from a meme that i’m too lazy to find and i’m sorry lol
@streetslost said: “Doesn’t really hurt me. Not much does.”
mercy could admire that kind of toughness in a way, but when it came from someone so young, it broke her heart. she was known to be ruthless and cruel, cold and perhaps even sociopathic (or psychopathic depending upon who you were asking), but mercy did have a heart under that hardened exterior. very few people were able to penetrate her armor that she’d constructed after all these years, but it seemed that cat was one of them. if the way mercy was looking at her with something akin to sadness behind her honeyed-hues wasn’t already a dead giveaway, the shift in her demeanor was much more clear.
she looked troubled, perhaps a little sad. it was years ago that she was cat’s age, and mercy was no stranger to numbing herself to her feelings or even going to far as to repress them or even disassociate altogether. she had fancied herself as someone who could just compartmentalize much better than others, but the truth was that mercy simply did everything in her power to not have to deal with what it was she felt. it made it easier when she lost someone, either a member of her crew or someone she knew from the streets as she grew up in the city. she dealt with her feelings later when she was alone, away from anyone who would be able to witness her being so weak. if anyone saw that she could be moved so easily like that, it would make her more vulnerable and could be used against her later, and always in the worst of ways.
“listen. i get it. not intimately, not exactly in the way that ya feel it, but. i can relate. an’ speakin’ from experience here, the less ya face yer feelin’s and pretend they aren’t there, the worse it’s gonna be when it all explodes. i don’t... i don’t wanna tell ya what to do, cat. it isn’t my place. but i at least wanna warn ya of what that could getcha and where it could take ya.”
the woman gestured to herself to emphasize her point.
“i’m a wreck, kiddo. broken. fucked up. an’ i don’t want that for you. ya have time. ya could turn things around. an’ i could help ya, if ya’d let me. whatever ya wanna do, whether it’s school or travel, or if it’s findin’ ya someone that can actually do somethin’ in a legal way to getcha resources an’...”
she frowned and trailed off. she had no right to talk to anyone like this. not after all that she’d done and the path she’d taken. her hands were stained with blood, and left so many bodies in her wake.
“i jus’ need ya to know that i wanna help, if ya need it. i’ll do what i can for ya. an’ ya can always crash here with me any time ya might need to. okay?”
