Her Gun to His Head

She leant over the bartop in boredom, rolling her blue gemstone back and forth between her fingers as the night wound down.

The bartender approached her empty cup with hesitation, clearly unsure of whether or not she wished it to be taken. She glanced up at him, flashing a false-pleasant smile.

"You don't ever kick people outta here, do ya, Chuck?" Jinx pondered in a sing-songy voice. "You must get somebody else to do that for ya, huh?"

He stood awkwardly, scratching his head. "Oh— I didn't accidentally give you booze again, did I…?"

In response, she animatedly snatched her cup from the countertop and began loudly sipping air through the straw.

He sighed. "You always start calling me different names whenever that happens…"

"What different names?" she demanded.

"My—" he paused, flustered. "Never mind…"

"Chuck," she continued, "you're a good egg, people ever tell you that?"

"Egg—?" he puzzled.

"You know, like, something your mother might say, I don't know," she drawled.

"I… haven't actually spoken to my mother in—" he began.

"Where is everybody, anyway?" she cut in, "it's never usually this dead in here this quick…"

"Uh… well, I think Silco took a crew with him when he—" he started to answer.

"He came down?!" she exclaimed, "I didn't even see him…"

"Oh, uh, yeah, it was about an hour or so ago…" he said.

She shot him a look that appeared to make him nervous.

"…Alright, Chuck," she said, standing up, "what do I owe ya?"

"You—?" He looked confused, and seemingly decided to ignore the question instead. "Just… don't tell him that I got you buzzed by accident, please…"

"What? I'm not—" she protested, "if I were drunk, I'd probably have shot ya by now, or something."

"…You've tried to, before…" he meekly remarked.

"Oh, yeah…" she giggled, collecting her gemstone and setting her cup down.

She turned to take her leave.

"Well, if I don't see ya…!" she sang behind her, sauntering outside onto the streets of The Lanes.

Her face eventually settled into a pout, as she reminded herself that her father had apparently gone somewhere exciting and left her behind. Not that it was unlike him...

She sighed and continued to stroll down the smog-hazed street, flanked on either side by colorful neon lights and merchant stalls that had closed up shop for the night. The only places that seemed to stay open were the 'entertainment' venues — Jinx scoffed as she passed by the door to a pleasure house that she knew some of her father's crew to frequent.

'Folks really got nothin' to do these days, huh?' she mused.

Not that she didn't ever get bored — she did find herself aimlessly wandering the Lanes more often than not, as she was now. The only thing she spent more time doing was holing up in the underground crevice where she slept, tinkering and conceiving of new contraptions with which to blow people up.

Still, it was better than spending one's time in a damned brothel, she figured. She couldn't really imagine needing to resort to something like that just to pass the time.

She took a glimpse at her gemstone once again. Perhaps she'd do another loop around, and then head back to give almost-ready Fishbones some attention.

She opted for some sort of scenic route, discovering a rusted ladder on the side of an apartment tower. She clambered up to reach it and haphazardly made it up to the roof, which required a small jump. She drew in a breath of the slightly cleaner air.

Being up above it all always seemed to elicit memories…

She continued on, tight-walking over to the corner of the roof and hopping the gap to the next building. She always liked to check the alleyways below for anything interesting that might have been happening. Shady Shimmer deals, perhaps, she thought of a group of three oafs below donning some not-so-inconspicuous cloaks. They didn't notice her peering down upon them, so she moved on.

She supposed she wasn't too far from the tucked-away Shimmer manufacturing facility Silco never seemed to want to take her to visit, though she'd managed to stumble upon it on her own plenty of times. The rooftops began to descend from building to building, like a staircase, as they led down the cliff face to the entrance of the factory.

She heard some type of a commotion as she drew closer. The two gruff-looking men who usually stood guard in front of the place seemed to be trying to rough up some unwelcome visitor.

She perched herself against a rooftop parapet to get a look at what was going on.

The dude they were attempting to fend off didn't look very old at all, and he had weird, white hair, all spiked up at strange angles. He also didn't seem like he wanted that badly to get in, more so just to mess with them, maybe.

One of the guards decided to sock him in the face after failing to get him to back up, but the dude just began laughing the moment after it connected. 'Must not'a been much of a punch,' Jinx figured.

