Golden light filtering through crooked Venetian blinds hit him full in the eyes, causing him to snatch at the rumpled, white sheets to cover his face. The cotton fabric allowed only a hazy glare to assault his retinas, which was just enough to provide a significant irritation. Rock groaned and sat up, rubbing what needed to be rubbed and muttering about the evils of hard liquor and crazy women. For some reason, pins and needles shot down his left arm, as though he'd slept on it oddly. He moved his hand behind him, and paused when his fingers met the smooth, warm skin he'd gotten to know so well the previous night. Rock hadn't expected someone like Revy to stay until morning. He trailed his fingers down her stomach, reading the details of Revy's life in scar-tissue braille.
The same life that she, Cutlasses in hand, had offered to a cowering businessman what seemed like eons ago. The choice was bizarre – cower before his superiors, hoping to earn a high mark, or cower before an enraged woman who guzzled rum like water. Rock accepted the life of a pirate without looking back. Laying on Revy's bed, one hand on the hem of her underwear into which he didn't recall her having the energy to squirm, his lack of hesitation seemed even more surreal. Was it Stockholm? Perhaps. Survival instinct? Not likely, given the gun shoved almost constantly in his face. No sane man would go near a woman like Revy.
Yet here Okajima Rokuro lay, next to one of the world's scariest women, after a night of sex that would have made Atilla the Hun blanch. He squeezed his shoulder blades together and felt the still-raw patchwork of scratches running down his back and shoulders stretch. Revy made love the same way she drank and fought; she used every last milliliter of energy in her muscular body to perform to her utmost. Rock's own body, now that the heady rush of unabated pleasure had subsided, screamed for both rest and medical attention. He ignored it.
The woman next to him stirred.
He lay back down and brushed a few strands of auburn hair out of her face. She was beautiful; there was no denying that. Even in her darkest moments, Revy exuded a kind of mad beauty Rock had never thought to imagine. Lying in a peaceful stasis that belied her usual boisterousness, she appeared to him more beautiful than ever. Was it right for him to study her like this? He looked away. No, it certainly wasn't – what would Revy think if she woke up to him staring at her?
And yet, a voice in the back of Rock's head whispered that a moment like that was what Revy wanted all along. Simple proof that somebody, in fact, loved her.
Love?
Yes, he loved her – more than he could describe. But did he? Another voice piped up in his mind. Rock was her creation – Okajima Rokuro died somewhere on the South China Sea, shot by pirates in search of a disc. His entire existence had been forged and molded by the will of the woman next to him, from his new name to the gradual erosion of his conscience. She created him, and he loved her – Oedipus had more to do with the situation than Stockholm.
No, he assured himself, he loved her.
Or was that simply his compassion talking, his driving urge to help those who displayed the need for it?
NO, Rock insisted, he loved her. Broken though she was, Revy was the best thing that had ever happened to his life, and he wasn't about to let her slip between his fingers. He scooted closer and pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth.
He would tell her that when she woke up, he decided.
"Rock." A quiet whisper – a patent impossibility, given the source.
Okajima Rokuro's lips curled in a nervous smile. "Hey Revy?"
"Fix those fuckin' blinds."
He laughed.