SPITE.

…I know.

“Get off the floor, you’re in the way.”

/nudges him with her foot

“ gerard, i love this division. i still love it, i love the bond we share, but  if i could wait that long to do anything with you, i would ”

“ if you ain’t any kind of criminal havin’ run with us, i might as well be the dalai lama ” there’s only a hint of venom to his voice, the merciful kind that swells and itches and annoys and barely brushes with ‘if you were someone else, i could have killed you’. that venom is saved for friends, for innocent folk.  

he pats back. " you’d think so, right? story for another time ”

                “They are not empty. They simply haven’t been fulfilled… yet.”

Her own words do not seem to concern her in the slightest.

                 “Yes. It makes your knees a much easier target.”

                “Maybe. Maybe not. Did you know that you can live without one of your lungs, a kidney, your spleen, appendix, gall bladder, adenoids, tonsils, several of your lymph nodes, the fibula bone from each of your legs, and six of your ribs? Of course, you’d have to survive the removal of each. Theoretically, I could remove around forty-five percent of your total body mass and you could potentially still live.”

She smacks his hand away.

“...”

“...”

“...”

“...”

                “I graduated first in my class, where I learned how to cut up body parts with precision. Touch my hair again and you’re losing more than just a hand.”

he’s touching her hair again.

He throws an arm around him, gently bringing him around. 

“ y’know, lacroix– i’m a well traveled man. i’ve been most everywhere in this wide, wide world and i haven’t anyone who is as slippery with words as you are. you’re a goddamn eel in an oil pit, no wonder we have…  had, astute, brave men like you ”

   “Still a flatterer, I see!” He snorts, giving him a pat to the arm-- hesitantly. Was that metal? That’s metal. The fuck.

“ not as well as you do! ”

“ i see being dead’s done nothing to dull your sharp tongue, i’m wounded ”

“ so is that why you’re so full of horseshit? that’s all they could do to keep your skin upright? ”