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Safety in destruction

The attack had been brutal. But what the fuck was anyone to expect? It was Hotel fucking Moscow. Dutch's body was laid out over the floor, blood pooling under his large corpse. His dark skin was beginning to pale. His dark green jacket stained a deep brown now. Benny, should any forensic expert have taken a look at the man, would have found that he had been at his computer when the attack started and tried to flee for cover, only to be shot full of holes while trying to run. His body was laying vertically from the computer along the floor, his glasses off and cracked in front of him.

Finding Rock's body was the worst.

He must have just been about to return to the office, carrying a bag of food for their dinner or something. His blood painted the fucking outside of the door. There were now practically seven different holes in him from his back to his chest. His body had slumped against the door with a sickening thud.

She had heard the shots first, then the thud. And when she tried to get her guns to run out and see who was attacking them, hoping to all of fuck that Rock was safe, Benny and Dutch had been the next two to be slaughtered. She heard the gunshots, but hadn't found Dutch and Benny until she got to the living room.

When Revy came out of her room, guns armed right in front of her, ready to jump out and start shooting, the first thing she had found were both Dutch and Benny's bodies. The shock had made her stop any rampage she might have been planning. Benny wasn't a fighter and he wasn't the best guy to get drunk with. But he was an okay guy. And he fit in well with them.

Dutch? Revy almost dropped her guns when she saw his body. Her heart felt like it stopped for a good five minutes. Dutch, he...

Revy tried not to think about it. She backed away from the room and hid behind the wall where Benny's computer stood. She wasn't going to think about how Dutch's death affected her. She wasn't going to think about how besides Chang, Dutch was the closest thing she had had to a father. She stared down at the body, trying to ignore the pain.

It wasn't just that, it was just seeing that DUTCH, fucking DUTCH was dead. Yeah, Dutch always was the first person to admit that he knew every last one of them was gonna end up dead in the gutter one day. It was only about "when" with them. But Revy always thought that Dutch was going to be that lucky bastard that ended up in the gutter by the time he hit his nineties. He was just smart enough. But here he was. Dead.

Revy's heart definitely stopped. She wasn't going to deny it anymore. She turned to the door where bullet holes allowed the sunlight to come through. If Dutch had been killed, it didn't bode well for her.

And where the fuck was Rock?!

Revy took a chance and jumped from her spot behind the wall, guns aimed up, firing out the shattered window where the destroyed blinds were hanging, shooting at whoever the fuck was shooting at them. Who the hell had they pissed off this time?

She opened fire, sliding across the floor and getting behind the opposite wall as cover. When no shots fired back, Revy scrambled up from the floor, still hiding behind the wall, holding her guns by her legs, she leaned against the wall, looking just around the corner at the shattered window. She saw no one outside. Must have been long distanced shooters.

She looked at the door, checking her options. There was a backdoor. But that was likely guarded too. Revy then noticed something that made her insides turn cold. The bullet holes through the door. Why had the shooters fired at the door? Benny and Dutch's bodies were feet from the door. So why had the door been shot up? If the shooters had been able to see Benny and Dutch through the windows and opened fire on them, why fire at the door that was feet from the two men?

Revy knew the answer. And with the answer that she knew, her hands clenched on the butts of her guns. Her teeth clenched. There was no reason to open fire on the door when Benny and Dutch were close to the window, unless there was someone on the other side of the door outside. Revy's hands clenched so hard it was painful.

No. Not Rock. Not Rock. Not fucking Rock.

She went down to the floor, trying to pretend her mind wasn't spinning with fear that Rock had been shot to death too, she slid down the floor and slid along it, in front of the sofa, using it as cover. When she reached the door, she raised herself off the floor, using the thin wall that was between the window and the door as cover so she wasn't seen. Thanks to the holes in the door, demolishing its middle, the lock had been jammed open and the door opened only a small bit. Revy peeked through the crack between the door and the doorjamb.

Her gasps left her. She saw the blood soaked black hair. His arm was stretched over his head against the door, flecks of blood all over it.

Rock was….Rock was dead.

Revy growled, eyes shutting. The pain overwhelmed her. Rock. Dutch. Benny. Dead. All dead. Revy screamed, eyes launching open and she whirled around, aiming her guns out the window and opened fire.

She glared, teeth bared and snarling while she shot all her rounds out the window, not able to cope with what she saw. She didn't care if the shots weren't accurate. She just hoped to fuck she shot someone.

