Chapter Text
There wasn’t much whiskey left in her glass. And, unfortunately, finding the bottom of it wasn’t going to solve any of her problems. Still.
“You kiss one pretty girl at a dance,” Jaina muttered under her breath, threw the last of her drink back. She closed her eyes, indulging in the burn of the whiskey down her throat. There’d be hell to pay back at the hotel, but she could afford a few more moments to indulge herself.
“Two more of those,” a sultry voice said from beside her.
She opened an eye, risked a peak. A stranger had joined her at the bar; wavy blonde hair, pierced long ears. Jaina wasn’t looking for company, but at least the stranger was easy on the eyes. Even if her trim waistcoat was slightly worn, her boots scuffed. No hat, no badge, and not carrying either.
“Sure you can afford those drinks?” she asked, fishing. Or fencing.
“Oh, haven’t got a penny,” the stranger said easily. “Haven’t even got a dime.” She leaned forwards, forcing Jaina to face her head on, both eyes open. “But I know how to have a good ol’ time.”
She almost snorted. It had been some time since a woman had propositioned her, and the novelty of it made up for the poor rhyme. “What a coincidence,” she said, playing along. “I ain’t got a dollar, either. But baby when I do, I’m gonna go and spend it all on you.”
Two glasses were set down between them, accompanied by the pointed tapping of an impatient bartender’s fingers. Jaina waived him off; she’d already upset her daddy plenty, a few more drinks on the family tab wasn’t going to make a difference.
“Jaina,” she said, taking one of the whiskeys.
The stranger took the other. “Sylvanas,” she replied, clinked their glasses together.
The whiskey tasted sweeter when it went down this time. A soft melody played in the background, swirling smoke and reed dividers creating an unearned sense of privacy.
“So, Sylvanas,” she said, leaning across their low-frame table. “What’s the plan here?”
Sylvanas threw her sake back, shook her hair out. “We ditch this town,” she said, smirking, a hint of fang visible.
“You asking me to run away with you?” she asked, drawing from her kiseru pipe. She puffed some of the smoke at her companion. “Gonna need quite an offer to get a girl like me to up and leave.”
“A girl like you?” Sylvanas asked playfully, leaning in through the smoke cloud. “Suppose I gotta steal myself a whole lotta money, then. Might even be enough to get you to sing a little song ‘bout yesterday.”
She blew a little ring of smoke to frame Sylvanas’ face, laughed when her long eyebrows twitched adorably. “And what if they catch you? You’re no good to me in a cell.”
“Oh, they’re never gonna catch me,” Sylvanas said, all swaggering bravado. “Long as I’m alive, that is. And you and me together babe, we’ll survive.”
The kiseru pipe twirled in her fingers, round and round, swirling along with the next drink poured into her glass. She downed it at the same time Sylvanas finished hers, the two glasses nestling together comfortably between their parlour chairs.
“Honey’s in the pantry,” she said, pouring from the kettle pot into three little cups. Dust motes danced lazily with the rising steam, a waltz set to a tune both of them knew well.
Sylvanas leaned up from where she had been digging around the cupboards, having spent more time putting on a show than honestly looking for anything. “Shall I put it in the tea?”
“For you and me, yes,” Jaina answered. “And do remember to stir it. With a spoon, mind you, not your finger.”
Sylvanas winked. “Would love to stir your honey with my finger.”
She raised a hand over her mouth, gasped for effect. “How mightily improper of you! And while we’re waiting for my ma, no less.”
“Is that all we’re doing?” Sylvanas asked, settling herself in Jaina’s lap. “You know, you’re the best gal I ever saw.”
She leaned in close, brushed her lips against those long ears. “Until we get the money,” she whispered, hand dragging along a tight waist. “Then we can run away.”
“Look at you,” Sylvanas purred, ears flicking amusedly. “Whatever would proper-folks think of you now?”
“I don’t give a holler what they say,” she answered, her drink disappearing faster than her propriety did. “They’re never gonna find us, ‘till the day we die.”
