They weren’t particularly delighted by the sound of Jack’s little pet name, their eyes narrowing from behind the helmet. To accent the displeasure, their heel presses down even harder, grinding into his jaw.
Humans were - as they more than likely always would be - irritating with their overly comfortable speech and tendency to look death in the display and laugh. Jack was dreadfully human, more so now than Zer0 was used to anymore. A king without a crown, knocked to the floor by a creature that hardly exists.
“I could kill you now. / It would take little more than / a stomp to your neck.”
The last word is a growl, a final press down of their heel into his face before they step away, sighing.
“You would enjoy that / far too much though I’m afraid. / Can’t have that, can I?”
Zer0 makes a passive, haughty noise in their throat, a magnificent predator regarding it’s prey with detached distaste. Jack shivers bodily as the heel crushes his jaw, eyes fluttering halfway closed. Zer0 was ferocity and grace, a ghostly killer only just passing through, taking lives for his own reasons, or no reason at all. Jack was bewildered by and utterly obsessed with him.
Ragged breathes leave him, half from his windpipe being compressed, half from adrenaline. On the brink of death, he felt marvelously alive. Jack knew enough about Zer0 now to know he was no ordinary vault hunter - but only as much as Zer0 ever allowed him to know.
Jack had once haphazardly commented that he had no interest in mysterious types, but with Zer0 poised to kill him without having ever seen his face, Jack knows that was a goddamned lie and he’d chased the assassin straight to his death and thanked him.
The assassin was right. Jack would enjoy that. He could think of no better way to die, in fact.
Zer0′s voice leaves him in a growl and Jack feels it, knowing he means every last word. He presses his bared throat to the assassin’s bootheel, daring him to crush it.
And then it’s gone, leaving Jack gasping as air rushes cold into his lungs.
Jack stares after him, eyes half-lidded as if he’s watching a lover walk away. He brings one hand to his jaw to trace the bruise tenderly. Licks his bloodied lips.
When he speaks, his hoarse voice is warm, lovestruck.
“..How long are you gonna keep stringing me along, assassin?”