(no subject)

[didntseeit.livejournal.com]

The air is hot and smoky and dead, but she walks down the flat cobbles anyway. Takes a deep breath and lets it out and the gun is slippery in her hand. Sands is sprawled out across the ground, moving and looking so terribly undignified that she can’t help but pick up his sunglasses and put them back on.

There. Much better.

“You fucking little monkey,” she says, and her voice is loving even (especially) now. “Stand up.” He’s heavy and she staggers, like she did before, but she knows him and her body moves automatically to keep them balanced. Beatriz puts the gun under his jaw, turns his head this way and that. The blood is dark and thick and she wants-

“See anything you like?” and then laughs


- it’s too late for that, too late to care and say habitual phrases, too late –


before leaning up to kiss him. Soft and gentle, that’s all she plans, and his lips taste of –

She doesn’t even hear the shot.

Doesn’t hear it but her body reacts and she staggers back, letting him go and there is hotslippery blood on her fingers her knees give way and she stares at the smoking gun without ever realizing what it is.

Dimly, she hears him say, cold as the death spreading throughout her body,

“No.”

“Sands,” but she only gets to open her mouth before it’s too late and she falls back.

(she hits the ground somewhere that isn't Mexico, isn't her world, and it's cold, so cold, but she can't notice anything except for the blood)

(no subject)

[selflesslight.livejournal.com]

Valerie Bell is uncharacteristically pensive.

Possibly this is because she just lugged a woman with a bullet wound in her stomach all the way here from God only knows where.

Possibly not.

Either way, she's staring at a plateful of cookies with considerably more rapt attention than a plateful of cookies strictly warrants.