Painted Red
The room was silent around him.
The heavy quiet air swallowing him like a great living thing.
All he could hear was the echoing of his own breath as he expelled it behind his mask.
The loaders were gone.
They had been absent for some time now, leaving him alone in the white tiled massive room.
It was laboratory like in it's display.
All adorned in eye bleaching white.
The ceilings where white, the walls were white, the countertops were white, the doors were white. All fucking white.
He looked at them all from behind a thick layer of bullet proof glass. Like a fish tank, only massive.
The walls had to be two feet thick, both the top and the bottom made of thick heavy steel. A glass box.
It only made sense to keep such an animal in a pretty little enclosure.
Best to keep walls between humans and animals.
Best to keep them caged.
He sat on the floor, his elbows rested on his knees, unmoving...still as a windless day.
Like a sleek, black statuette.
Welded to the spot in which he sat.
His index finger twitched slightly as it dangled over his slender left knee.
He stared aimlessly at the wall, counting it's tiles in his head.
Fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine...
Sixty.
The door to the laboratory swung open suddenly, slamming into the wall behind it, the noise jolting through the silent room like a bolt of lightening.
Zero did not move.
Not an inch.
He didn't flinch, didn't quake at the sound.
He just continued to sit.
Continued to sit and stare.
He cared not that he now had company.
Company in this all white little room of his.
Zero could feel his skin crawling with goosebumps underneath his armor as the company closed the heavy door and turned the lock with a little click.
The company intended to stay a while.
Zero did not look in the direction of the door.
He didn't need to see him.
Didn't need to lay eyes on the fucking scum of a human being.
He could feel him approaching.
He could sense him.
All around him.
Like a consuming, unwanted thing.
An unpleasant thing.
Unwelcome company.
He could hear his soft, slow, calculated footsteps.
Every slap of the the soul on his shoe was like a pounding in Zero's sensitive ears.
One after the other, after the other. Again and again and again.
Louder each time as the company came closer.
He approached slowly. Painfully slowly.
Like a beast stalking through the underbrush towards its prey. Slow and soft, feet gentle and thoughtful with every step.
But he was foolish.
He stalked with grace, and he stalked with cunning, but he stalked too loud and he stalked too confident.
Zero could hear his every movement. Track his every step.
He could hear his company's breathing.
It was rough and ragged and heavy. Nervous? No. It was anxious...excited even. Like a child on christmas morning hurrying down the stairs to bask in the glory that old man Christmas had brought him.
To relish in all the glittering wrapping paper and silky bows. To tear open the gifts, to have all the things he'd ever wanted.
In this case the thing he'd wanted.
Wanted for so very long.
Zero can smell him.
His heightened senses overwhelming him with the sharp scent of cinnamon and gun powder.
It was a dangerous scent.
His company was dangerous and nothing to be taken lightly.
His company was the very face of danger itself.
Finally after what felt like an eternity, he entered the assassin's line of vision and stood before him.
Arms folded across his chest, his mismatched eyes boring into the assassin's very being. They cut through him like a sharp blade, slicing, opening, slow and painful.
There was evil glittering behind those green and blue eyes, swelling like an oncoming storm.
Suddenly his face twisted up, lips pulling into a wicked, maniacal smile. Wicked and terrifying as it spread across his thin face.
"Well, Well Assassin...so we finally meet." Handsome Jack hissed cooly, extending a finger and tapping the glass curiously.
"Do you know how long I've been trying to track you down?" Jack asked slowly drawing small circles with his index finger on the glass.
His eyes flicked to his hand, and then slowly to the assassin, observing the unmoving masked man.
Zero did not answer.
Jack made a small grunt in his throat and took his finger away slowly burying it in his jeans pocket.
"Well it's been too long assassin. Too long have I been chasing you over this rotten planet." Jack snarled, his teeth exposed, all pearly and perfect.
"You're not an easy man to track, I have to hand that to you. Even with Pandora under my thumb...you always managed to elude me." Jack hissed brushing his hand through his hair, lazy eyes sweeping over the sitting assassin.
"It is not so hard to outrun a man with the intelligence of a skag. It was most easy to outsmart you. It was not very much of a challenge, very disappointing." Zero mused finally his voice robotic and unwavering even in the presence of the great Handsome Jack himself.
The comment seemed to stir Jack slightly.
There was no fear behind the assassin's tone. There was no fright, no dread. He did not fear the most powerful man on the planet, and this unnerved Jack down to his very bones.