The guard tried grabbing him by the neck, instead, at which point the dude performed a weird, backwards-pirouette-flip away from them, the top of his foot connecting with the guard's chin as he did it. The guard staggered and almost fell, and the dude landed in front of them in a low pose, his arm outstretched in front of him, supporting half of his weight by his fingers. Jinx found amusement in the thought that he looked kinda like a spider.

She wanted to move closer to hear their conversation. She vaulted herself up and across to the next rooftop as quietly as she could, and then found herself a vantage point again.

Her face dropped a little. One of the guards barked for help toward the inside of the factory, next to his friend, who appeared to have been knocked-out, but the dude with the weird hair was nowhere to be seen. She'd thought she'd heard him get in a few hits as she was changing position — perhaps that was all it had taken.

'What a couple of weaklings…' she thought.

She sighed and sat herself down, attempting to beat out some dirt that she'd managed to sweep up with her hair braids, along the way.

She paused — her hopes weren't to be dashed so quickly. She spotted her mysterious fighter up high, against the wall of the factory, balancing himself only on the steel architectural detailings of the building. He seemed to be trying to peer through the window, though he didn't appear particularly interested by what he saw.

Jinx stayed low, wishing to see what he'd do next if she didn't announce her presence.

To her surprise, she watched him effortlessly scale the remainder of the wall, all the way to the top of the factory. She hastily stood, preparing herself to follow him by returning up the way she'd came.

She was sure glad not to have been carrying her mini-gun Pow-Pow on her back, as she clambered up the next rooftop, in pursuit. She stole a quick glance up to where she'd last placed him, and luckily he didn't appear to have moved very far.

She halted at the next gap to cross, as she felt that she wouldn't be able to attain enough height to reach the ledge above it. She looked to her right and thankfully spotted an alternative way up, which proved to be a shorter route, anyway.

After she'd made it up, she surveyed the elevated terrain — she would have to have been at the same height he was when she'd last spotted him.

'Where'd you go…?'

She grinned to herself, finding the sense of chase rather exhilarating.

Crouching down low, not wanting to be the one found first, she set off searching — surely his hair alone would prevent him from blending into the darkness.

'There you are…'

He stood casually, hands in his pockets, seemingly as close to the edge of the rooftop as his balance would allow. He looked down upon a stready trickle of people leaving a club just below, his nose turned up as though it were his natural expression.

She wondered if he might attempt to hurt her if she talked to him. She pulled out her pistol and cocked it back before getting any closer, so that the sound wouldn't give her away just yet. She also felt it wise to remove the jangly buckles from the mouth of her boots. She slipped them all into separate pockets to reattach later.

He seemed to become bored of the view just as she made her move, so she quickly crept along behind him, hoping to catch up once he'd stopped. She found herself intently observing the way in which he moved as she tailed him — there was a certain weighted balance about his every stride, hopping from ledge to ledge.

They both ended up on a somewhat narrow wooden catwalk suspended between buildings, where he paused once again to catch the view. She took the opportunity to close the distance between them, rising from her crouched stance.

She found herself holding her breath, and so felt pressured to make a decision quickly.

She pointed her gun at the back of his head, and hastily tried to come up with something funny to say.

Instead, she felt a jolt as her weapon was suddenly snatched from her, him having turned around to face her in the blink of an eye. Even after his earlier display, she hadn't expected such speed.

She rejected the urge to back up, as, in spite of everything, he didn't actually look too scary.

He looked at her with a somewhat quizzical expression, his eyebrows furrowed.

"What are you supposed to be?" he asked dubiously, "world's worst assassin…?"

He sounded like he could have been her age, or maybe only a little older.

"They only payed me to scare ya…" she retorted, cracking a smile.

"Yeah…?" he grunted, awkwardly dangling her buckshot pistol in front of him with his finger, as though unsure what to do with it.

"I mean, you can admit you were scared, it's fine…" she murmured playfully.

"Heard you comin'," he replied, matter-of-factly.

"…I don't know, I had a little window to shoot ya there, so…" she countered.

He continued to look at her, unimpressed.

"By the way, Shimmer's not that hard to score around here — you coulda probably just asked somebody," she added, making a head movement in the direction they'd originally come from.

He gave her a look of suspicion, perhaps not appreciating having being spied upon.