“You and me together,” Sylvanas agreed, signalled the bartender. “We’ll get by.”
The bourbon turned as she did, her back to Sylvanas. “Lace me up?” she asked, pulling her hair over her shoulder, exposing her neck. She shivered when lips brushed against her skin.
“Don’t you look just mighty fine,” Sylvanas purred, dextrous fingers working skilfully at the back of her dress. A quick kiss to her neck and the last lace was tied. It tasted like an expensive tab, one worth skipping town over.
“Don’t clean up so bad yourself,” she breathed.
Sylvanas preened. “Lacquered my boots until they shone,” she said proudly, tapping her scuff-less feet in time to a jaunty jig, taking Jaina’s hand.
They burst out onto the stage, spinning about in colourful fabric, the strings and harmonica battling admirably with the furious screaming that followed in their wake. From the stage to the tables they jumped, knocking back drink by drink.
“You can have my heart,” Sylvanas offered, spinning her around and around, “If I can have your hand.”
She laughed, ducked under the arms of the anchor around her neck. “Ain’t exactly up to me, now is it?”
Up the stairs they dashed, parched throats drenched by a shambolic gallery of outraged socialites and upstanding busybodies, pursued by a growing bill and a busy moustache.
“I can make your daddy understand,” Sylvanas said confidently, pulled her in close, dipped her low. The rum on her lips and in her glass burned almost as much as her legs did.
Her elbow on the table, her chin in her hand, she took another swig. “Oh, can you now? By your own admission you haven’t got a penny.”
“Not a dime,” Sylvanas agreed, saluting with her own refilled glass.
An invitation if there ever was one. She laughed, pulled the cloth up to cover her face. “But you sure do know how to have a good ol’ time.”
“And you ain’t got a dollar.” Sylvanas laughed along, hand on the door, face already covered. “And baby when you do, who you gonna spend it on?”
“Break the lockbox,” she answered, spinning her six-shooters. “Get the gold.”
“Just as much as I can hold,” Sylvanas agreed, pulled the door open.
A symphony of bullets turned the bar into a fireworks display, another round slammed down between spilled whiskey and snuffed pipes, leaking bourbon and cigarette butts. Six shots in each hand, six shots of vodka, ready to fire off as the final act approached.
“Out the door,” she called, covering their retreat, “Into the car!”
Sylvanas was only a step behind, arms full and glasses refilled. Gleefully she pulled Jaina up onto the stagecoach. “Oh, together,” Sylvanas said as she took the reins, “We’ll go far.”
The train whistled loudly in the night, accompanied by the sharp staccato of the sheriffs’ rifles. Faster and faster Sylvanas urged the horses, drawing them right alongside the great steam engine, wooden wheels bouncing against the gravel of the tracks.
Hand-in-hand they jumped, rolled through the batwing doors right into the first-class carriage. Champagne and caviar, another line of sin on the tab, going down easily with hiccups and laughter. She threw her bonnet out over the crowd, cocked her Colts at high society.
“This is a hold up, mamma,” she said, chewing on a toothpick.
“Oh, you were born to be a bank robber,” Sylvanas purred to her.
Two flutes, then four, then six. One hold up, then two, then three.
Tuxedos reached into breast pockets for contingencies, but she was faster, clicked her tongue at them rather than her hammer. “If y’all be so kind, and hand over your last gold dollar?”
Chips of wood and glass and the gunpowder tempo of an angry constabulary chased them out and into the bottom of their glasses, the tapping on the countertop of an impatient bartender. Jaina waived him off; she’d already upset her daddy plenty, a few dozen more drinks on the family tab wasn’t going to change that.
Arm-in-arm they stumbled out of the saloon, into the endless possibility of a whiskey-fuelled night.
“They’re never gonna catch me,” Sylvanas declared to the stars in the sky, the horses at the post, the drunks in the gutters. “Long as I’m alive.”
“You and me together,” Jaina agreed. “We’ll survive.”