Jack made an uncomfortable sound in his throat.
"How dare you talk to me like that you nasty little bandit?" Jack hissed, his teeth gritted and bared.
Zero said nothing.
"You want me to fear you. I can hear it in your voice. But why should I Jack, why should I fear someone so inferior?" Zero whispered his voice blank, lacking of all emotion, of all feeling.
Jack adjusted his collar at the comment, the corners of his mouth down turned in a displeased frown.
His mismatched eyes scowled over the assassin, scrutinizing the slender male dangerously.
He was an egotistical man.
He did not like to be named such things as inferior.
He ruled this planet, he made it bow, he was not inferior.
Jack's eyes were wild at they met with Zero's behind his dark mask.
"Then let me ask you this assassin...if I am so inferior. If I am so below you...why are you here? Surrendering to me?" Jack snarled leaning down slightly, peering at the sitting assassin.
Zero stayed silent.
It weighed heavy over the two men.
Settled over them like a blanket in the wintertime.
"Why am I here? Why did I surrender? Because Jack...I wanted you to think you had won." Zero breathed slowly.
Jack's eyebrows furrowed together tightly, his face contorted into that of anger and concern.
He chuckled lowly and leaned back, hands in his pockets.
The sound was devious and haunting.
It surrounded Zero, swam through his veins like a living thing.
Jack shot him a deranged smile.
"No, I have not won yet. But I will assassin. I will. I always do." Jack sneered before turning to a control panel on the wall and pulling a heavy, red switch down.
The entire cage in which Zero was held was suddenly flowing with electricity.
Zero screamed out and fell backward, his back arching up in sheer pain. The volts raced through him like lightening.
His eyes were wide, mouth agape with his screams.
He could feel everything inside of him turning.
He gritted his sharp teeth together, feeling his bones twisting and shifting.
His body was under attack, and the beast was stirring.
It needed to protect him, protect it's host.
Zero's eyes rolled backward as he jerked and thrashed.
No, he thought desperately.
Don't let it loose.
Don't let it go.
Keep it together.
For gods sake keep it together.
He bellowed out his voice half human half something else. Deep and low and frantic.
His feet scraped the ground in panic, his body contorting, bones threatening to re-shape, muscles stretching...aching.
Zero squeezed his eyes shut.
Control it.
Control it.
Control it.
You have to.
Don't let it out.
Keep it under control.
CONTROL IT.
Suddenly the voltage died.
Cut off as Jack pushed the lever back into the dormant position.
Zero fell slack on the floor, breath heaving, his ribs aching from the near transformation.
His fingers trembled uselessly, twitching and jerking with the lingering ghostly pains.
His breathing was shaky and pained, his lungs stinging as if filled with wasps.
He could feel Jack's taunting gaze settle upon him as he laid there on the floor of the glass cell.
Zero opened his eyes, rolling onto his side still racked with pain. He hadn't felt awful pain like this in such a long time.
It made the pain of transformation seem like a walk in the park. His muscles seared, his ears rang, his eyes were wide in their sockets.
He could see Jack slowly make his was around the cell, his every step slow and graceful.
He slowly kneeled down beside the glass, arms rested on his knees, staring almost eye level at Zero's crumpled form.
"Huh. My scientists told me putting you in extreme pain would trigger transformation. You have more will than I thought little bandit." Jack growled rubbing his chin.
"Let's see how many electrocutions you can take before we see that other pretty side of yours, shall we?" Jack cooed running his finger down the glass nice and slow.
Zero let loose a shaking, pained breath and gritted his teeth.
"F-Fuck you. Despicable human. Fucking bastard." Zero breathed out his voice strangled and ragged.
Jack made a satisfied little noise and stood from his kneeling position.
Jack wrapped his fingers around the lever and yanked it down once more.
Zero lost count of how many times he'd been shocked. Each time it seemed to hurt less. His body just seemed to become numb after the fourth go round. He couldn't feel, couldn't think, couldn't process what was happening around him.
He lay on the floor of the cell, his armor charred in places here and there, his head pounding against his helmet with the pain. Blood lolled over his bottom lip and pooled in his helmet from him biting his tongue with the last electrocution.
He lay motionless, like a broken doll. Limp and used and tired. His body was useless.
Even the beast inside him was too broken and pained to come forth, and so he laid there, just shy of dead.
Jack walked around the cell angrily.