"Well, if that's all that goes on in there, I ain't interested," he replied. "Long as I'm not gonna have some sorta crime gang tailin' me now, or somethin'."

"Maybe that's me…?" she giggled, attempting a menacing grin.

He raised an eyebrow, but appeared to begin to lose some interest in the conversation.

"Yeah, sure…" he said, "listen, buzz off, will ya? I came up here to get away from you freaks."

"Wh—?" her expression changed, "you've got my gun, idiot...?"

He held the thing up again and examined it, this time seeming to notice the colorful consistency between it and her attire.

She attempted to snatch it back, but he quickly pulled it out of her reach.

"What's your problem—?" she protested.

"What's yours?" he retorted, "I didn't ask you to follow me…"

After a moment of glaring daggers at one another, he reluctantly handed the pistol back to her.

She briefly checked that the hammer was still cocked back, and proceeded to turn and nail a tin can sitting on the edge of a rooftop about twenty yards away. She looked back at him and confidently blew away the smoke billowing from the end of the barrel.

He looked more puzzled than impressed.

He shook his head and lowered himself down to sit on the edge of the catwalk they were standing on, dangling his feet over the drop below.

His silence didn't deter her.

"So… do much else for fun, besides beat the lights outta people?" she asked him.

He side-eyed her. "What— those two twerps back there…?"

"I'm sure they were bein' butt-faces…" she added, with a small smile.

He was silent again in response — maybe he was the kind that had big ol' thoughts bouncing around in their head.

Jinx held herself by a couple of ropes supporting the catwalk, and leant herself over the edge, swaying back and forth slowly.

"Ever feel like spittin' on 'em?" she asked after a moment, of the people below.

He looked at her again. "I don't know… I'm not really from 'round here, anyway…"

She gave a slight curious gasp. "Really— where're you from?"

He broke off eye contact in irritation. "Don't worry 'bout it…"

It did occurred to her that his clothing was a little out of the ordinary from what she was used to, even with the way Piltovans dressed — a pretty basic outfit of white, baggy pants which tightened around the ankles, a close, close-fitting black top, and a weird, golden band of cloth tied around his waist. His little black flats with no socks on made his feet look kinda small, she thought to herself in amusement.

He glanced at her, seemingly not appreciating her eye on him.

"Gonna tell me your name, at least?" she interjected, just as he opened his mouth to speak.

"…Asked you to leave me alone, aight?" he attempted to brush her off.

She rolled her eyes playfully. "Look, if you don't tell me," she continued, "I'm gonna have to end up calling you Chuck Two."

He raised a brow at her again. After a moment, his attention appeared to be drawn by the knife holster on her belt.

"Who're you out here gutting with that thing, anyway?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Whoever I want — Firelights, people who try to touch my stuff, Topsiders…"

His eye seemed to dart back at her at the mention of Topside.

"You've been up there, you mean…?" he wondered.

"Um," she replied, a bit evasively, "sometimes, I guess…"

"Hm," he looked on.

After a moment, he stood up. "Well… I gotta find a place to sleep," he muttered.

"Oh, sure…" she said.

He looked at her. "Don't try followin' me this time…" he warned.

"Fine," she replied. "Only did it 'cause I was bored, anyway…"

He paused.

"Rooftops 'round here your hangout spot, are they…?"

She shrugged. "If I feel like it, I guess… or The Last Drop, sometimes…"

"…Place with the loud music?" he asked.

"Oh, like, only on club nights it does…" she said meekly.

He seemed to notice some passer-by staring up at the two of them from down below. He promptly flipped them off, which entertained her.

He gave her another quick glance, but seemed to be content to conclude their conversation. He slowly crouched down, presumably setting his eyes on the next ledge he'd take to exit the catwalk.

"Name's Garou, anyway…" he said to her.

"Oh," she replied. "Uh… Jinx."

He nodded. "Well, I'll see ya, maybe…"

He prepared to launch himself, the outline of his flexed back and shoulder muscles distractingly visible through the thin material of his top.

"Yeah, sure…" she replied.

Without another word, he performed a thirty-foot lateral jump over to the nearby building, about as effortlessly as she'd observed him scaling the wall earlier.

She had to remind herself to release her bottom lip with her teeth when he gave a brief glance back at her, after he'd landed.

She watched him march off, disappearing into the night.