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“Are you seeing Vicious behind my back?”
Spike didn’t blink. He only took a long draw on his Marlboro and breathed out a dragon’s plume of smoke, staring straight ahead.
She had come out of nowhere. He'd been taking a cigarette break outside of his favorite zipcraft repair shop - the owners were some kind of heathen anti-smokers - when she had shown up. She usually wasn't so easy to miss; he could spot her blood-red Mustang from miles away. Then again, he had no reason to keep an eye out for her. She wasn't his woman, after all.
He could just see Julia in his peripheral vision, watching him patiently. She would keep standing there until he finished the cigarette, maybe the entire pack. She and Vicious had that in common, a diehard focus that Spike couldn’t begin to comprehend. Life was too short to be that dedicated to anything.
Of course, he could just walk away. But avoiding her indefinitely wasn’t an option, especially since she had gone to the trouble of seeking him out. She wouldn’t needle him any more than Vicious would, only wait, implacable as all hell, until he cracked. And he would crack, God knew, out of sheer exasperation.
So he said, mildly, “That’s a bit melodramatic.”
“You’re admitting it?”
He smiled, still not turning his head. “I admit nothing, just on principle. Besides, for someone to see him behind your back, wouldn’t you two have to be married? Or, at the very least, dating.” She and Vicious were, at most, fucking - maybe “involved”, in polite circles. That was the most Vicious was with anyone. The only romance he had going was with that damn bird of his.
He saw her eyes narrow, but the rest of her lovely face remained cool, expressionless. She and Vicious were made for each other, honestly.
Then she said something that finally threw him off his guard. “He smells like you, sometimes. More than a quick shower can wash off.”
Spike coughed shortly and through his nose, a damning tell, and finally turned to face her. Maybe he caught a faint glimmer of satisfaction in her eyes, maybe that was just the light. “How the hell would you know what I smell like?”
“Gunpowder and Marlboros,” she replied, and it was true. Vicious didn’t smoke Spike’s brand, and he never used a gun anymore if he could help it, not since Titan.
“That happens to everyone after two minutes with me.” He quirked an eyebrow at her, more than a little suggestive. “Hell, you probably smell like that right now.” He wasn’t really denying her accusation, but he was curious about her reasoning.
“My hair and clothes, maybe. Not my skin.” The corner of her mouth twitched, minutely. “And certainly not my lips. He tastes like you, too.”
It was all Spike could do not to laugh. He wondered which parts of him she thought she was tasting, exactly, and if Vicious would be that perverse. Yeah, he would, the bastard. “Well, shit, sweetheart, guess that makes you and me kissing cousins.”
“So it’s true.” Not a question, anymore.
Spike shrugged, flicking away the butt of his finished Marb, and retrieved the pack from his coat pocket for another one. “Can’t see how it matters. You still get your fancy clothes and that hot rod of a car. I’m no threat to that.”
Her eyes narrowed again, dangerously. The pretty thing did have claws - only the best for his best friend.
Vicious didn’t like his women cheap; he did, after all, have an image to maintain, and that was mainly what Julia was for, image, status, intimidation. A woman like that on your arm did a lot for a man’s street cred. He kept her looking as unattainable as possible while putting his hands in places that proved he had attained her. Even Spike enjoyed seeing the jaws drop as people wondered how a homicidal maniac got such a prize.
They would have been surprised to discover money had nothing to do with it. She had power on her mind, real power, the kind you couldn’t get on your back.
Which was what Vicious had told Spike, once or twice, when Spike wondered why this status piece had lasted so much longer than the others. Vicious could appreciate ambition - he had uses for it, he claimed.
Spike was hunting for his lighter, letting the silence drag on, when suddenly a flame appeared in front of his face, made by an expensive, filigreed lighter. He blinked, but didn’t hesitate to accept the light.
“Thanks,” he told her. She nodded, and reached into her purse for a platinum cigarette case; she smoked Silk Cuts. Seconds later, they were both leaning against the wall, smoking together in an easier silence; not friendly, but no longer potentially hostile.
“I would know what to do with another woman,” Julia said at last. “Even another man, most of them. But you…pose a challenge.”
Spike snorted. “To what?”
“To what I thought I knew about Vicious, and what I thought I knew about you.”
He thought about that a second, but other than the obvious things about orientation and masculinity, which he suspected were beneath Julia’s concern, he didn’t get it. “Sex is sex,” he said. “Doesn’t really change anything.”
Julia’s laughter was soft, as enchanting as her looks, and twice as jaded. “Spoken like only a man could.”
He glanced at her, watched her purse full lips to blow a stream of smoke. He wondered if he could have tasted Vicious on her. “So, what, this turn your world upside down?”
“Only shifts it bit to the side. You’re a marksman. You know how important those few centimeters can be.”
The difference between a trip to the doctor and a trip to the morgue, a nick in the cheek or losing an eye. Yeah, he knew.
He considered her thoughtfully. Vicious had said to be careful of her; now Spike was beginning to wonder if it was more than his partner’s usual paranoia. “What now?” he asked. The Swordfish II should be just about ready, and he couldn’t stand out here trading pleasantries with her forever.
Julia dropped what remained of her cigarette to the ground and crushed it under the tip of one fashionable boot. She lifted blond waves of hair from her neck with her hands in a way that had Spike staring at the smooth column of her throat, the sweep of fair skin just above her neckline, before he realized that was exactly why she was doing it.
“We’ll see, won’t we?” she said, then turned and walked away.
Spike changed position against the wall, shifting his weight from leg to another. He could see her discarded filter on the ground, the bright red ring of lipstick around it, and he smiled.