"Whoopsie," Jinx whistled, side-stepping a charging man.
With a wry smile, Atlas braced his stall as a hooded young man with an owl mask and pipe yelled and charged forward. His pipe missed Jinx's head and he collided with the stall, rocking it and spilling oil everywhere.
"Fuck!" Atlas cursed as it splashed onto already finished product, turning it soggy. The owl-masked man paused to look at him and began to turn, but not before Atlas grabbed his head and slammed it down against the wooden counter.
More oil splashed up and caught the side of the man's head. He yelled in pain, trying to break free of Atlas's grip until Jinx giggled and kicked him in the stomach, sending him sprawling back into the street.
One of the Firelights, Atlas thought. I wouldn't have hurt him but...
"Don't damage my stall!" Atlas shouted angrily, throwing a ladle at the man's head. He scrambled up just in time to avoid it as it pinged off the stone pavement. The man broke into a sprint while Jinx whipped out her pistol.
Innocent bystanders watching from the main street panicked while nearby thugs backed away. Atlas desperately lunged over his stall, spilling more oil across his apron and causing him to wince as he batted her pistol down.
"Not in front of my stall!"
"Oh please," Jinx scoffed, flicking her wrist toward the running man. "You think they care about your stall? Getting rid of him now would be doing you a favor."
"No it wouldn't!" Atlas hissed, pulling his oil-drenched apron away from his clothes as it dripped onto the pavement. "It would just bring more of them."
"Then that means I'd have to stick around here more often," Jinx hummed, dancing around him to help pull the tied knot around his waist free while he lifted the apron over his head.
"I think a hundred sugar fritters and smog-berry tarts is a good payment for my protection."
"Do you want my stall and my house too?"
Atlas grumbled, rubbing his stomach. The skin didn't feel burned underneath his clothes, but it certainly didn't feel pleasant either.
Delicate fingers turned his chin one way as Jinx slipped around to the other side, poking his ribs.
"Maybe I do? I mean, if you're dead then I get it for free, don't I?"
Atlas leaned away slightly, giving her a flat look. "This ain't a marriage. You don't get my shit after I'm dead."
"Right," Jinx responded sarcastically. "Because a certain someone can't just buy this place up if he really wanted to."
Atlas snorted. "You'd ask Silco to buy up the place?"
"Why not?" she shrugged. "It's not like I ask him for much else. I do his dirty work, I take out the trash, I..."
Taking a few steps forward and rising onto her tippy-toes, her face hovered inches away from his.
"Stay out of trouble..."
His heart skipped a beat as he gently pushed her away at the collarbone. "You're contradicting yourself. Doing his dirty work and staying out of trouble? Those two don't mix like oil and water."
She smiled mischievously, dancing back a step and raising a single finger with her purple nail.
"There are many kinds of trouble. I promised I'd stay out of one."
"Which is," Atlas asked absently, his gaze already starting to drift back toward his messy stall and the bent wooden pegs keeping the tarp up.
It's going to take a while to fix and clean up. I should start with...
In one smooth, quick step forward, Jinx grabbed his collar and pulled him down, their faces suddenly less than an inch apart as her blue eyes bore into his.
"GUYS! IDIOT!"
"Eh?"
With two light, rapid slaps, Jinx smacked his face and glared at him. Her face was flushed.
"Do I need to spell it out for you?!"
Atlas's head rolled slightly, dazed, but his eyes stayed locked with hers. Her lips and expression kept shifting subtly and her hands fidgeted restlessly on his collar as she adjusted her grip.
His heart raced in his chest, the flutter in his stomach beginning to build until the edges of his vision pulled him back to reality.
The onlookers.
It might have looked like a romantic scene if not for the sudden bursts of violence earlier and Jinx yanking Atlas down by the collar. Thugs and old residents who were used to the chaos had already forgotten the near-fatal moment from earlier and were now grinning encouragingly.
But others watched with darker expressions.
Some stood with passive, studying looks with fresh scars across their faces while others wearing masks put an unease in Atlas's stomach.
Atlas realized something else too, his eyes flicking across the audience.
There's more than one Firelight, Atlas groaned internally. Some of Silco's goons are here too.
Cross my heart and hope I don't die in my sleep.
"You're a jerk," Jinx mumbled, releasing his collar.
"No," Atlas exclaimed, realizing he lost the moment again and probably looked like he was ignoring her again. He grabbed her shoulders and raised his voice without meaning to. "Look, I really do want to..."
Is Silco going to kill me?!
"...You are really beautiful but..."
If we could do this somewhere more private it would be less of a problem!
"...Can we do this another time? Another place a bit more private?"
Jinx scoffed, blinking rapidly and in quick succession with a hurt spreading across her face.
"Another time huh," Jinx's voice trembled. "Is it that much of problem? Am I that much of a problem to you?"
FUUUUUCK!
"No! I just mean, y'know, when there are less people watching?"
Once again, his words only seemed to make things worse. The hurt in her face sharpened and she took a step back.
"What's wrong with letting people see? Everyone knows I visit your stall."
Yeah but it's the difference between visiting the stall and this is a BIG difference!
Atlas exhaled slowly and lowered his voice. "Jinx... look around."
She frowned but followed his glance.
The crowd had stopped pretending not to watch. A few thugs stood with amused grins. Others leaned against walls with that quiet, measuring look people in the Undercity got when they smelled something interesting. One of the owl masks from earlier was gone but Atlas knew it was too late in that regard.
And across the street, two of Silco's men stood near a chem-lamp, talking like nothing was happening while their eyes kept drifting back.
Atlas rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm not worried about them laughing."
Jinx's expression didn't change right away. Her eyes flicked across the street, over the watching thugs, then back to him. For a moment she looked like she was weighing something in her head.
"...You're scared," she said finally.
Atlas hesitated. "Yeah."
She stared at him for another second before huffing and shoving his shoulder. The sting had finally left her voice when she began muttering.
"Idiot. You should've just said that."