Survival Of The Fittest

Sometimes, all you needed was a change of perspective.

In Salem's case, the change from looking down on Julia to coming back to her level. Physically, anyway. Because this? This was real life. This wasn't an anime where the power of love and friendship prevailed, and he wasn't going to get Care Bear Stared into submission, no matter how well Julia gave her speech. He wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of thinking about it anymore than that. He wasn't.

But here on the ground, up close? He could see her clearly, and for all her pretty words, Julia was still afraid of him.

The rictus on Salem's face relaxed into something closer to an actual smile.

"You wanna work with me?" He asked her softly, though his wrecked voice was still giving Emperor Palpatine more than whichever brooding movie bad boy girls were swooning over lately. Probably still Kylo Ren, actually, but Salem wasn't about to admit that he'd watched the sequel trilogy. "You're gonna trust me now? Go to sleep every night and trust that I'm not going to cut your throat before you wake up?"

He looked down at Adam's white, hollow face. His injured hand throbbed.

Slowly (more because he was aching all over than for effect, even if he'd claim the latter), Salem bent to pick up the empty Mauser that lay nearby. He stuck it into his bag, then picked up the rifle and tucked it under his arm, before pausing and glancing back into the bag again.

"It's a cute idea, but... I don't think you're my type. Not now, anyway."

He stepped around Adam rather than over him, and when Julia didn't immediately shoot him, he continued on his way to the church's front doors.

"One more thing, though-"

And with jerky grace, Salem scooped the week-old Boston creme pie out of his bag, spun, and hurled it at Julia's face in a single motion. "CATCH!"

Julia clenched her weapon, doing her best to assert herself against Salem's primitive approach. The grin desecrating his face alone enough to make her want to shudder.

The points he made were valid. The idea of going to sleep with Salem keeping watch did feel akin to signing your own death warrant. But maybe, just maybe, he would see the greater plan here. That they could club together, that he didn't need to keep doing what he was doing with the misguided allure of survival. Whether or not, deep down, Julia was actually capable of forgiving him was yet to be seen, but on a surface level she used her eyes to plead against his jaunted mince. Her eyes didn't release that grip on him, not even a single blink wagged as she tightened every bone in her body in an attempt to keep her nerve. Even if he terrified her, the unknowns of what to come next, she had made her bed and now she had to lie in it. If her expression wavered, she wouldn't be able to blame him for having his doubts.

Yet there was an unwavering calm in his articulation, perhaps the fickleness of his pain and the stubbornness of not wanting to bare it to her. His antipathy seemed to seal the fate of her plot, her heartfelt delivery of the grass being greener on the other side batted off like it was purely myth. He had no intention of conceding, of admitting that there was a different way around all of this.

But that didn't matter so much.

All Julia wanted was to make him think. Even if it was just one second of unsettling compromise for Salem, she just wanted to drive those thoughts of morality back out of his cerebrum. To release those thoughts would be enough, she figured. Even if not straight away, but over time the wobbles in his stomach would change to a pipeline of grief and regret. Maybe.

Maybe she was overestimating him. He had shown himself repeatedly to be a sociopath, and were her feeble attempts enough to instigate a moral compass?

She just wanted to make him think.

...

...

SMACK

...

...

Her first thought was that she'd just been shot, or stabbed. Something, like a blow to the heart. It winded her as she tried to rationalize what had just happened.

Actually, it was the grotesque noise of a cream pie impacting her face. It came so quickly, so out of the blue, that she didn't even have a chance to close her eyes.

First was her nose, the cold form of the pie enveloped her features, dramatically slapping her cheeks. It had hardened since Salem had collected it, she recollected that the Boston pie must've been his "prize" for killing Timothy back in the research station's infirmary. But that unfortunately didn't represent some saving grace to her humiliation. The layer of creamy chocolate on top decorated her face as the bake beneath it crumbled with the force of the smack. The broken remnants of the pie fell to the ground at the same speed as the collapse of her self-esteem.

It didn't hurt, at least not physical pain. But that didn't console her shot nerves or her bruised ego at the painfully impeccable metaphor.

A pie to the face.

She had literally been pied. Her attempts at getting Salem to change his mind were clearly subdued by his spineless fear of feeling. Yet he painted a masterpiece of a picture, a rare opportunistic chance to strike fear with fresh produce.

Was this revenge for the ice cream incident?

Salem laughed. It was hollow, and it made his whole ribcage hurt, but he laughed. That was a better punchline and answer than anything he could have said, anyway.

He turned tail and skittered out of the church as fast as his heavy legs could carry him, before Julia could get it together enough to retaliate.

((Salem Fox continued in GAME OVER--))

Custard dripped down her cheeks, clagging down her neck and under the seams of her jacket. Like sticky shampoo, the fragrant-smelling custard clung to her hair.

Chocolate tinted her rosy cheeks, staining her pale complexion like fondant decorating a cake.

Sponge bruised her ego more than her face after the impact, crumbling as it fell to a splatter on the granite floor.

It may have been sweet but she felt far more salty.

Julia's plans had been foiled, the sweet slap of failure smeared all across her face. It had always been a longshot, but a part of her really did believe what she was saying. She wanted to be the bigger person. It was so difficult, the oxygen she was breathing in choking her with fumes of fear and regret, but truly she wanted to convince him to stop. To talk him down from the ledge he had trekked to. Lily's words burned brighter than ever, hammering through her brain like an ungodly migraine. It added a whole other dimension to her plan. If she was serious about finding a way out of this then she would need to find a way to convince the likes of Salem, Kitty, Jezzie, Matthew, not only to trust her, but to trust the process. If they all came together maybe there was too much risk. But Lily had a plan. Lily would be able to work it out and get the others on her side. Lily-

Lily.

That reminded her.

It was getting late, she needed to make sure she found her way to Lily's hideaway in time to meet her there.

[S119 - Julia Guercio - continued in Nightingale]