fullofmercy | (no subject)

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Dammit!

This is a real bind. He put too much money on it, trusted too much to his own skill, and just look where it's gotten him. So much for trusting thyself; one more move and he's dead.

His hand falters, lifts. He takes a deep pull on the stump of cigarette he's got left, and glares at the man across from him. The guy stares back, impassive.

"You gonna move, or what?"

"I'm thinking." Maybe he could make a break for it? No, no, that's not right. And besides--he glances up again, assessing--the guy's bigger than he is. Who knew the gorilla could play chess?

Maybe he could use those three old guys behind him as cover?

Hell, no. He rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand, then raises it, palm out. "Okay, okay." He stretches a finger out, pauses, tips over his king, and sighs as he watches his money be dragged across the rickety little table. "Good game."

The guy grunts and collects his cash, leaving Wolfwood drooping and despondant in the little wooden chair, gazing at first at the chess board and then at his own reflection in the storefront window before kicking back and lighting another cigarette. He's watching the old guys nearby, but they're not playing for any kind of money. He's already hit them up once.

They sure know a lot of nasty words for being some nice old men. Geez, nobody wants to give to the church anymore.

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"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.

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