"Uhhhhhh… this is boring as hell," Mercury complained as he trudged along behind Ruby across the dead grass that covered the mountain path the two were taking.

Ruby ignored his complaining and continued walking. He usually shut up after a few minutes of whining.

Veering in front of the brunette, placing himself in front of her so that she couldn't ignore him, Mercury growled: "come on Red, we walk for hours on end, through the boring snow and woods, and you just stare ahead dully as though you're wearing blinders." Shaking his head lightly, Mercury sighed sadly. "No way to live Red, no way to live…"

Coughing lightly, using her voice for the first time in a few hours, Ruby ducked under his eagle spread arms and answered back: "If I had known you complain this much before I brought you with me, I would have shot you in the knee so that you couldn't follow me around."

"Pfff, you wouldn't… right?" When Ruby didn't answer him and just continued walking along ahead of him, Mercury froze and stared off after the hooded figure in front of him, before calling forward again. "You wouldn't right Red?!"

Over the last two days of traveling together, both Ruby and Mercury had gotten a feel for the other. And Mercury had realized he was going to be pretty much as bored with his new companion as when he had been on his own. Ruby didn't do anything. She didn't say anything. And even when she did, the conversations didn't last long. Ruby just walked forward with her palm wrapped around the strap of her gun, her knuckles white as she gripped the rough cord of leather tightly while she walked along.

"There isn't anybody out here, you don't need to be so high-strung." Mercury hummed while walking behind Ruby, rolling his shoulders to warm up his arms against the blisteringly cold winds of the mountain air. While either one of them would have been overjoyed at the melting of the snow on the side of the mountain that they were walking across, they still had to contend with the frigid mountain winds whipping past them at over thirty miles an hour. Sometimes the winds would be so strong that the gusts would pick up dust and bits of the freshly uncovered soil, flinging the debris it into their eyes.

"Yeah, I thought that too a little bit ago… I ended up getting shot, nearly killed, and stuck with you! I think I'm going to stay careful."

"Your call, but that group of bandits was the only other group of people besides myself out here, and now that they're gone I don't really see the point in worrying over anybody else…"

Actually curious for once, Ruby turned around, pulling her rifle of off her shoulder and sating down on a patch of uncovered dirt in one smooth motion, signaling to take a break. Patting the brown earth in front of her, as if telling Mercury where to sit, she asked: "so how did you know that they were here then?"

Instead of the spot the redhead had patted in front of her, Mercury sat down directly next to Ruby, who immediately scooted a foot away in response, and answered: "I've stayed in these ranges for the last few months. I kept my nose to the ground; anybody who knew what to look for would have just known when they showed up."

"Ooooh, mountain man Mercury, how exciting!" Finished mocking him, Ruby asked nonchalantly: "So… why didn't you take care of them then, just get rid of them? They seemed to be pretty dangerous…"

Mercury snapped back sarcastically: "Gee, wonder where you got that from?" After he got smacked on the back of the head, he grumbled sourly "I just didn't want to deal with them!"

"You still have magic; you would have been just fine!"

"So you say! I'm not going to pick a fight when I can just skirt around it, avoiding confrontation and what not!"

"Still though, you saved me." Ruby didn't say it in a kind way, or in a thankful way. She stated it as more of an annoying fact, like how a person eats ten spiders a year while they slept. "Why'd you change your philosophies, Mr. High and Mighty?!"

"You know, you still haven't thanked me for that yet…" Mercury sighed lightly, already knowing that he wasn't going to get a thank you any time soon, especially if he asked. Answering enigmatically he said: "I didn't really care for their tactics to be honest…"

Ruby's face scrunched up at that answer, and asked "what do you mean by that?"

"I don't know… It seemed kind of underhanded to sneak up on two women when you outnumber them by a-freaking-lot, and have a dozen attack dogs to boot." Mercury slumped over, putting his elbows on his knees and resting his chin on a fist. "I probably would have helped you guys anyway, but when I saw them sneaking up on you two from afar… well, it was the straw that broke the camel's back."

"You count what you did as saving me?! You left me, shot and bleeding out, to deal with all the bandits. Then you swoop in at the last second and catch that last guy off guard, and you call that a rescue mission?" Ruby flopped down on her back, letting her arms lie out on either side of her body. The ground wasn't hard, but It definitely wasn't as comfortable as lying in the snow would have been. Squirming slightly, trying to find a more comfortable positions while looking up at the sky, the brunette grumbled bitterly from the ground: "I wouldn't consider that a successful rescue mission… to me it seems more like you waiting until the real fight's over and swooping in to look like the dashing hero at the end."

