisher down, and leans against the wall with his hands in his pockets, frowning a little at that thought.

Anyone on Gunsmoke would say it's impossible; that Vash the Stampede couldn't even believe in redemption, that he doesn't deserve it, that he didn't save the town on purpose, or whatever idiotic drivel the papers and superstitious townsfolk are spouting these days.

But why would he destroy July, then? And what the hell is so special in those thugs that attacked them to make Vash spare them? "As for Vash, he's just soft-hearted. Maybe a little soft-headed too, but hey, that's just my opinion of a guy who won't even attack in self-defense."

He lifts his shoulders in a lazy, uncaring shrug. Thoughts of Vash unsettle him. He'd rather be talking about almost anything else.

"But since you ask, yeah. As a matter of fact, I just came from a Quick Draw tournament he was in. Actually, I signed him up for it. I thought he'd jump at the chance, since he seems to be such a good-doer."

Do-gooder. More like needle haired moron.

Her eyes widen in a kind of bewildered puzzlement.

"I'm not."

At least she's pretty sure she's not. She's looking for a couple of things, but redemption isn't one of them. In a moment of panic back on the Bebop before they got here, when she thought she was going to die from getting bitten, she told Spike she's never even committed any crimes.

Or at least not any bad ones, and that's true. Oh, she's responsible for some outbreaks of violence -- occasionally deadly -- but it's only ever been in self-defense so she's not particularly worried about that. There's nothing weighing too heavily on her conscience. She's not what anybody would consider an angel, but she's never done anything unforgivable.

At least not in her opinion. And as far as she can remember.

She tilts her head slightly, and it's the first time in one of these hospital elevators that she hasn't paid the least bit of attention to the changing floor number above the closed elevator doors.

"He must really be something if a priest is saying that about him." She's not sure she gets this Vash guy at all, though. "So let me get this straight: this dangerous guy everybody's after is some bleeding heart who refuses to fight back even in self-defense?"

He sounds like a great example of a man who's a real baby.

"How's he still alive?"

Her hand stays on her hip, and she's visibly surprised when the elevator stops and the doors open onto the fifth floor.

She assumes the tournament's the reason he knows Vash is such a good shot since he says the guy won't shoot back at people, and there must be some story behind the priest signing up the bounty head for a tournament that she doesn't know about.

"I am." It's as simple as that. "But not really for myself.

"As for Vash, he's the best there is. He won't shoot to kill, but eventually even he has to protect himself."

He's shaking his head, though, and it isn't Faye he's seeing but a red coat, blond hair, and a wide, wide desert out beyond. "I've never seen anyone so fast. He can dodge bullets. I've seen him change the trajectory of a shot by throwing rocks. I've heard people have missed even after shooting at him at point-blank range."

One hand lifts from his pocket, and he closes his eyes in lazy resignation. "Even I missed. But we were on the same side, so I guess that's probably for the best."

It's an amusing thought--can he help it if he laughs a little at the idea of fighting on the same side as Vash the Stampede?

"I guess not many of your bounties come very close to any of that, huh?"

Well, that's more like it, she can't help but think. A guy with a bounty on his head just isn't going to get very far if he refuses to so much as raise a hand in his defense. She can't even imagine trying.

If he didn't, he'd be the easy prey she always reminds people she isn't.

"So you're traveling priest who carries a giant cross and occasionally finds himself on the same side of things as Gunsmoke's most notorious bounty."

She keeps finding keeping company with guys here who are really puzzling. Nicholas D. Wolfwood is one of the best examples.

Before the doors can close on them, she puts her hand on one of them and pushes it back, making both doors reopen long enough for them to step out. "Yeah," she admits, shaking her head slightly, "your Vash the Stampede doesn't sound like our typical bounty."

For one thing, he makes most of the ones they've been after sound like small fry all the way around. And some of the things he's saying Vash has done are pretty unbelievable, but none of it's stopped her from thinking she'd go after him if she had the chance.

"Fifth door on the right, padre." She points with her chin as they approach it. "It's James Howlett's room, but I don't think he'll mind if you call him Spike."

Even if he did correct her about it once the last time she was in.

"Is that so odd?"

He's all kinds of amused by her satisfaction with his story, and when he reshoulders the cross, it's with a little bit of a laugh. "I guess that's about it. Put that way, I don't sound like a very good priest, do I?"

Laughing at himself is one of the easiest things there is to do, even if the joke isn't really all that funny.

Faye, that's about it. Let's hope you don't get much closer to the truth that that, okay?

"He isn't a typical anything. And why's Spike under the name James Howlett? Or should I ask him that?"

His first and second questions make a smile that's almost involuntarily flirtatious curve her lips, and she slows just a little bit the closer they get to the door.

"Good is subjective, padre," -- and sometimes kind of overrated, she thinks -- "but I can tell you that you're definitely the most interesting priest I've ever met."

And definitely the most handsome, but she's not going to say that. It might be less flattering if he knew she had no memory of anything beyond the last three years, but she's not going to say a word about that, either.

"You might have to ask James himself about that one, though."

He didn't tell her. But even so, she's got her guesses.