They had been at this for hours, and still nothing.
Not even so much as a glimpse of this creature the assassin was said to be.
Jack looked down at the tortured man with disgust.
"Well pumpkin. Seems that little monster of yours is an elusive little shit huh?" Jack barked angrily.
His eyes flickered to the clock on the wall.
It was late.
Well passed midnight and headed into the early hours of the morning.
Jack let loose of a frustrated sigh.
"Seems we will just pick up on this tomorrow kiddo. Sweet dreams." Jack cooed tauntingly before turning on his heel and exiting the room, flicking the lights off upon his exit.
The door clicked closed behind him, leaving Zero lying there in the darkness, alone and barely clinging to life.
The only light in the room was the faint red of the exit sign hanging in the hallway outside the door. The glass window allowed it's vibrant red to reflect on the white tile, bathing Zero like a sheet.
Zero could feel his breath coming in ragged little pieces, his throat was dry and his body hurt.
Everything hurt.
Every last inch of him hurt.
Even his quick healing was having trouble keeping up. His body was just too broken too many times.
He closed his eyes slowly, trying to think about anything but the pain consuming him.
Slowly the hurt was fading, but it was so fucking slow.
An hour wore by slow and silent before he was finally able to drag himself up off the cell floor and leaned his back on the glass wall.
He sighed out long and heavy, his helmet heavy on his head as he rested it against the wall to his back.
He flexed his fingers slowly, working feeling back into them, making sure they were still functioning.
He massaged away the last bit of ache from his shoulders and cracked his neck.
The silence of the room overcame him as he sat there in the dark.
There was no room for sleep, he wouldn't even attempt such things. How could he sleep now?
In such a situation.
A situation that he put himself in.
He sucked in a slow breath.
It would all be worth it. He just had to wait for the right time. He had to wait...
Suddenly Zero could detect the sound of footsteps kissing his tender ears.
They were far away, in the darkness of the hallway, coming closer slowly...hesitantly.
The footsteps were too light to be Jack's.
No.
They belonged to someone else.
Zero sat still in his cell, his back stiffening as he listened to them approaching.
A shadow passed across the window, a flash of movement before the door handle jiggled, unlocked...and opened.
Her figure filled the doorway, slender and slight. Her shape was one Zero would recognize anywhere.
Her hand rested on the doorknob gently as she stood there, unmoving as she peered into the dark room.
Zero stood up slowly, his knees still slightly weak.
She closed the door behind her with a gentle click.
"Why..." She whispered in the darkness.
Zero felt her tone of voice hit him like a ton of bricks. It swarmed his ears and pelted his heart.
Her voice was heavy and dripping with displeasure.
Zero did not know how to answer the statement...and so he just stood there, hesitant in the presence of the Siren.
The most powerful siren on the planet.
Power in its very definition.
Raw and untamed and frightening.
"Why did you do this?" She whispered, her voice shaking and angry as she approached the glass.
Zero just stood in the darkness, his voice unwilling to come to him.
Her beauty stole the words right from his lips.
He just couldn't find it in him to answer her.
At least not truthfully...and so...he lied.
"Because I couldn't be without you." Zero whispered in the gloom.
It was not a complete lie, but it was not the whole truth.
It was simply a small paragraph cut from the novel that made up the actual truth.
Maya made a scoffing noise, covered her mouth and turned away from the assassin.
She was angry.
He could sense it in her movements.
Smell it on her being, and the comment had not helped.
It had only set her off.
"No...no, no, no don't you even fucking give me that bullshit! Do you know what you have done?" Maya hissed trying her hardest to keep her voice down, but failing slowly her words shaking in her throat.
Zero said nothing.
"I told you never to come here! Never to follow me! Jack is stronger than you! How could you do this! You've given him exactly what he wants! He has hunted you for so long...and now he has you...because you handed yourself over to him! He'll kill you!" Maya said her voice strained with the onset of tears wanting to fall.
Zero displayed a saddened face across his helmet, bathing her face in a faint red glow.
He shook his head in dismay a the siren paced around the cell.
"Maya..." Zero tried but she stopped him.
"I warned you! How could you be so stupid!" She snapped cutting him off sharply.
Zero's hands fell to his sides.
"He won't kill me Maya. He cannot. Killing me is not part of his plan." Zero whispered finally.
Maya paused and looked at him sternly in the dark.