Looking at Mercury from her rough patch of soil in the dead grass, she could see the silver-haired villain's shoulders tense up. In a tone that seemed to be a little too level, Mercury asked: "how many where there Ruby?"

Smirking, she answered back from the ground: "Uh, six… myself killing five, I'd say I handled eight-ish percent of the fighting." Raising her foot and patting Mercury on the back with the sole of her shoe, Ruby added in a mocking voice: "Still, I'm proud of my little Mercky for doing so well."

Sighing heavily, Mercury looked back and snapped at the redhead. "First, it would be eighty three percent, and I swear to god you call me Mercky again and I'll shiv you!"

Raising her hands off the ground and into the air, Ruby quipped back: "Whoa, my bad! Mr. Maths over here is going to school me on my arithmetic! Tell me Mr. Calculator, what do you-"

"Eleven."

Annoyed at being cut off, Ruby asked bitterly "what?"

Sneering forward, not looking back at the girl who was still resting her feet on his back, Mercury repeated. "Eleven. There were eleven bandits." Turning around, smiling mockingly at Ruby, he added "and by Mr. Maths calculations, that would put you at a weak forty five percent." Rising smoothly, almost forcing Ruby to flip head over heels as her feet were suddenly lifted into the air as he stood up, he dusted off his black cargo pants while adding slyly: "still, I'm proud of my little Rosy for doing so well."

Ruby, who was still lying on the ground and glaring at Mercury through her two legs that were still hanging in the air, snapped back: "screw you!" Unfolding herself and rolling of the ground, starting to heal from her wounds and regain some of her former grace, Ruby snatched her rifle off the ground next to her and began stalking off, not waiting for Mercury to follow. He'd catch up eventually.

After walking for a few more hours in silence, only punctured by Mercury's deep sighs that were obviously only meant to dig at the brunette, Ruby couldn't take it anymore.

"Would you shut the FUCK UP!?"

Incredulous, slightly taken aback by the sudden outroar, Mercury answered: "I've 'shut the fuck up' for hours. I'm starting to get sick of this Red. I used to talk way more than I've talked since I joined up with you!" Thinking of it as an afterthought, he added sourly "and that was to myself!"

"Gahhhh…" Ruby hissed, making a sound of utter contempt in the back of her throat. "I warned you before you came along that it wouldn't be fun traveling together!" Snorting angrily, the brunette hissed: "Fine then! I'll think of something to talk about if it really bugs you so much, walking in the nice peace and quiet."

"Um… I don't think that's how a conversation works Red. I guess you're kinda rusty on them, but usually one person just makes an offhand comment, and the other person say somethi-"

"Quiet!"

"Uh… whatever Red."

Ruby stopped for a second, her eyes roving all over Mercury's long, lean body. Ruby thought that if there was a conversation somewhere, it's topic would probably be with Mr. Narcissist. He was decently well muscled, at least more so than anybody else she had seen in a while. If she had to guess, Ruby would probably say it had something to do with still having a semblance. It was easier to stay fit when you were literally overflowing with energy. But what Ruby had wondered about the most came to mind when her eyes rested on Mercury's face.

Ruby's voice became genuinely curious when she asked: "So what's the deal with the constant clean shave? I've been with you for… three-ish days, and I haven't even seen five o'clock shadow on you yet. What gives?"

Ruby raised an eyebrow at Mercury, who suddenly looked very sheepish. "Ah… no reason I guess… I just shave in the morning" Mercury answered shiftily, scratching the back of his head, refusing to make eye contact with Ruby.

In a sing-song voice Ruby trilled "every day! Boy, must that get annoying!" Giving him a crooked smile, Ruby fluttered her eyelashes and asked: "Why?"

"Eh…" was his only response, although he followed afterwards by adding meekly: "I just like the look."

Ruby suddenly shot an arm out and stopped Mercury, who thudded into her outstretched arm. Looking over at Mercury, the brunette gave him a wicked smile and sang: "Liiiiiiiiar!"

Giving Ruby a withering look, he answered back in a flustered voice that didn't match his face: "Red, give it a rest, sheesh!"

A smile broke out across Ruby's face; she had a feeling this would be good. "Spill it!"

"Nah… We can go back to walking in si-"

"SPILL IT!"