When she pumped every round she had out the window into the burning, unforgivable daylight outside, she waited, dragging her breath in, ready for the round of bullets that would be fired at her. Like before, no shots came. Revy lifted her head and squinted outside. She saw no one. She hissed and pressed the buttons on her guns. The clips slid out and crashed to the floor with clacking noises. She went for the kitchen, opening some of the drawers and finding her ammo.

She pulled out the next clips and loaded them into her first gun. Just when she was about to load the second gun, the door was banged open. Revy's eyes widened and she jumped out from behind the wall of the kitchen to start opening fire, when the pain as close as stabbing seared into her left leg.

She snarled in pain. Her hands loosened on her guns. She crashed to the floor next to Dutch's body. She groaned with the pain that came with crashing onto the floor. But the pain from her leg reminded her of it with the next stabbings of pain with the bullet's presence in her.

She groaned, hissing, shoulders tensing. She looked down at the floor. Her guns were scattered across the floor. She saw booted feet right by her guns. There were six pairs of black booted feet with yellow-brown pants. Revy slowly looked up, glaring at her attackers, despite the pain in her leg. Her heart pounded when she recognized some of them.

These were...men from Hotel Moscow. Balalaika's men.

Revy's blood became ice. She had thought if she could just reach her guns then she could take one or even two of them down before she died. Now? Now she knew there was no fucking way her hands would even touch her guns again. It would be the last time she was even breathing.

Still, while Revy's heart raced, she bit out, anger on only one woman, knowing that this was all Balalaika's orders, "Well? What the fuck are yah waiting for? Do it. Fucking shoot me, bitch."

"I don't think so." A smooth voice of a woman caught Revy's attention and she turned to the door. Heels clicked against the floor, clicking closer to the men. Revy's heart pounded. The men parted, making a path for their Kapitan. The clicking of the heels against the wood came closer and Revy tried to ignore the chills she was getting. It was easy when she had the agony of the bullet wound reminding her of her situation. She groaned, glaring up at the intimidating figure of the Russian woman, standing between her men, ice blue eyes staring down at the wounded gunslinger.

"So," Revy spat, glaring up at the older woman hatefully, "So what, sis? Finally lost your use of us? Gonna gun us down now because we don't get you exactly what you fucking want?! Did you lose interest in my cunt? Did we piss you off or something?!"

Balalaika said in a calm and composed voice, face never changing from the dark, cold expression that she gave Revy who snarled up at her from the floor. "Don't take this as a personal matter, Two Hands." The older said sharply. "Dutch simply took money he shouldn't have. And I was only repaying the favor in full." Revy's eyes widened, the pain throughout her leg almost forgotten when she heard that. Dutch took money? No fucking way. Dutch was too smart for that. No fucking way. She glared up again at Balalaika. "You're lying." She spat. "You're fucking lying. Dutch wouldn't do that. He's too smart to do something that fucking dumb!"

Revy looked down at Dutch's body pain slashing her chest. Dutch WAS too smart to do something that dumb, rather. And if he had been, so what? What good was recounting how smart he had been now? There was no point. Smart or not, Dutch was dead. He wasn't in a gutter, but he was as dead as dead got anyway.

"Not intentionally, I promise you, Two Hands." Balalaika answered. "But whether it was intentional or not, it's besides the point. He crossed a line. So he and Benny and Rock were to be wiped out of Roanapur." Revy closed her eyes, anger and sadness. The anger became stronger and stronger. They were dead. All three of them. And there was no chance that Revy would reach her guns in time. She knew that. So what was the point?

Biting down on her anger, Revy turned and looked up at Balalaika, glaring. Her anger was obvious in her words. "So all of us gotta die for Dutch's mistakes? Fucking fine, bitch. Well? Get it over with. I'm right here. Shoot me. Guess I won't be around anymore to eat your cunt out." Revy sneered the last words and waited for a gun to the head a kick to the face. She expected either or both, or even worse. The attack never came.

She watched the hard and unfeeling faces of Balalaika and her men. Their expressions never changed. Balalaika said in a cold voice, "You know that's not what's going to happen here, Rebecca."

Revy growled, trying to get to her guns. As soon as her hands reached out for the weapons, her wrists were grabbed and twisted back. The two men that grabbed her arms pulled them back behind her. Revy hissed, teeth clenched. Pain was overwhelming. She didn't care about the aching in her arms when the two Russian fuckers held her arms back in a steel grip. It was her leg. The pulsing of pain was never ending in her leg.

