{Through Hell's gates, the ground shakes; Vengeance waits, Fury reigns}
He hadn't fallen asleep yet when Neo jerked in his arms, her chest rising and falling rapidly as her heavy breaths hit his ears. Her body shook gently, and her hands searched the bed until coming across his skin before digging her nails into him painfully. Mercury propped himself up, struggling a little to raise himself up to a sitting position with Neo still in his arms. The small girl allowed him to do this without protest. In fact, she didn't really react to him at all aside from curling into his chest.
Briefly he considered turning on a light to better see in the dark room, but once he felt wet drops on his chest he thought better of it. He was sure she'd appreciate him for it.
He didn't bother prying. He already knew what had upset her so and though he couldn't exactly understand where she was coming from (he had never felt any sort of grief), he understood that it was a delicate time for her. Insensitive he may be sometimes, but he wasn't a complete jerk.
Gunshots sounded in the far distance, definitely closer to Beacon where most of the Grimm activity was centered. The chaos was ever present despite how late in the night it was. Grimm didn't rest and it seemed the military didn't either. Quiet sobs mixed in with the gun blasts and Mercury decided he'd rather count the rounds of shots that echoed in the air outside than the spastic hitches of breath against his skin.
Two shots. Three seconds apart.
She was trembling harder now. He tightened his grip on her.
Three more shots. Two of them from a different gun than the first.
Her nails scratched desperately at him, clawing at his skin as if to retain some sort of grip.
Three more shots in succession.
Her forehead pressed into his chest and he could feel his heartbeat echo her cries.
One shot.
A sigh and then pink and brown eyes turned to look at him, but his gaze was transfixed to the window, ears still tuned into the battle outside.
Silence.
She seemed to notice his gaze and her arms tightened around him, nails piercing his back. Her lips pressed against the hollow of his throat. Without being completely aware his hands rubbed up and down her arms, the only non-verbal comfort he could offer at the moment.
"I hate her."
Red. Ruby Rose. Since the Battle of Beacon - the Battle of Vale more like - Neo had been raving and ranting about her pure, unadulterated hatred for the red-cloaked huntress, placing the sole blame of Roman's death on the plucky little teen that Mercury had taken personal pleasure in tormenting.
If he had to be honest he was a little impressed that the girl had managed to not only survive the fight between Neo and Roman but also off the latter. It was no easy feat battling those two - hell, sometimes fighting Neo alone could be a handful. And he didn't feel any particular attachments to Roman (in fact, he couldn't say he felt much of anything when he learned that the bastard had kicked the bucket). But Neo clearly cared about him and while it was a fact that he wasn't particularly eager to accept, it stood true no matter which way one spun it.
Candlestick was important to her.
The squirt killed him, intentionally or not.
And now here was his girlfriend, still suffering from nightmares of that night, cursing the little bitch until she was blue in the face, and he was the one who had to watch the snark take a backseat for this more pathetic and beatdown little ice cream cone.
He should've killed the girl when he had the chance.
Neo shifted in his lap, lifting herself to her knees where she quickly straddled his hips, eyes daring him to challenge her. He leaned back and allowed herself to get comfortable, even shifting his legs so she could sit comfortably on him without the metal of his prosthetics digging painfully into her skin. Her nails stopped digging into him in favor of her fingers running through his hair. She told him once it soothed her. He didn't question her after that.
"I promised you we would kill her, didn't I?"
Neo paused in her ministrations, seemingly less surprised that he said something than he was. He didn't really ever speak when she got like this, opting to offer his support in a more physical way. He saved his words for sarcasm and snarky quips; his body was reserved for the more honest of his intentions.
"No," she said simply, her voice hardly betraying the fit she suffered just seconds prior. "Not immediately."
His thumbs rubbed circles into her hips and her chest pressed closer to his. Mercury placed a gentle kiss to her shoulder and she continued.
"I want her to suffer. I want to take everything she has...everything and everyone she loves….I want her to break." She blinked and her eyes shone a dangerous white. "I want her to feel the grief and torment until it rips her apart from the inside out. I want to beat her down and then give her false hope, that way when I take something else from her it hurts all the more."
Mercury listened to all of this attentively, lips still pressed against her shoulder, eyes half closed from the way she was playing with his silvery locks. He'd heard variations of this speech before and while he knew it was her way of coping, he didn't doubt her sincerity for a second.
"And then, when she's been pushed to the brink of insanity, when she's lost all hope and finds death preferable to her miserable, pathetic life….I still won't kill her." She tugged on his hair, not hard enough to hurt, but Mercury could feel the tenseness in her muscles and knew she was close to breaking down again.
"She's not worth it," whispered Neo. More tears dribbled down her face and Mercury raised one of his hands to catch some of them.
"Then I'll let you watch as I end her," he offers. She doesn't respond, only burying her face into his neck to hide the next onslaught of tears. And he held her again as her body shook with gentle sobs.
The air shook around them as a low rumbling sounded in the distance, the sound of an infrastructure toppling. The city was falling apart around them. It was exactly what they had wanted. It was everything they'd worked towards.
But what was going on outside was mirrored inside the body of his small girlfriend, and that took some of the satisfaction with it. The worth of all the destruction they had caused was still being debated.
Her voice is muffled against his skin, but he can hear her loud and clear.
"I hate her."
Mercury didn't say anything and simply rubbed her back underneath her shirt, calloused fingers scratching against the smooth skin.
He didn't.
For all the anger he felt towards the red-clad huntress, the annoying little pipsqueak whose sheer luck is what brought her on top in all of their confrontations, her stupid fucking superpower that was the reason that his own boss was currently MIA...he didn't hate her.
Both Neo and Roman had been on that ship with her before it had gone down. Roman hadn't made it out.
Neo did.
By no means did Mercury like the girl. But Neo was safe in his arms now - cracked and devastated maybe - but dammit she was alive.
Maybe he owed something to Little Red, after all.
A/N: It's been awhile. Sorry about that. Got a new job which has kept me busier than usual. I work weekends and then during the week I have school. I literally don't have any days off. And I'm very tired.
But I've been working on things! Like, I know that sometime next week I should have a Bumbleby fic coming out heavily based off Jessica Jones, and I'm somewhat mid-way through a Miraculous Ladybug fic right now. More specifically for that new break dance au that everyone is going crazy over. So look out for those two.
I also have two commissions to work on. One is Valentine's Day themed (which is gonna look super out of place oops) and the other is a sequel to a fic I've already published. So yeah. Look out for those too.
And even though I have a fancy job, my is still open! (Still broke as fuck. Any money helps) So if you wanna support me and read all of my fics 1-2 days earlier than I post them here you can go pledge to me! Even just $1 helps and as you all can see, I won't be able to post a lot of fics in the upcoming months so it's not even like you'll be charged a lot per month. The link to my is on my profile.
Also, due to my limited free schedule (or rather, lack of it) I am temporarily closing commissions. I already have two to finish and don't have the time to take on any more. But I'll let y'all know as soon as I open them back up.