edgeofyourseat | (no subject)

(no subject)

It's late at night in LA and Laney is up to no good, as usual.

He hasn't tried hooking again since the latest disaster; first he wants to see if stealing will work any better. So he found himself a nice deserted toy store, picked the lock, and opened the cash register with a crowbar.

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Which breaks his grip on the crowbar, but takes him past the guy he was fighting. Fair trade, in his opinion. He shoves her away from him and makes a break for it.

She grabs for his shirt, which ought to at least slow him down for a second while the man rights himself and discards the crowbar.

Yeah, it does that.

He pulls away as fast as he can. Still probably not fast enough.

Nope.

The man darts after him and catches him by the wrist, twisting his arm up behind his back.

Which leaves him with one arm free to elbow the man in the stomach.

Not particularly effective. The man grunts and twists Laney's arm further, to the point of pain, though not yet to the point of breaking.

"There's no need to deliver you to the police unharmed," he murmurs into Laney's ear. "Only alive."

He laughs, soft and breathless, and aims his elbow somewhat lower this time.

The man grunts again and twists. Laney's wrist goes crack.

So this guy doesn't care about pain, either.

Fine.

He throws himself forward, utterly unconcerned about the damage he'll do to his wrist as long as he gets out of the man's grip in the process.

The man tangles one foot in between Laney's feet and shoves him forward.

He lands on his uninjured arm and rolls, then scrambles to his feet as fast as he can to start running again.

Hell no.

The girl tackles him again, back into the alley, and manages to get a hand around his throat.

When he looks up at her, it's with genuine fear in his eyes.

It's just not her he's afraid of.

"Would you stop fighting?" she snarls.

"Fuck no."

When he blew off the other guy, he was cocky, cheerful.

Now he's desperate.

"You're not going to win."

"Yeah," softly. "I know."

He swallows; his tongue swipes at the corner of his mouth.

It hurts him to say this, the old familiar pain of consistent futility, but he is out of better options.

"Please?"

"No," firmly. "You broke the law."

Tiredly, without any particular feeling in it: "Fuck you too, then."

"What are you so afraid of?"

"Bent," the man says, "we don't have time for this."

His lips quirk; his eyes travel to the looming figure of the man, then back to her face.

"Gonna get in trouble," he murmurs, for her ears only.

"Thanks to you."

"'Msorry," sincerely, still whisper-soft.

"Same for me, when Daddy finds out where I've been."

"Then you shouldn't have been stealing."

"Then I shouldn'ta got caught," he corrects.