Give Me a Kiss to Build a Dream On

[Gundham]

Once upon a time, she'd been fast and flexible enough that John's blade would have hit air. Once upon a time, she and John had danced and talked and laughed together. But now a knee brace had her locked up tight, and the part of her that remembered the good times made her hesitate, just for an instant. There were two pops. A wet sound. Then the knife caught her across the jawbone on the left side of her face, and she cried out. Ash was shouting her name.

John staggered back a bit. She saw blood. His knife clattered to the floor.

While he'd been talking earlier, Juanita had kept her hand low, relaxing her grip just a little bit. Let the naginata shaft slide through her fingers until the hilt of the blade bumped against her thumb. Just in case. Just in case she needed to-

This.

She stepped forwards, threw her free arm around him. Pulled him in close. Breathed him in. Then stabbed up with the blade, driving it into his stomach and upwards through the bottom of his ribcage.

They hung there. Just for a moment, they were the dance partners they'd once been. She leaned in, her lips close to his ear. His stubble was rough against her cheek.

"I really, really liked you," she whispered, her voice shaking.

Blood trickled down her jawline and dripped onto his shirt.

The moment ended. She let him fall.

[Salic]

He hit the ground.

Everything seemed to happen in the span of a second. One moment, he was swinging a knife at his former girlfriend, and the next moment he was stuck with two blades and had a new hole in his leg. Normally time seemed to slow down in stressful or awful situations, but now it was practically zipping by.

For a moment, the pain was unreal, simply unimaginable, but once he hit the ground, it was pretty much over. He let no grimace cross his face. He let no grunt escape his mouth. For just a little while, John was silent and stony, with only the shallow rise and fall of his chest betraying the fact that he was still alive. His eyes, unfocused and staring at the ceiling, began to realign towards another target. His head, heavy and leaden, was lifted inch by inch by a neck that felt weak and frail.

His eyes landed on Juanita. His lips curled into wry grin. A cough escaped him. Blood spilled on his face.

“You’re going…” he croaked.

“…to Hell…” he struggled.

“…for this…” he wheezed.

“…for everything,” he finished.

His head smacked down on the floor, his neck finally giving up the ghost. His strength was almost sapped entirely. But deep within his chest, there was a small reserve. A final node of determination to be mined and sent to his brain. The last retort.

“It’s… gonna be…”

A cough.

“…bleak…”

A sputter.

“…unending…”

A choke.

His eyes closed.

His chest stopped moving.

In his last moments, there were two feelings inhabiting his mind and his heart: relief, and a final vindication.

S023: JOHN DAVIS - DECEASED

[Gundham]

"I know," Juanita whispered softly.

[Gundham]

She held John's gaze, watching hatred cloud the face that had once lit up in her presence, until he went still and his image dissolved in her tears. She hadn't shied away from his curses, his hatred, his spite. She deserved it all, and more. The least she could do was to stand there and face what she had done. What she was still going to do.

But John was wrong. She wasn't going to Hell. She was already there. The lake of fire, the sulfur and brimstone? Those were just the trimmings. Hell, real Hell, was watching someone pure, someone innocent, despise the very sight of you. Hell was hearing your sins read out and condemned and knowing that there was no defense, no atonement, nothing you could ever say to make it better. Hell was knowing that there was no forgiveness, now or ever.

There was no salvation coming, not for her. All she could do was stand there, damned, while tears and blood ran down her cheeks.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

Crystal wasn't sure whether John had realized she was there even when she shot him. She wasn't sure Ash had realized she'd been shot, though she should've known Crystal was there.

It had been an innocent mistake. She had never fired the gun before, and thus had no idea what to expect. The kick upwards brought it out of the safe region where it was pointed more or less at feet and ground, and at the same moment Ash hurled herself into the line of fire, shoving John and getting in the way and getting shot. Just a little. She'd only been shot a little, Crystal thought. Hoped. Promised herself. Ash was still standing, and there was some blood, but nothing like what came out of John.

John was dead, huh?

That sat kind of uneasily with Crystal. She'd known in abstract what would happen, and what her role in it was. She'd been ready to play it, and she had done so as needed. She didn't regret it. It wasn't her fault. She was the implement of another's hands. But to have to stand here now in the aftermath? That was kind of rough. Kind of uncomfortable.