"Why because you're stronger than him? Because you're going to fight him AND his warrior and win? You are strong Zero but you are not as strong as he is!" Maya snarled viciously.
"I am not stronger than the warrior. But Jack will not kill me. Those are not his intentions." Zero whispered to the frustrated siren.
Maya shot him a disgusted, angry look.
"How the fuck do you know that?" Maya snapped.
Zero shrugged.
"I have my hunches. I am going on pure instinct. I have a strong feeling Jack will not kill me...not yet." Zero whispered.
He darted around the point like a cat on light, tricky paws.
He had more to say, Maya could sense it in his voice, and yet he tiptoed carefully around it.
He would not say more to her than was needed.
She hated when he got like this.
Avoiding telling the truth as it was.
"I know when you are avoiding telling me things. I can hear it Zero. I'm not stupid." Maya snarled pressing her hand against the glass of his cell.
Zero stood silent.
Maya groaned out and closed her eyes for a moment.
Her eyes softened...just for a moment as she looked upon the assassin.
There was no more to be said here.
She could sense that in the assassin words.
When he was intent on keeping a secret...that was the way it would stay. There would be no changing that.
He was stubborn like that.
Maya slid down to a sitting position on the floor.
"Why can't you just stop being so fucking stubborn?" She sighed breathing out softly.
"That certainly hasn't changed..." She ended leaning her head back on the glass quietly.
Silence settled over the two of them.
"Won't Jack be displeased with his siren conversing with the enemy. It does not seem safe for you to be here. shouldn't you go?" Zero questioned softly.
Maya looked over her shoulder slowly.
"He never keeps track of this place at night. It's fine." She whispered in return.
Zero nodded thoughtfully.
He sat down on the opposite side of the glass, his back leaned against it too. The two of them almost touching, just not quite. A thin, transparent barrier between them, parting them, preventing the feeling of each other's touch.
Maya shook her head and breathed out through her nose.
"How the hell did everything end up so fucked up Zero?" She whispered suddenly.
A question mark appeared over Zero's helmet.
"To tell you the truth I do not know siren. Things got out of hand so quickly. Time has not been kind to us..." Zero mused gruffly.
Maya blinked in the darkness, the faint red of the exit sign in the hall being the only small source of light on the two of them.
"You remember when we first met? Out in The Fridge?" Maya whispered softly.
Zero cracked a small smile behind his mask.
"How could I forget. I think about it often. You were the most frustrating woman I had ever met." Zero answered chuckling slightly.
A small smile parted Maya's plump lips.
"Fuck that seems like such a long time ago...that shack was the nastiest, sorriest excuse for a house...and I thought you were such a weirdo." Maya whispered smiling wider.
Zero coughed and looked over his shoulder at her.
"You thought me weird? Why? I am not weird." Zero retorted.
"You were so awkward around me it was almost painful to watch! You were all like Oooo I'm super mysterious and shit, yeah I totally thought you were weird." Maya chuckled harder.
Zero frowned behind his mask and laughed a little.
"I didn't know how to act around someone so gorgeous. I felt like a newborn calf struggling to walk. You were very intimidating." Zero whispered.
"You obviously did not think me that weird. You seemed to warm up to me eventually. Especially when you were taking all of your clothes off for me." Zero teased meanly.
Maya shot him a dirty look, a thin smile on her face.
She sighed out loudly and let her head fall against the glass tenderly.
"I wish things could have stayed like that..." Maya whispered her brain trailing back to their first moments.
That little shack, the frantic touches, the heavy breaths. Two strangers entwined in the sheets with no idea what they were doing.
"As do I siren. With all my heart I truly do. I wish it had not ever changed." Zero answered.
Maya turned slowly, her eyes meeting with Zero's back.
He turned to look at her, and she could see her reflection in the blackness of his helmet.
Silently Maya stood, crossed over to the glass door of the cell, placed her thumb against the keypad and the little screen flashed green.
The locking mechanism of the cell slide open and the door cracked slowly.
Zero watched as Maya let the door hang open, her hand on the glass doorframe.
She said nothing as she entered, and he said nothing as she climbed into his lap.
She straddled across his thighs and kissed up his mask, slow and tender.
Zero's hands came to cradle her buttocks softly.
"This is not a good idea." Zero mused softly.
"I don't care." Maya whispered.
Her hand slipped between Zero's thighs, her touch soft and calculated as she unzipped his fly.
Zero breathed out shakily, her fingers were so slow and so soft.
