"Almost Green"

"Little Gray Cat"

“...”

“...”

“... Hell are you staring at?”

A gentle force flicked his nose. Andy blinked a few times, focusing back on the fiend’s pale face.

Nothing but the night wind’s gentle howl could reach his thought-stuffed brain. Nothing could pierce the thin veil of serenity he found within this moment. Lying atop a cliff, surrounded by the singing pines and the twin moons’ soft glow. With a friend nestled against his shoulder, tightly buried in the croak of his neck, he felt at peace. Genuinely at peace, for even just a moment. Even if it only fed into his delusions, if it only ruffled his already scattered-brain head and sent all sense and logic soaring like atoms frolicking wildly across the field that was the very air he breathed. In this war-torn land, there was no time for peace. No time for stargazing, no space for daydreamers. Yet there he was, staring down the open plains of Kazdel, the mud and the ruins, remnants of life, rifle on standby.

And it was all ruined by an annoyed flick to the face. He blinked a little and recoiled back.

“Ow? The hell?”

“I asked, what the hell were you staring at?” The devil crossed her arms in exasperation. “You were eyeing me up.”

“I wasn’t.” Andy mumbled back and turned away from her bright, crimson horns and focusing back on the rifle’s scope. As embarrassing as it was to admit, his gaze might’ve swam away from the night sky, lost in some distant daydream about red hallways and closed doors. In this dream-like state, it was possible that it latched onto her face or uniform. Though, as he kept telling himself, the uniform wasn’t hers. It was W’s, and this… THING wasn’t no W he knew.

“C’mon, Lawdog, it’s okay to give a girl a compliment, y’know~? Just, maybe, don’t get ‘round to doing it like a complete, fucking creep.” 

“I wasn’t staring at you. How- I mean, how are you even so self centered…”

“You were gawking at me like a little Caprinae into the headlights of a twelve ton merc bus.”

“... I wasn’t.”

“Oh, I wasn’t! I wasn’t! W, I wasn’t staring at your cute little face and drooling all over, oh no, I wasn’t!” That’s what you sound like.” 

“That’s far from what I sound like, you ape.”

“Ape? Really? Not even “devil” or something?” Her disappointment was clearly heard in her voice, as she turned to her side, resting her head atop her open palm, the pillar of her forearm pressed against the ground. Both of them had been lying there for Law knows how long, overlooking the muddy sea below in hopes of picking out a marching band of misery. Why? Moolah. Why were the two of them sent here by themselves? Hedley's sick joke. Or an excuse to be left alone with Ines for a few hours. 

That, or he really wanted the angel gone for good.

“You want me to call you a slur that bad?”

“I dunno. I keep calling you Law-dog, seems only logical that you return the favor.”

Andy turned away from her smirking face, pressing his eye into the tiny, magnifying thingamajig atop Vinny’s steel hide. By not calling her that, he was morally above her. Better than her. That’s what he kept telling himself, over and over.