Disclaim: I do not in any way own Ben 10 and other associated characters.
She was a pretty girl with choppy ruby hair, big sparkling green eyes, legs that were up to here, and just enough freckles dotting her face and arms to give a small semblance of innocence. Looking at her now he didn't believe it.
Once, he had met her, once and only once before she was like this; twisted, gnashed, neck crooked, and splayed out like an old raggedy Ann doll tossed across the room.
She is not a pretty girl now. Not with ruby hair twined together with blood, green eyes to wide and blank for her face, legs bruised with knuckle shapes, and pin points of blood outnumbering her freckles.
Why did she keep coming back?
He had no right to scold her. He knew why she just kept coming back and back and back again until she was to broken to even crawl back to him anymore; the same reason he kept coming back to him.
The coroner scoops her up careful – cradling a lost soul – long after she's zipped up in black, blocks away from him, he still feels wide blank eyes watching him – as if she knows.
For all the detectives, police, and crime scene investigators buzzing around him not one notices as he pulls his green jacket sleeve down low enough to conceal the purple hand wrapped around his shaking wrist.
But she sees.
/
It still surprises him sometimes how well he's been trained into going on with his life as if it is still the same. All the things he has had to learn that the average person would not have to because people are not supposed to live like this.
The bruises and angry marks are the easiest. Most can be blamed on alien fights, as for the ones that are a little to human like with his fingerprints still visible in certain lights, well; he has a solution for those too: long sleeves in the winter and waterproof foundation in the summer.
It must have been harder for her to explain the wounds.
It's been helpful that he doesn't go for the face anymore, he must be learning too because you can only get so many black eyes and bruised cheekbones from soccer until someone breaks through the lies that have been constructed to find the terrible truth shielded within.
He used to have a tell – that damn eye twitch that everyone knew about. Not anymore; lies are like breathing now they come so natural that often he forgets which is which.
He daydreams for hours of how this relationship should be. It's gotten so bad he no longer can distinguish the lines between reality and his elaborate fantasy world and he doesn't try anymore. Not since the last time he packed his things and left only to be followed by the very person that pushed him away practically begging on hands and knees for him to come back. And he always did because he loved him and to leave him would be suicide for the both of them.
Some days it makes him feel better knowing that he's not the only one who kept coming back no matter how much staying hurt. Other days he cries knowingly because one day that will be him tossed there with unseeing eyes and blood caked on his body.
At first it feels good knowing he is not going through this alone – that there are others out there that feel what he feels and have learned what he's learned. Then, it feels awful knowing he is not going through this alone – that there are others out there that feel what he feels and have learned what he's learned and that there are more out there that are going to feel this and learn that long after he has gone.
She comes to him; in his dreams and in his reality. As the girl jogging across the street that has long trembling legs, the cashier at the store whose hair frames her face unevenly, the flimsy doll flying out of a little girl's hand.
At night when held tight in muscular arms his fingers twist together to pray – not for himself, but for her to leave.
Tomorrow those same arms that kept her at bay slam into him tear at his tan flesh in places easy to hide: inside of the thighs, chest, back. Later when the angers gone those same arms will hold him sobbing apologizes and when he accepts them she screams.
/
He was a handsome boy with messy brown hair, toxic emerald eyes, lean muscle painted with tan skin, and just enough curve to his features to add a slight feminine air. Looking at him now you wouldn't believe it.
Many had seen him before he was like this; broken, sliced, head lolled to the side, and splayed out like an old raggedy Andy doll tossed across the room.
He is not a handsome boy now. Not with chocolate hair covered in cherry blood, green eyes knowing and glazed over, skin splotched with purple patches, blood staining his trademark green jacket.
She begged for her life while she still had it, so did he.
Investigators swarm while a lifeless body is zipped up and gone with the flash of red – toxic emerald eyes never leave the broad body behind yellow tape because she knows.
/
Two beers in and he still remembers how it felt to kill.
Four beers in and he wishes he didn't.
Six beers in and he knows he'll never forget.
Reaching for the seventh beer he still feels those same eyes staring at him waiting patiently for the day when ghost can touch flesh – can rip, bite, and hurt.
His door violently rattles on the hinges and he knows he doesn't need that seventh beer to realize that today is that day. The door splinters – like tan skin under pale fists – rough sharp slivers caving in giving him a chilling glance of toxic eyes filled with fire hot rage.
On his hands and knees he begs for forgiveness yet those eyes don't soften –he will not be forgiven again.
The eyes grow bigger coming towards him at inhuman speed finally visible in the light of the blue television is a curved face showing nothing but blind hatred as a force from behind crushes his body all over.
"Ben, please I'm sorry," lies broken by a dead man's drunken sobs.
Acid eyes thin out, "Who do you think this is Kevin?"
In a flash of purple he sees sleek red hair disappearing as objects lift in the air pausing while acidic eyes gleam. Then pain as things fly into him bruising and breaking as he is tossed from room to room, place to place.
It all stops with acid eyes melting him and a wooden stake through him.
/
Death is becoming a familiar theme with three down and one on death's waiting list.
She doesn't struggle, doesn't object, just an uttered guilty and she's waiting for that needle in her vein pumping poison nectar into her. Often she wonders if it hurts – wonders if she'll die painfully along with them.
Her cellmate has been there once with no breath and no pulse until they forced her to come back with long wires and noisy machines.
It was just like falling asleep – everything for an instant then nothing for forever.
That took away all the fear, the doubt about how her last moments would be was gone leaving nothing but long restless nights waiting for the best sleep of her life. And when that day comes she asks one thing of her killer, "I've killed two people: one through ignorance, another through revenge. How many have you killed?"
AN/ I've been experimenting with some different writing styles. This is a sort of abstract third/first person point of view with not much detail and a very basic flow. Not sure I like it that much it's a little too vague – the flow ain't that good either now that I re-read it (again)? I don't know I am just not that sure about it. But the sum of the plot is this: Ben, Kevin, Gwen find a girl dead from being beaten and she looks like Gwen (red hair, green eyes) to kind of symbolize how Gwen is suspicious or knows about the fact that Ben is in an abusive relationship with Kevin; Kevin flips his shit for some reason and beats Ben to death in an uncontrollable rage somewhere but Gwen is now sure its Kevin because Ben would've fought back (as an alien of course) if it were anybody else; A while later Kevin's depressed because he never wanted to hurt Ben let alone kill him so he is drinking watching Billy Mayes infomercials or something when Gwen comes for vengeance and kills Kevin; Gwen is arrested and sentenced to death row…so yea everyone sorta dies…I'm bad at conflict resolution I'd much rather kill them off then deal with their issues.