"Uhh… well…" Mercury made a few hand gestures as though he was trying to sign to Ruby what he didn't want to say before slumping inward and sighing with a defeated tone: "I just can't grow a beard… or any facial hair rea-."

"Ha! Seriously!"

Groaning, Mercury put a hand on his face and simply replied "yep."

"Come on, there has to be more than that!"

"What else is there to say? I get this crappy silvery peach fuzz on my lip at best, so I just shave that off every few days when it starts growing back." Looking over at the brunette, who's limps were mashed together trying to not laugh, Mercury cried out "come on Red, it's not funny!"

That was what did it. That aghast look on Mercury's face while trying to convince Ruby to let the conversation die finally set her off. Keeling over, Ruby actually started laughing, more at Mercury's response than his actual message. Tears started streaming down her face as she tried to get that image out of her mind, of Mercury's crestfallen face pleading with her to stop. Mercury scowled at Ruby, who had actually started snorting how hard she was laughing. Chuckling to herself, Ruby laughed while whipping away tears that immediately came back, mumbling: "that's great!"

"Gah…" Mercury growled, punching Ruby in the arm.

Ruby turned aside for a second, stunned, until she looked at Mercury's face and saw his lips split wide in a grin smiling down at her. After a half second moment of hesitation, Ruby smiled lightly and punched him back just as hard, although she may have overdone it a little after he yelped and started massaging his arm where she hit him.

Ruby still didn't like Mercury. She found him worrisome, reckless and dangerous. She had known people with his personality before, and they always drug down every person they ran into before self-destructing themselves. Him surviving this long only meant that the meltdown that finally caught up with him at the end would be extremely cataclysmic.

But there was something magnetic about him too. Something that made her not listen to sense and leave him behind, now that she would be fine on her own. Ruby knew it was stupid, but she found him easy to talk to. Almost as easy as Weiss.

And that just barely made him worth keeping around… for now.

Walking along, the pair descended down a slope in the mountain that led to a deep ravine between two peeks. Ruby didn't want to admit it, but as she walked along the brunette couldn't help but feel claustrophobic as the majority of the sky was sealed away by the mountains on each side.

Mercury was, for lack of a manlier term, bubbling with excitement as he hopped along next to Ruby. As his more somber partner trudged along next to him, Mercury hummed excitedly. "We're going to be out of these mountains! One more day or so of this walking, and then we'll be out! Done! Finito!"

"Sure sure, let's hope you're right."

"Sheesh Red, a little enthusiasm! This may have been a week long trek for you, but for me it's been a season long setting! I'm dying to get out of the cold; I can't wait to feel my feet again!"

Ruby rolled her eyes while she listened to the man next to her sing under his breath 'I'm so excited', and was so distracted by Mercury that she barely noticed the giant gouge in the earth in front of them. But she did, fortunately, and Ruby put out an arm to stop Mercury, who would have fallen through the inky black rift in the ground if he hadn't been stopped.

Smacking into Ruby's hand and still almost falling in, Mercury whistled and hummed a thanks to Ruby. Hopping over the gap and turning back to Ruby, he extended a hand and regally joked "malady, if you would ever so kindly give me the honor?"

Ruby upturned her nose to the offer, and hopped over the gap without his help, although her back foot did almost slip into the inky void.

Looking around, seeing dozens of cracks in the ground around them, Ruby asked: "what's with the ground here?"

"You never paid attention during you're geography lessons did you Red?"

Rolling her eyes, Ruby sighed, "so you don't know either." She knew Mercury had a better understanding of what was going on than she did, although she knew it would be easier to trick the answer out of him than to just ask.

Obviously it worked, because Mercury suddenly responded. "This mountain range was once a giant chain of volcanoes. Well, it still is technically, although one hasn't erupted in over a thousand years." Scratching at the ground with the tip of his boot, he mumbled absentmindedly "sometimes air pockets would form and create bubble shaped caves near the surface. We're probably standing on top of one right now."

Ruby's face went white, and suddenly looking down at the ground, back to Mercury, then down at the ground again, and then back up at Mercury, she rushed out "let's continue this conversation when we're not on top of a pit of doom…"

"Relax Red; you see those gouges over there in the stone?" Pointing off a few feet two their right, Mercury's finger leveled at a pair of parallel lines in the ground.

"Yes… and?"

"Old cart marks, back before we had things like trolley systems and airships to get across these mountains. If over glorified wheelbarrows could go from one side of the mountain range to the other carrying over a half ton of materials across this ground, then two travelers who together don't break two fifty will be perfectly fine."

