A/N: Alright, it's been a while since I updated this, but no biggie, chapters are coming (: Don't panic. We've still got plenty of time to recover the Gwevin...

Disclaimer: I do not own Ben 10 or any associated characters.


Mercury

As the scarlet tail lights of her new beau's car disappear into the horizon, one of them completely annihilated, I finally turn my attention to her.

Her. Red mane aglow like fire in the desert's icy moonlight. Hot pink mana illuminating the cold ground. Her teeth grind while the world around us is as silent as Mercury's empty surface. But she's there, even if she's pissed and furious and ready to kill. The point is, I have her attention.

"Kevin, I told you to leave me alone," comes her cobra-like hiss, and if she had fangs, I'm sure they'd be bared at me with the venom actually dripping, ready to force me to drop dead. "I told you I never wanted to see you again."

"Calm down," I plead. "Ben knows I'm out here. He got it cleared by your parents. They all want me to talk to you. You're slipping away. They say you're going crazy, Gwen."

Because from what I've heard- and seen- she's been going out on a lot of thin limbs lately, and sooner or later, one of them is bound to snap. Gwen's been ready to get in any suitor's car, even guys in worse shape than me; I had a steady job and a goal in mind. I've seen her with two drug dealers since she left me. I'm just worried that she doesn't know what she's getting herself into.

"I'm fine," she snarls, feral like a wolf. I can almost hear the foam at her mouth, and she's certainly gone off the deep end. This isn't the girl I fell in love with; and at the same time, it is. "Now get away from me, Kevin."

"Gwen, what are you trying to prove?" I push my hair from my eyes. "These guys? They want arm-candy and just another pretty face to show off. They don't care about you, and they sure as Hell don't treat you right. Too cheap for that, the assholes."

"Kevin, just go away." The mana keeps swirling at her fingertips. The way her arms are slightly bent, I know I'll be getting a lashing soon if I don't watch my words. She's never been afraid to take the reins and just let loose on me when she knows I'm doing something terribly wrong. And right now, she could just claim self-defense. "I don't want to talk to you."

"And you don't want to see me either, I know," I responded, trying to keep my voice level. "But you're out of your mind if you think sleeping with these guys is going to make you feel any better."

"I'll keep you off my mind, you dirty bastard."

It's like she'd just ripped the thorns from a nearby bush and wrapped me in ribbons of the sharp spokes from head to toe. A dull ache burrowed itself into my stomach as the desert air dragged goosebumps across my skin. "So you just want to forget about me, is that it?" I ask with a furrowed brow. "Because Ben says you're still hung up. He thinks the bad boys remind you of me and that's why-"

"These guys actually want to spend time with me and are normal and want to talk to me about real things." Her eyes narrow and the mana's pink hue deepens to violet. "They aren't you, Kevin. And I don't want them to be you because here's a new flash for you: I don't love you."

The thorns around me tighten, constricting like a snake. The desert wind falls dead and dry, my mouth suddenly tasting of sand.

"I want to be normal again, Kevin. I want to go to college with a guy who might know psychology or wants to be a business major, someone who can discuss politics and argue philosophy." And that swirl around her fingertips begins to taper off, going purple, rose, pink, and then disappearing altogether. "You're none of those things. You tried. But you aren't what I want."

She's living off of ideals. I'm not here to get her back: I'm here to talk her down. "These guys want to get in your pants. You could be talking about how great of a blowjob you can give and they wouldn't care because you talking means it isn't being given."

"Yeah, and you're obviously different from them." The sarcasm dripping from her voice is enough to make a whole river. "You can't tell me you're better than any of these guys."

Quite frankly, I'm not. I'm a middle school drop-out with the social skills of a long-term prisoner and a sailor's mouth. I illegally deal alien technology to put food in my belly and to pay my mom's mortgage. I barely have a GED and any money to my name. I live out of my car. I'm a murderer. I've got violent tendencies. The list goes on and on.

But the few highlights that do put me above those punks: I pay for my mom's mortgage instead of buying myself nicer things. I have a GED because a girl who wanted me to improve myself helped me get it, and if that isn't loyalty, I don't know what is. I've killed to save the universe because that's the right thing to do- one life over trillions. The violent tendencies are only because of a bad raising, but I'm fighting them like all my other demons. Besides, they've saved Gwen's life a few times.

I'm a bad person, but it's not all terrible.

I have to admit, "Really, I'm not. But I think you need to reconsider what you want. Someone who can love and provide, if nothing else. And I don't mean that they can provide drugs, Gwen." I watch her eyes narrow to devilish slits, ready to kill. "If not me, someone who wants to take care of you and someone who puts you first. Because you deserve more than the scumsuckers. They're just losers." My face turns hard as steel; I need to stand strong and put her down. "They don't really love you."

"Neither did you, Kevin."

It sickens me how she can disregard my feelings as simply physical. She's hot, no doubt, with that fiery tongue and smoldering stare. I first noticed her because she was a girl who could fight and wasn't afraid to play no holds barred. And then she wouldn't take no for an answer. It's Gwen's way or the highway. And she's so by-the-book, which is hot in itself when she pores over papers and texts, tapping a pen on that softly pink and chapped lower lip... She holds her own in a fight, stands up for herself, and will fuck up anyone who crosses her. Even me.

But now she's giving me the cold shoulder and I'm being put on ice. What I don't think she completely comprehends is that I don't let everyone in the way I let her in. Gwen gave me a key to her house, and I gave her a key to my garage. I told her the darkest stories from the Null Void and she just sat in my lap and cried because I'd seen such terrible things. I let her meet my mom. My mother, one of the only two people I had ever truly loved before her. I told her about my dad and opened up about Harvey and my experiences in New York and she just cried and told me I'd be okay, that I'd be alright, that nothing would hurt me anymore...

And she'd seen me cry.

I don't throw love around. I did. Twice. For my mom. Because of Harvey. It was a mistake. I cared for Qwarrel. He died. I don't love easily. And Gwen has my whole heart. She doesn't understand exactly who she is to me. She's my everything.

But I can't put that into words. She'll call me a liar, a slacker, a con man. All of which are true. Gwen doesn't believe a word I say. And maybe she's stopped believing in love. Maybe love doesn't matter to her anymore. The most terrifying part is that maybe I don't matter to her anymore.

I can't drag her back from the edge of the abyss because she's jumping into the deep end without knowing how to swim. She's a lost soul right now, just trying to find a host long enough to survive. Gwen's roaming. She's tasting this freedom. I think she's finding it metallic and cold, nothing more than days of ice and simplicity.

Gwen is drowning.

"Exactly," she says smugly with disdain and disgust written all over her face. "You don't know how to love."

She shouldn't say such lies. If she knew what love was, that love is sacrifice and hope and understanding and protection and adoration and battle and time, then she'd know how much I love her.

"Thanks for trying to help." More sarcasm. The river may overflow. "You just proved that you're desperate." Her posture goes from frustrated to exhausted and her weight shifts to one leg as a hip juts out. "All I want is to be normal. Please stay out of my life, Kevin."

I want to say more, but she won't believe me. I'm not a liar. I'm in love with her.

Gwen raises both hands. "If I see you again, I'm getting a restraining order." Simultaneously, she snaps and in a flash of magenta, she's a memory in the space she once filled. Her footsteps are still placed in the dust, but there's no other proof of her presence. It's only in my memory.

And just like that, she's slipped through my fingers again, like water, like mercury.


A/N: Leave a review? Thoughts and opinions are welcomed, thank you for reading!

~Sky