VIRTUE, frank castle

CHAPTER SIX

"Oh, this is just fucking great."

Now, when Mallory made that offer all those months ago, she hadn't actually thought he'd take her up on it, in fact, she thought he'd do that weird little huffing nod before going back to avoiding her like the plague after his act of vigilante justice that had ruined her poor carpet again. However, as it turned out, she had obviously been wrong. Because almost every night, looking like death fucked a war-torn Ares, he'd stumble in to her humble apartment drenched in red mortality so she could fix him up like she was his own personal fucking nurse...which yes, was technically her own fault, but still.

It was like the man didn't know the meaning of the word peace, of rest, simply letting her take his bloody anguish before he was back at it again like a butcher with a blade into the shadows of human monstrosity, always looking for another fight, always looking for another way to bleed for the reminder...or perhaps the punishment that he was alive when others were gone and dead, their fates to be nothing more than ghosts of hollow memories that haunted him in the darkness of the night.

She had tried not to look when her trembling fingers would brush against his battle worn flesh, she'd tried to swallow the mortifying desires to see as she took what was his and let it seep into hers. But no matter how hard she tried, she could still see the echoes of his ruin, she heard the gunshots, she felt the splatters of blood on their face, she heard the screams and she saw the war...but the worst of it all was when she felt the tender embrace of love when it would drift through their shared conscious on the more intimate of days, when he was flirting with death and she was bargaining with life to save him.

Most would assume that the echoes of love was bittersweet, were soft, were blissful, that they warmed you with their very touch and made you unful like a flower in bloom...but the truth was that love was fucking suffocating, it was a shrine and a scar and all it took was a simple flinch for the wound to reopen and pour from the seams of your grief. Love was cold and it was painful and the more you succumbed to it the more you suffered...and god, Frank had once loved so much that the indulgence of violence only seemed tame in comparison to the longing of his heart.

But of course, Mallory could never bring herself to say anything, to give her condolences to his mourning, to confess that she had seen far more than he was willing to give...which was probably why their rather strange friendship had lasted far longer than either had ever expected it too.

"Don't know why you don't just quit, your boss is a sleazy cunt and the pay is fuckin' gonna' kill you before your own food does." Frank grumbled, voice a mere rough bark upon her bleeding ears as he sat under the harsh light of the kitchen with the bruises of his face shining bright, leaning against her counter like he fucking owned it with his barell like arms and his dark eyes staring down upon the sizzling bacon that shimmied in the pan as it spat at her, trying desperately to burn through the thick hide of her gloves as she cursed and hissed like a feral cat. God, she didn't know why she put herself through this, she definitely should of just ordered them a takeaway or something equally as easy.

Well, actually, that was a lie, she did know why she was putting herself and by association, Frank, through of all of this cooking bullshit...and it was because that she'd made a promise to herself that she was going to start eating healthier after she passed out last week trying to fix his stupid broken nose which honestly, just looked the exact same even after she'd wasted her energy healing it.

Which, in Mallory's defence wasn't totally her fault considering she'd went years without even thinking of the vile mutation that festered inside of her like a deadly disease of rot, so of course, naturally, suddenly reaching back inside the ruin of her body to use them once more was obviously going to take their toll...she just wished it hadn't been something as embarrassing as fainting in that big bastards arms. "Yeah well, some of us don't make a living killing assholes-hey! I fucking saw that, keep your paws to yourself- and need to work the system a bit. Plus, it's not like I'm the waitress of the year either, it's just something to keep food on the table...which you keeping eating you dick."