"I'm not risking my life because some idiots with funny hats did it!"

"But come on Ru-" Mercury suddenly cut off, a rebuttal on his tongue. Both Ruby and Mercury's head's snapped off to their right when they heard the sounds of screaming coming towards them. Angry, insane screams just off the beaten path.

Mercury took a step forward and stood defensively in front of Ruby. It was a slight gesture, barely noticeable to anybody who wouldn't have been keyed into that sort of thing. But it didn't slip by the brunette. 'You want to take the lead and face whatever is coming our way? Fine by me if you want to be stupid…'

Suddenly, wheeling out from behind a wall, another person burst out in front of them. It- he, the way the person was dressed made it obvious it was a he- stumbled in circles madly for a second as it ran out towards the center of the ravine's path. Whirling around, the man's gaze finally landed on the two hunters, who were watching wearily as the obviously infected man whirled around angrily. Bellowing at the pair in an animal rage, the man began barreling towards the two without thought or planning.

Mercury stepped forward smoothly, and once the man was within range, Mercury easily struck out with his leg and knocked the infected off its feet. The man landed on his back with one of his arms trapped below his torso, and a half second after he landed with a thud Mercury stood on top of the man's stomach with a knee dug into the infected's chest while pinning the creature's other hand with his right leg in a perfect wrestling move.

Kneeling on top of the infected, looking down on the creature's gross, deformed face, Mercury called back quietly to Ruby and mumbled: "Hey Red, what would you call one of these guys?"

Ruby walked forward next to Mercury , her knife already drawn, and answered absentmindedly: "Infected. That's what they are…"

"Hmmm…Emerald and I used to call them stalkers. I don't remember which one of us coined the term, it just fit." Mercury twisted his head from side to side, looking down on the thing below him. "Hey Red…" he began, before trailing off.

"What?"

Mercury looked up at Ruby and asked, in a tone that almost seemed as though the question was coming from a child. "Is this guy alive?"

Ruby froze for a second, just as she was preparing to bring a knife down into the writhing figure's temple, before really looking at the infected's face for the first time.

It was a grisly sight. He really looked fine, for the most part. His clothes were a little wrinkled, his jeans were ripped, and his shoes looked as though they were ready to fall off of his feet any second. If somebody had looked at just his clothes, he would seem just fine. He looked just like any other survivor, dressed for protection against the winter cold.

But the second a person looked at any uncovered part of his body, that statement would quickly change. His hands were bloody and his fingernails were jagged, the one hand that was only pinned under Mercury's knee at the elbow was still reaching upwards and clawing at the person sitting on the infected chest. And his head was something out of a horror movie. Crisscrossed with ruddy brown lines from dried blood that had poured from his eyes, nose, mouth and ears, his face was rippled and covered with bulges as mushrooms were obviously beginning to sprout under his skin. And on the right side of his face, most horrific of all, little orange half-disk shaped fungi, just like the kind seen growing from rotting tree trunks in the forest covered his face and ripped up the man's stark black hair.

Ruby watched with a disgusted face as the creature still pinned under Mercury snapped up at the silver-haired man sitting on its chest. "I'd give that question a hard 'no' as an answer."

"But why?" Looking back and forth, Mercury commented apathetically. "He's not dead yet, at least not biologically." Sneering down now, as if angry at this total stranger for even thinking of getting infected, Mercury's entire persona changed as he suddenly spat: "He's still just as weak as we are. His bite won't kill us yet. And he wouldn't survive getting shot in the lungs or spine like a clicker would. He'd die just like one of us." Before Ruby knew what Mercury was doing, she suddenly saw his fist smash into the clean side of the infected's face.

"He could die from blood loss!"

Smash

"He could die from drowning!"

Smash

Ruby saw as he pulled his hand back, getting ready to hit the infected underneath him again, a trail of blood trailed between Mercury's fist and the creature's face, although she couldn't tell where it started from. Trying to grab Mercury's hand, Ruby ordered the silver-haired villain in front of her "Mercury, stop! You're hurting yourself!" But Mercury just shook off the brunette's grip, and brought his fist down again.

"He could burn alive!"

Smash

"He could starve!"

Smash

"Mercury!"

For a half second Mercury's eyes flashed up, and over his shoulder he snapped: "Shut it Red!" Mercury brought his fist down one, two, three more times, before finally spitting down at the monster below him. "So why doesn't he count as alive then?"