Probably worse for Juanita. She was the one who'd just traded a boyfriend for a Glasgow grin.

Crystal wasn't going to think about John, she decided. She wasn't going to look at him. If she did, she would freeze, and she couldn't afford to do that. She was the only one in this room not bleeding right now. That meant she had responsibilities.

She rushed over to the other two, stumbling slightly on some piece of junk on the floor. Didn't stop to see what it was.

"Are you okay?" she sputtered.

"Physically," she corrected. Obviously they weren't truly okay.

"We should get bandages," she said, pulling her pack off her back. The movement was made awkward by her continued unwillingness to put the gun down. "Keep an eye on the radar. We, uh, we made some noise there."

[Cicada]

Ash's heart was neutral. Idling, now that the play was done.

Would've been a bit too on the noise to call it scoring a goal. Not Eden, not John. Ash supposed the word necessity worked best. It had to be done, according to something, some unknown force that was parts themselves and their own pretensions and delusions of grandeur and parts something else- the failings of society, the brutally efficient sadism of their captors... something, some mix. Evaluating their handiwork, in a way she hadn't been able to with Eden, Ash found the sight did little for her. A nasty, fleshy pile of visceral reds and browns and biles spilling out of where a dude's waistline had once been, whole.

Vaguely nauseating. The smell seemed like the sort that would stick. The primitive parts of her brain- the ones that had yet to forgive people for their mistakes and transgressions- threw up weak signals to retreat, that something was wrong. Easy to ignore the instincts no matter how right they were. She'd learned that one long ago.

"Got it."

Ash went to the bags. They were in immediate proximity, given how small the canteen ultimately was. A whole ass murder scene played out in what amounted to a homeroom's worth of space- another body to be added to the literal pile over there in the corner. She found a medkit- hers, because it was lighter than the others. They'd been using her supplies at something very much above a sixty-forty split, nothing too spectacular. What was hers was the others, after all, body and life all part of the package deal.

She remembered when she'd almost helped out Evie, suddenly. That'd been an eternity ago. She wondered if she'd still be willing to do the same now- supplies, effort, anything for someone who existed on the other side of the divide from her. Murderer versus not. Yet another distinction of normie for Ash to not be able to relate to.

A glance at the tracker.

"Radar's picking up nobody. I can do the patch up."

Juanita wasn't moving much. Out of context she was as killed dead as John was, to the casual onlooker. Ash's old empathy- some performative entity, whatever it'd been- briefly tweaked up. Hell, huh? Fair enough. Ash hated being accused of things she already knew were true. She imagined Juanita hated that too- she'd always been badass and no-nonsense, once upon a time. Once upon a time meaning the present. Their lives were a story that was already over. Ash gently inserted herself into Juanita's personal space, beginning to work on the wound with that same confidently amateur touch she'd had as Juanita's teammate, a thousand times before.

"Guess that's it then," Ash observed. Weary, eye out for Juanita's reaction. Hard to see anything else this close.

"We're just doing what we have to do. None of this is anything personal, it was just... he was there. He said no, we proceeded as planned."

She winced suddenly, only a bit. Pain in her flank- something had scooped a good bit of flesh out of her, near a rib bone. A superficial wound, whatever it was. An inch down and right it would have ripped out her stomach or her spleen. She'd won the coin flip on that one.

[Gundham]

Juanita barely registered Ash and Crystal as they started pulling out bandages and medical stuff.

John's face was slack now, but traces of that final contemptuous look were still etched into his features. It was a cousin to the look that Teddie had given her after she cut Eden down, the look that their whole group had given her when she tried to recruit them. There had been slight variations, but the disgust and contempt remained constant, like everyone who looked at her saw something completely repulsive.

Was this what it was always going to be like? If she fought her way through, if she made it home, would she see the same faces on her family?

She winced hard as some antiseptic was splashed into the cut, and that briefly shocked her back into the present. "Ahh!" she hissed, sucking in air through her teeth. The motion hurt.

