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It’s a flurry of explosions and color and explosions of color and the light blending into sand.
Of screaming and directions and thus, their abandoning, as their feet slip through the grains and eventually find their way to pavement. Their soles scraped against the high-strung thrill of cops and wires.
"I think I saw her over there!"
"Nono, he went this way!"
"Officer, have you tried the center?"
All around, it was a mess. A blurred cacophony of too much and too little. Proof lost to time and winding down the road.
They liked it that way.
It meant for a smooth getaway, for one, and an even simpler leap into the void, which is exactly what they chose to do — with the ocean rushing through their eyes and their hair whipping into their faces.
They leapt, then fell, then tumbled behind craters, their backs simultaneously meeting the worn one of an old, decrepit building.
The voices march along with them.
"I swear, she was right here!"
"Try calling out his name—I hear he always answers!"
"…What am I, a dog?" Froggy mutters, eyebrows creased. Caked with mud and grime and tatters, but still finding the time to be annoyed. Ǝna snickers.
The mend of the crowd continues on for a while. Various footsteps of varying sizes and identities — yet all sharing the same person, they rumble on by through them.
And within the breadth of a heartbeat, they’re safe.
Froggy and Ena both sink to the ground, muscles screaming, heat in their lungs. They breathe in the vicious and cool and sweet night air. Their chests heave, worry still sparking in their knees.
But they’re okay, now. At the least.
Somehow, through the blood they wept and their footprints in snow, they had concluded with a job well done.
Ǝna turns to meet her superior’s gaze. She finds mirrored eyes, with latent craze and the bloom of relief staring back.
A heartbeat passes.
Two, three.
"Didyouhearthemall?!"
"Didyouseehowmuchsecuritywasinthere?!"
The two inhale. Trade topics with the flats of their tongues.
"We better get paid extra for this!"
"My feet are killing me!"
A little slower, considerably, but still way off their respective margins. They both gauge each other once again.
Then there’s laughter.
Bright, high pitched laughter that echoes dully through Ǝna’s chest. And a smoother, yet sweeter sort somehow, that rolls from Froggy’s throat with the added jingle of eyes through his "suit".
"We did it!" Ǝna giggles, waving the satchel she’d made sure to claw and tear into before the height of the night could rip it from her arms. The "goods", their employer called them, yet hardly worth the damage.
"Damn right we did," Froggy affirms her, through a snort and a sigh and a cursory glance up at the moon. He relaxes further, back melting against the dusted brick that shielded them. "And with our heads still on our shoulders."
"Barely," Ǝna tch’s, waving her free hand.
"Did you see their weaponload? I thought I was gonna lose the dress for sure."
"Spit for yourself! They seemed more than keen to split holes in my legs."
Ǝna coughs into her fist, amused.
"Well, with no offense meant, you are the more standout target."
"Elaborate."
The girl kicks back, curling her legs into one another, a split smile on her face she does unwell to hide. Another giggle courses through her; a shudder.
"…Mm, perhaps another night."
"You asshole!"
And yet, they’re laughing again. In tandem and in pieces, the weight of their mission hardly survived ghosting along their shoulders as they allow themselves gulps of respite.
It takes a while before they’re back on Earth again, among the dead flora and the distant call of the waves. The dim, flickering lights of a museum ransacked and outraged silhouetting their souls.
Ǝna scoots closer, silently. An awfully shy, out of place gesture, her claws nicking in the torn ends of a maroon dress now scarred.
Froggy pulls her in fully, large hand engulfing her side, yet enveloping her heart in a blissful warmth she’d never find elsewhere. She swore it.
"…Still got your phone?"
"Trampled in the manic haze, I’m afraid. You?"
"Unfortunately, yes." Froggy sighs, and his thumb has begun to trace her. As it tends to do when he is bothered and needing, Ǝna’s noticed. It brings with it loving shivers. "But I don’t feel like making the call."
"Then let’s wait."
"…Mm?"
Ǝna flushes, suddenly, looking away when he tried to reconnect their gazes. Awkward in the way she tucks her legs closer in, desperate to soak up his warmth and the remaining rush in his veins.
She clears her throat, moving to trace the lines of battered skin revealed in the whisk of night.
"I-I mean, ‘s not like there’s a deadline, or whatever. And neither of us look our best…"
"I thought you’d be jumping for instant pay."
"You see my legs?" Ǝna discredits, chuckling. She winces after a moment, which causes Froggy to grip her tighter.
She swallows, "No jumping to be done anytime soon, big guy."
"I knew we should’ve taken the getaway car…" Froggy mumbles, and Ǝna hums her agreements, lidded beneath the haze of — despite it all, and the faint, distant caterwauls, comfort.
She felt safe, all tucked away in the dark and discarded as she was. A pawn for the many, a means to an end. With a satchel full of arbitrary riches soon to be shaken from their place in the world.
Slotted deep within their corner of hell, alongside the sting of shared injury and the ruining of the glamorous outfits that barely kissed at her ankles, Ǝna reckons she’s never felt more alive.
Froggy too, from what he seems, all propped up in the shadows.
And maybe that’s why, when their eyes dare to be drawn towards one another again, their lips follow suit, in messy smacks and pants and sighs. With a curious tongue swiping Ǝna’s lips, which has her gasp and leave herself bare.
Her mind, which’d been running ever since they slipped away, blanks conveniently as seconds of this pass. With Froggy exploding the inside of a progressively shying mouth, and his hand bleeding a deeper warmth into her body she didn’t know how to take.
They part soon after, breathing, starstruck.
Ǝna whispers.
"Five more minutes… then we call."
"Okay."
"We’ll get our pay, and then weasel a ride outta the fucker too, if we can help it."
"Alright."
"Then… we go home," her voice falls into transparency. Barely heard beneath the twinkling of the sky and the omnipresent ebb and throb of hurt beneath her skin.
Yet still, he hears her. Froggy always hears her.
"And carry where we left off here. Sound good?"
"Yes. Fine. Alright."
"Great."
"Nice."
They slip into laughing fits again, both smaller and kinder in nature. Less carried on by the shot dead adrenaline and more twisting about the other, pulling love from their veins.
Ǝna rests her head on his shoulder.
"Five minutes," she reminds him, "no more, no less. Step by step."
"Five minutes." Froggy agrees, letting her lay, pulling her impossibly closer. And, hazily, her mind proposes that she’s never felt better bleeding out in an alleyway.
"…Love you."
"Don’t you start,"
"Seriously!"
Ǝna hums. Rolls her eyes, casually sidestepping his weak, tired attempt at weaseling "6 minutes" into their haphazardly placed schedule, and maneuvers to peck his cheek.
"Love you too, big guy."
And time ticks on, slow, yet efficient. As the wind slips past her bangs and rustles her wounds. And Froggy’s heat rectifies it, his hold keeping her still.
And beat through these moments, hell doesn’t seem too bad a place to lie.