Ruby stood there silently, unsure of what to say. She had never thought about these people, before they were actual clickers. They were the monsters that had actually killed the most people. "I… I don't know."

Mercury reached back with his bloody hand, on which Ruby could see white bone as his beating had torn the flesh of his knuckles away, and pulled out from his back pocket a small dagger. Shoving its point through the stalkers temple, Mercury's eyes flashed angrily as he saw the light pass from the infected's eyes. Getting up off the corpse, pulling his knife out of the creature's head and wiping it off on the dead grass below the creature, Mercury almost stabbed himself in the side as he shoved his knife into his back pocket again.

Frozen silent, Ruby was surprised when she actually felt concern for Mercury. That quickly faded away when Mercury whirled around and she saw the fire in his eyes. Seeing the look on Mercury's face, it was the first time Ruby was ever actually afraid of her traveling companion.

Pointing at Ruby with his bloody hand, either ignoring or oblivious to the pain, Mercury spat: "I don't know what's with you Red! But whatever it is I'm getting sick of it! You know, sometimes you are actually fun to hang around with!"

The brunette started replying, saying: "alright, great, but your hand-", but was quickly cut off by a gesture from Mercury.

"Sometimes you're fun! Other times you're a god damn misery!" Mercury sneered at Ruby, spitting his words angrily at her. "I don't know what your problem is, and I really don't want to know. I can probably guess from the way you reacted when you woke up." Putting his hands to his sides, he angrily huffed "and I am sorry for whatever happened. Don't get me wrong there. Maybe it was Blake, or your sister, or maybe it was your little girlfriend. Maybe it was even you!"

After a second to let that sink in, he added his final statement bitterly. "But I honestly don't care. Get over yourself, because I cannot stand talking to you while your stuck festering over whatever old wounds from the past you're still ripping open!"

Ruby stuttered for a second, blanching at Mercury's harsh tone. "I... I'm not-"

"I don't care!" Snapping at the brunette, Mercury began turning away from the brunette while calling over his shoulder. "Just figure out whatever you need to figure out , or swear to god we'll each go our separate ways after we're out of these mountains. I don't want to be around you if you stay... stay like this!" And with that, Mercury whirled on his heel and stalked off.

And for the first time, Mercury stormed off and Ruby was forced to follow behind in his shadow.

A few hours later, neither of the two had broken the silence that had started since the afternoon's incident. Sitting silently around a crackling fire, who's cheery light somehow seemed to make the air's mood even more palpably dim, Mercury and Ruby sat silently, wondering who would take first watch.

Mercury sat silently, twisting his hand in the fire's light and admiring his handiwork. Ruby had watched him work, and she would have been lying if she said watching the silver-haired man's semblance hadn't been fascinating. Mercury had just stuck his hand out in front of him, and stared angrily at his hand while a soft silver sheen seemed to encompass his entire forearm. To Ruby, it didn't really look as though he was healing his hand, it looked more like he was pushing back time. As hand slowly healed and the skin over his knuckles stitched back together, even the blood from the infected vanished from his hand.

Sitting cross-legged across the fire, Ruby cleared her throat and said: "I'll take first watch."

Mercury just grunted, and flopped onto his back and stared up at the stars, still running his right hand's fingers over the knuckles on his left.

Ruby was going to leave it at that, but something had been chewing at the back of her mind for the past few hours, since the silver haired man's explosion earlier. "Mercury…"

After a heavy sigh, a bored voice drifted over to Ruby, dully asking: "yeah...?"

"Thanks." Shifting uncomfortably, not entirely sure what to say, Ruby reiterated. "Thanks…I don't know, thanks for saving me a few days ago I guess."

While she couldn't see his face, the brunette could hear the smile in his voice when Mercury answered: "it's not a problem Red. Not a problem at all."

So, another chapter, another author's note. Follow, favorite, that sort of thing. Don't really have much to say, although I changed the authors note once because it was way too long.

So thanks, and I'll be updating again soon!

(Future me again! I tried to keep the story as close to what I had originally written as I edited from chapter one to here. I don't think it's fair to change things too much... Anyway, interesting remark more for myself than for anybody else, but this is the last chapter where I was constantly finding the horrifying grammar error with my dialogue... and now that I look, it's probably where I take a big step up in skill. I start sounding a little bit better to myself from here on. Still not great, but better. That, and the chapter lengths really start ramping up past this point... probably had something to do with it.)