She tried to stay still while Ash patched her up, doing her best to white-knuckle through the pain. Tried not to think about how close their faces were to touching. Or about what happened two minutes ago, to the last person she'd been this close with. She nodded along as Ash tried to make her feel better. The words were calming, reassuring. It didn't take the hurt away, but it dulled it somewhat. "Yeah," she said quietly. "We tried to save him. Eden's group, too. We gave them the choice."

When Ash winced, Juanita followed her gaze downwards, and just like that, all of her self-pity evaporated. "Oh! Oh jeez, Ash! You're hurt!"

There was a tear in Ash's sweater, and blood was seeping through it. Juanita grabbed Ash by the shoulders and pushed her back a bit, so she could get a better look.

"Oh, jeez. You're bleeding! Crystal! We need bandages or something!"

[Grand Moff Hissa]

"Right," Crystal said. "Yeah. Right."

She'd sort of tuned out for a little there. She'd called for bandages, and then Ash had just taken care of that, and Crystal didn't need to do anything. Third wheel. But they'd seemed fine enough, blood aside, and Crystal was fine enough, so it was all fine. She watched, and she wondered a little if Ash was going to keel over dead, and hoped that wouldn't happen because it would be awfully difficult to explain how that had come about. And then she just kind of got lost in the process of watching somebody else do work, and listening to somebody else justify their actions.

It was interesting. Some of the words were familiar. Just doing what they had to. Following the plan. That was good. They were loosely on the same page. Crystal thought the fact that they had to tell themselves this story out loud meant they might not fully believe it, but what did the fact that she kept running through those same beats in her head imply?

Right. Bandages. Stop Ash from bleeding to death. Right.

Crystal awkwardly shuffled through her bag, got out some bandages and some of what she thought was antiseptic wipes, but oops, it was actually a packet of anti-fungal cream. It was hard doing all this stuff while also holding the gun. She tossed the cream back in the bag and held out the bandages.

"Here," she said. Then a pause. Third wheel. What did she even have to add? "...still nobody on the radar?"

[Cicada]

'Choice' was a questionable word. Ash had never thought much of it, best of times, worst of times.

And in the here and now, neither the best nor the worst of times. Ash, at least, was a good deal older and wiser than she'd been at her actual low point. Even if 'older and wiser' didn't really count for much- like a drop of honey in the ocean, nowhere to be found.

Her blood, much more of that.

"It's not that bad."

Or maybe it was the adrenaline, but it did hurt significantly less than the shoe sole to the ribs Aracelis had left to remember her by. Maybe a case of that one leaving an impression on her ego as much as it had her physical form.

"Or maybe it is. Doesn't hurt as much as it's bleeding. Hopefully the worst part of it is that this jacket is unusable."

Pulling off the volleyball letterman was a bit of effort, wet and heavy as it was. Her shirt underneath, a simple black tee not intended to be actually seen because there were wear and tear holes around the armpits and collar bone, pretty much ruined too.

"Jesus. I'm bleeding a lot, actually."

Calmest anybody had ever said that particular combination of words ever, actually.

"Let me know if you need my help to patch me up, I guess."

[Gundham]

Juanita grimaced at the sight of the blood dampening Ash's t-shirt. Up until now, she'd been the one taking hits and getting bloody, but seeing Ash wounded felt... wrong. Ash was the strong one, the one who'd pulled her out of the tear gas. Without her, Juanita would have been dead several times over.

She took the bandages from Crystal. The wound would need some iodine, but right now it felt more important to stop the bleeding. Probably. Juanita wasn't a doctor or anything. "Here... put your arms up, so I can get this on..."

She carefully lifted Ash's t-shirt a bit, making sure not to brush the fabric against the wound. "Hold this in place, so I can get the bandage on." Despite the pressing nature of the situation, there was a brief moment where it felt... strangely intimate, given the history between them. She immediately banished the thought. She put her mind on the task at hand - gently applying a folded up bandage in place of gauze, then wrapping the bandages around, adding another layer when the red started to seep through.

It was hardly professional, but it'd keep Ash from bleeding out. Probably.

"Okay, you can lower your arms now. I think the bandages will stay, as long as you don't do anything too crazy, but try moving around a bit to see how it feels."

