21. Promises
It's funny, but we always figured Butch and Buttercup would be the ones who wound up beating each other to death.
It's an automatic thing; my arm just keeps swinging back and forth, my fist pounding against that hatefully pretty face of hers. The ground around us is soaked. Red always was our color.
She just keeps staring at me. Those eyes just don't close, don't blink, don't do anything but stare. I know she's watching me, begging me to stop, to explain, but we're beyond that point. Words mean nothing now. She doesn't even fight back, just keeps letting me mince her perfect complexion with my knuckles.
Automatic. I stop punching and pick her up by the hair, throwing her against the far end of the street. She makes a crater where she lands, but doesn't even try to pick herself up. That just makes me madder.
Fight back, I want to scream, fight back! She just keeps looking at me, tears welling in those rosy eyes. I popped a blood vessel in one of them. Her cheeks are swollen, her nose smashed, her lip busted open. And still she doesn't retaliate.
I float up to her and study her studying me. She cracks a small smile.
Is it over? She seems to ask. Are you finished?
I stomp on her hand with my good leg and feel the bones crack. She doesn't even flinch.
Are you finished?
I kick her arm. It splinters.
Are you finished?
I grab her around the throat and slam her against the building behind her. She doesn't have the decency to choke when I tighten the fist, just makes a serene sort of wheezing and keeps smiling at me.
Are you finished?
I scream and throw her down on the pavement. She lays like a broken doll in the crater, still smiling, still alive somehow, still just talking with her eyes.
It's okay, her smile says now, I forgive you. She's crying again, smiling and crying and staring up at me.
I blink. Then I blast her with my eyebeams. To my surprise, she still has enough juice in her to fire her own, her red battling against my pink. I guess that's how it's always sort of been.
Her blast wins out (or maybe I just give up) and I get thrown back by the impact. I can't summon the strength to move. My injuries are throbbing. The broken leg from when she shattered my knee with her fist, the broken ribs from her kicks, the burns from her hand blasts, the bald spot where she ripped some of my hair out and took some scalp with it. Something slithers up against me and a swathe of dusty orange hair tickles my nose.
"I thought we promised we wouldn't do that anymore," she says in a small voice.
I put my arm around her and sigh.
"I guess we lied."
A/N: What is with me and the angst these days? IDK. Got a sudden idea. Wrote it. Whatevs. :D
Review and tell me to stop the madness! ;)