She pulled him from his pants and her soft palm came to wrap around his flaccid cock.
Her talented fingers stroked him to life, feeling him swell beneath her touch and grow with need.
Zero arched his back a little as he grew hard beneath Maya's palm.
"But Maya this is not safe...we could get caught...this is dangerous..." Zero whispered his breathing becoming ragged and husky as Maya stroked him fluidly.
She pressed her thumb into his underside and ran it up his slit gently.
"Just let me." She whispered softly kissing the side of Zero's helmet.
Her voice was low and delectable.
"Just let me have you for a moment..." She begged in his ear, her breath warm as it seeped through his armor.
Zero nodded slowly, hissing as Maya squeezed him harder.
Maya stood, hefting her pants down, hanging them around one ankle and then resumed her sitting position across Zero's lap.
His proud erection bobbed before him, hard, ready, and needy.
Maya hovered over his cock, then slowly lowered herself down on him.
He slid in, stretching her, filling her, his girth enough to provide that slight pinch of pain.
Maya gritted her teeth and grasped Zero's shoulders to steady herself.
Zero let loose an unsteady breath and bucked his hips to meet Maya's.
She hissed a moan through her teeth and let her body get accustomed to the new, full, sensation.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she began to roll her hips forward, finding a rhythm that was steady.
Zero's fingers clasped into the doughy flesh of her rump as it rolled fluidly.
He could feel her wetness, her warm insides, her body surrounding his.
He arched his head back a little as Maya kissed his helmet.
Her face basking in the red glow of a heart emoticon.
In that moment she forgot the current situation.
They were no longer Hyperion prisoners.
She was no longer the warrior's master, and the most powerful siren on the planet.
She was no longer a murderer of the innocent.
She was no longer a guilty, broken being.
There were no walls around them, no glass cells.
Handsome Jack was no longer a threat.
Opportunity seemed far away in the heat of this moment.
The world fell away and all that was left was her, and him.
Two Vault Hunter's brought together by fate, or circumstance, or some stupid otherworldly happening.
Two Vault Hunter's that had fallen so hard, in the worst sort of ways.
Monsters and beasts and sirens and magic.
Two beings that did not belong together and yet they did.
The moment was savored by both parties.
Hands grasping frantically, moans echoing off glass walls, breaths short and shallow.
The sounds of skin slapping together, of gasps taken, of names on each other's tongues.
Faces contorted into pleasure, bodies moving together, sloppily, uncoordinated and frantic. Need washing over two souls.
They shouldn't have been doing this.
They should be worried for their very lives, and yet here they were fucking instead.
Fucking should have been very last on the long list of priorities that needed to be tended to in the here and now. Fucking had to be somewhere very near the bottom. Yet none of that mattered in the moment.
Maya's hair fell in disarray and Zero's faceplate flashed a frantic pattern of emoticons that were illegible to her eyes.
Her mouth fell open slightly, gasping his name and prayers and needs.
Zero's hips came up to meet her, lifting from the floor into her again and again.
Needing her, grasping her in all the places he possibly could.
Her eyes glinted in the red light, reflecting passion and want and foolishness.
They were so foolish, and yet who was to say it was wrong.
Stumbling through this world what was wrong with it. What was wrong with just feeling again? Just needing again?
Just wanting again?
Zero's chest heaved with every rugged breath. His voice was husky and low, moans slipping from his tongue like honey.
Maya wrapped her arms around his neck as she rocked her hips, her voice lost in moans and gasps.
She heard him beg to her that he was close. She heard it, but she didn't respond. She new what he said, she just didn't care.
She wanted him.
All of him.
Her orgasm was sweet, and hard.
Overwhelming her like a great wave, washing her away and drowning her.
Zero bucked up frantically, his hands harsh in their touch, gloved fingers craping across Maya's buttocks.
She could feel him swelling within her, and then the sudden rush as he filled her.
Maya moaned out lowly, feeling him release into her over and over again.
Zero slacked against her, his hands relaxing, hips weakly thrusting into her a few final times.
She rested her head against his helmet, panting and worn.
In that moment nothing mattered.
In that moment she felt nothing but peace.
In that moment, where there were just the sounds of their heavy breathing.
In that moment that was hot and sticky and satisfying.
In that moment that could be their last.
In that moment that was both a mistake and the right thing to do.
In that moment that was glorious.
In that moment...painted red by the exit sign in the hall.