Her cheeks blushing as pink as her protruding tongue, Shansha tugged on her hoodie.
“Come on Dekie! We’re gunna miss the buuuus.”
She drew out the word, her intonation hurrying Dekie along as he pulled on his boots, half falling through the door after her.
“Hurry!! I can hear it coming!”
She was dashing down the street away from him, towards the raised platform - the shuttlebus still nowhere in sight. Her momentum knocked her hood back, her enthusiasm whispering through her stray strands of hair.
Dekie had spent his life stumbling from outpost to outpost, hiring his gun out for the next meal. Holding the defensive line had got monotonous. The creatures always attacked in waves, sitting in the gunnerpod and spattering the onslaught with plasma holes got boring after a while. He kept moving, one outpost to another, at least it was a change of scenery, a different background to the searing holes shot through the greeny flesh, different defences washed in the dark orange tinge of beast blood.
The heavy hum of the shuttlebus filled the air.
Her small face sparkled mischievous joy.
“It’s here it’s here!!”
He’d met Shansha in the deadlands. A scrawny teen, her pocked boots poking beneath metal sheet in a scrap dump.
He’d offered help, but that little bundle of spit and fire scoffed, offering hers instead. At this point, he couldn’t even remember when he agreed to this, somewhere in between her leading the way through the shifting dunes of debris and her loitering outside the outpost entrance, he’d told her about Xang-Li, the beach, a shop that still sold icecream.
Dekie smiled as the bus pulled up, Sansha throwing him that cheeky grin, it was nice to look forward to something.
The metallic clacking of the spray can built with each shake, the rattling approach of a steam train pressured and canned.
She felt at home in the empty streets, the silence drifting through the darkness interrupted by occasional cats, hissing and spitting in the concrete no man's land between gardens.
She was starting with hot pink, her hoodie pockets bulged with the rest of her palette.
She lifted the nozzle, holding it inches away from the pitted, brick canvas. It was a soft, cloy hiss, a splattering of secrets set free in a sibilated spray.
Lucy reached on her tiptoes, arching up the top of the design. The whites, the greys, the creams, the shining black, it would all sit atop her signature pink.
The sprawling scribble seemed shapeless, had there been any onlookers, they would have paused, entranced by her confident fluidity, perplexed by forming picture.
That was something Lucy loved about spray paint, building the picture up layer by layer in her mind, letting her vision flow out in shade after shade.
Lucy loitered on the corner, exhaustion blushing her cheeks.
That morning, the city had awoken to seventeen new works of street art.
The centerpiece, the canvas that had kept her up all night - the city hall, sat across the road.
A huge wolf, black and white over a pink background, it’s dark eyes shining with a depth of shading, it’s snarled muzzle covered by a breathing mask, the words ‘Toxic Town’ footing the image.
“Should we really be returning to the scene of the crime?”
Lucy jolted, catching her wrist, she hadn’t noticed Kate in the gathering crowd.
Shooting her a smile, Lucy pulled up her hood, and sticking her tongue out in a cheeky acknowledgement, slunk away.
“God help me,” Kay murmured, debating the wisdom of his promise.
Rochie tugged his hoodie over her thin pyjamas, smoothing cowlicked hair with her palms. Faint trace of puffy bags still underlined her eyes, her cheeks still had that blushed sheen.
“How do I look?”
“Totally normal, plain, boring, just like everyone else.”
Her thin wrist shot out of her sleeves, flashing a hint of her wristband as she jabbed him in the ribs.
“Ooooowwww!! That hurt!”
“Well, you’re in the right place!”
Her laugh was only small, like a burbling bubbling brook easily missed in the clamour of birds, but it was infectious. Even with the pain still stinging his ribcage, he caught it.
“Shhhh!!”
Her eyes sparkled anything but, but Kay knew they had to be quiet.
“You ready?”
His voice ease out in a toneless whisper.
She tugged up the baggy hood, lifting it carefully over her cropped hair. He knew she hated waiting for it to grow back, but he thought the choppy bob it had become suited her.
“Duhhh!”
Her pink tongue shot out, teasing him.
It was late, he managed to get her out of the building without a second glance. Part of him had been praying they’d be stopped this time, half hoping they’d hear her name called down the corridors after them, but they made it.
Out the doors and into the parking lot.
The neon light of the all-night cafe spilled across the street. His arm around her waist, he felt her step falter.
“Let’s sit on the bench, look at the stars a minute.”
She rested her head against head, her shallow breath tearing through him, tears slipping down her cheeks.
He couldn’t help it, the words left his lips before he could stop them.
“We’ll try again next week, I promise.”
Another round I had no intention of entering. I wrote the first one and couldn't get it under 300, and then came home late from work, totally exhausted, and my mind just wanted to tell me some stories and I ended up managing to rewrite the first one to fit, so I thought I would shared these Monday night musings with you <3
This is an entry to the long running gem of a contest #foxtales by @vermillionfox that just always sparks my imagination a thousand different ways. We are very nearly at the end of this round so give her a follow and I hope to see you in the next one!
A thank you to @johngreenfield for teaching me the word sibilated, which is words uttered with a hissing sound - just the word I needed for messages spoken through the spraycan!