She straightened up, nodding her approval of a job done well. Well, a job done, anyway.

Juanita looked at Ash, then at Crystal. Despite everything, she found herself smiling, just a little. The three of them were bandaged and banged up, but they were together, and they were alive. And that was what was important. That was the whole point of what they were doing here. John and Teddie and Eden didn't get it. They heard about the plan, and all they saw was the killing, but it wasn't like that. The killing was going to happen anyway, with or without them. Choosing not to kill was choosing to die, choosing to get everyone else killed. It was as simple as that. What the group was really doing, at the end of the day, was choosing to live. People were alive today who would have died, Juanita included - and they were alive because of the group. Other people might not have been able to see past the method to the intention, but these three saw the truth. These three were fighting for life, to give each other a better shot at surviving instead of purely playing for themselves. Was it right to stand on principle and let others die, or was it right to fight to save them? God didn't condemn Noah for shutting the door of the ark while everyone else drowned, He praised him for saving the few that he could.

Well, she was in the ark, and the rain was coming down. John had chosen to drown, and he could curse her all he wanted from the afterlife. But she and her crew were gonna ride the storm out for as long as they could, and she wasn't going to feel guilty about that. Not now, or ever again.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

Crystal stood guard while Juanita did the actual job of patching up Crystal's mistake. Third wheel, but tricycle this time, keeping them from overturning fully if somebody ran up and shoved a stick in the spokes. At least she knew now what the gun felt like to fire (significantly more wild and uncontrollable than it looked on TV). At least she knew now that she could hit someone with it, if she had to and if less than fifteen feet of distance separated them and if they didn't know she was there and if they were basically standing still.

From one point of view, Crystal had shot her target one time and her ally the other.

From another point of view, Crystal had successfully shot someone with both bullets.

From a third, she was the mere implement of Danya's will, and he had shot far more people than could be laid end to end across this room.

The friendly fire was a statistical outlier, and remedied besides. That was the hope, at least. As long as Ash didn't die from it, then everything would be fine.

Crystal scuffed her shoes against the ground for a little, then went over and pulled a chair out and sat down. It was nice having something soft to sit on, as she pointedly examined their surroundings on guard duty rather than pay attention to what the others were doing. She closed her eyes for just a second and focused on her other senses. She felt the soft chair under her, beckoning her to just stay here and never ever return to the hard pews and harder glares of the three she'd left behind. She heard the faint whisper of wind, the rustle of cloth, the breathing of three girls and now no boys. She smelled blood, and tasted it on the air.

She'd read about how blood smelled like copper, but that wasn't quite right. There was an edge to it, yes, a certain sharpness of death, but more than anything it smelled wet. Heavy. Her family had bought a duck from the grocery store once, but it must've sat out of the fridge at some point or other because when they took it out of the plastic the odor was overwhelming. Most of the time when she ate meat, Crystal sort of thought of it as food product and not as dead animal, but the duck had made its physical, biological reality felt inescapably. She'd walked into the kitchen and just gagged, as her mom asked if she thought there might be something a little off about it.

They hadn't eaten the duck. They threw it out, and her mom went back to the store with her receipt and was able to get refunded. And Crystal had thought, maybe two or three days later when she wheeled the bin out to the curb, that it was kind of sad when you thought about it. Since they hadn't eaten it, the duck had died for nothing.

"You think we should drag them outside or something?" she asked, eyes still closed.

[Gundham]

Juanita looked down at the bodies. The ones that had been here a while were putrid, and John's... she didn't want to touch John's. Not ever again.

She shook her head. "It's not worth the effort. We only have a finite amount of energy, and only a finite amount of food to get it back when it's gone. Using it on the dead is a waste."

There were still nearly a hundred living out there. And until that number was a lot lower, the dead were nothing more than an inconvenience. Tuckering themselves out on sentiment or pursuing some vestige of the humanity that they'd been told to leave behind would shave minutes off their lifespans. And given how close they'd come to getting wiped out in every fight they'd been in so far, she had no desire to take any more risks than necessary.

"Leave them here. We have other things to focus on. Let's get out of here and reconnect with the others."

((Juanita Reid, Ash Graves and Crystal Henderson continued in Honor Among Thieves))