[ She hates that she'll think of this later — his tears and his confessions, of course, and the way it feels to hold him this close, yes, but — the thing she's angry about, that she already wants to burn out of her memory and knows she'll never try because she's too selfish to give it up, is the way her fingers feel in his hair. How soft it is, despite the snarls and tangles, despite the sweat that's dried in it. She's going to remember it later, feel the ghost of it against her fingertips, and she's going to hate herself just that little bit more, she just knows it.

But he doesn't protest; if anything, he relaxes a little against her, which she takes as a sign to keep going, so she does, right up until he pulls back, leaving her hands on his shoulders as he tells her he wouldn't want her to kill for him, which is a thing she absolutely already knew. ]

Yeah, because you aren't a complete asshole. But if it's a choice between you or me taking that hit, there's no question. There's no debate. You shouldn't—

[ For the first time since she saw him and ran headlong into him, it's her voice that cracks a little, the thin, frail facade of her coolness fracturing and the frustration and anger beneath glimpsed, just briefly, and she is angry. She's angry that he was forced to take that shot, she'd angry Mikel is dead so stupidly, she's angry that she hadn't been there, she's angry that there's no end to any of this in sight, even with this brief reprieve. She doesn't believe it'll last. She knows it won't. ]

You should never have had to know what that's like. Never. If it meant you never had to use that gun of yours for anything other than a security blanket, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I wouldn't even blink. There's no comparison, Little.

[ It is, very loosely, the same principle that's giving her such a stubborn drive to stay alive here; if she dies, the curse falls on Waverly, and Waverly would have to be the one pulling the trigger, reckoning with the people the revenants used to be, knowing she's sending them to a potential eternity of suffering, all for crimes committed a hundred years before she was born.

Waverly doesn't deserve that, and he doesn't deserve this, so when he says that, when he says he does, she shakes her hair back over her shoulder and sits back on her heels with her hands falling to fist loose and helpless on her thighs and blinks hard and fast, looking up at the ceiling for a moment to keep her own suddenly stinging eyes dry, or at least to push this abrupt threat of tears ruthlessly down. Her eyes are a little too bright, maybe, but she gets it under control. She licks her lip, shakes her head again, and can't quite look at him yet. ]

God.

[ It comes out half a laugh, without any amusement or warmth to it at all: it's bitter, so bitter, almost a curse. If Kate heard her say her Lord's name like that, she'd get another talking-to all about respect for the Almighty, probably.

But she doesn't give a shit. As far as she can tell, if there is a God, He or She or They is or are nothing but an enormous waste of space. Finally, her glance falls back down, meets his eyes again — they're red and sore and gleaming with tears and she still gets caught on them anyway. What's the point of trying not to? What's the point of anything, if she can't do the one thing, the only thing she can do, the only thing she's good at, and take the load off the people here she cares about? ]

You really don't.