There went the clicking of those heels again on the floor and a shadow loomed over Revy. A hand shot out and grabbed Revy's chin, forcing the burgundy haired shooter to look up into icy blue eyes.

"Rebecca," Balalaika said coldly, her left hand clutching a cigar between her fingers, "I do not have time or patience to drag this explanation out. We're not going to kill you. You are living because I choose that you live. Dutch breached the little trust I gave him. So I just punished him as I saw fit. We have far more talented hackers than Benny working for us already. And we could get a translator like Rock anywhere."

Revy's heart jumped. She both feared and hoped for what Balalaika was about to say. She understood the implication behind what Balalaika was saying. Given that they could hire a mercenary just as good, if not better than her anywhere, it was hard not to know what Balalaika was getting at.

"And you could hire a gunmen just as good as me," Revy spat, "But I'm still fucking breathing. So why, sis?"

Balalaika's lips only then twitched as if they would turn up in a dark smile. She leaned down at face level with Revy. "You know the answer just like I do, Rebecca." Balalaika told the younger. She looked up at her two comrades and spoke to them in Russian. Both men answered her and lifted Revy up. Balalaika released Revy's face and backed away. Revy hissed while she was raised.

Revy glared at Balalaika in defiance. Their relationship, complicated as it was, hadn't been spoken of to anyone outside of Balalaika's men. Only her soldiers knew of the relationship. No one else knew. Boris and all the other soldiers kept quiet and showed understanding for their kapitan's choice of partner. And they never spoke of it, if only for their respect for their comrade in arms and leader.

Over time, Revy, while trying to ignore the obvious, had seen how much closer they had grown. While Revy knew that before anything else, Balalaika was a woman of business and war-often for her they were the same thing. But if all three Dutch, Benny and Rock had been killed and she was the only one left alive when other gunmen could be hired easily, there was only one thing that could mean. And it scared the shit out of Revy.

"Don't worry about your injury, Two Hands. It will be looked at in a moment." Balalaika said in a way too calm voice, looking down at Revy's leg. It was that voice that made Revy want to scream and punch at her, and made her want to jump on her and kiss her hard till both their lips bruised, all to get some kind of reaction from the older woman.

Balalaika stepped closer when Revy was held onto her feet, hissing in pain. When one of Balalaika's comrades came through, carrying a white, square med kit, she said in a low purr to Revy, "We both know why I haven't had you killed, vozlyublennaya."

Revy seethed. Balalaika had said that word to her more than once. Revy remembered every time she called her that name. Revy didn't know what it meant. And a part of her feared the meaning. But after what happened to Dutch, Rock and Benny, it couldn't be good.

Balalaika leaned in closely, her smile full of dark promises. "You will be safe, Two Hands. I ordered the only kind of shot to be fired at you to be of the non-lethal kind. You'll be safe in our custody after we've stitched your injury up." Revy tried to struggle, but both men held her fast. Balalaika stepped away, letting the medic go to Revy and open up the med kit. Two other men came over and restrained Revy's legs, making the gunslinger growl in pain. The medic brought out the tweezers and the medical alcohol.

Revy spat, glaring at the men holding her legs, "Fuck, sis, if you wanted to watch your men fuck my ass, maybe you shouldn't have done it surrounded by corpses." Revy added, lips curling in a sneer. "Or maybe fucking surrounded by death is exactly what you wanted."

The men around Revy looked like they were about to get angry when Balalaika sent them a sharp look and they turned away, going back to their duty that she commanded of them.

Balalaika spoke coldly to Revy, when her medic started pulling the bullet from Revy's leg, the younger tensing and growling in the other men's hands, "You will live. And you'll be safe. Think of it this way, Two Hands. You will have more power in this city than any gunman for hire before you. You might want to see this as a benefit to your safety and your position in life from now on, Rebecca."

Revy struggled, all her struggles futile. The bullet was out of her leg and the medic was wrapping it after he had tended to it. Balalaika called in Russian to her other comrades who were by the door and kicking Rock's body out of the way.

Revy's blood boiled and she screamed, struggling some more. Balalaika ignored her cries and called to one of her men to pick up Revy's guns. The cutlasses were taken from the floor and carried out the door. Balalaika ordered her men to carry Revy out of the office carefully after Revy's wound was bandaged up fully. Balalaika walked to the door, heels clicking against the floor. She looked back at Revy who was still struggling.

Balalaika hadn't wanted to kill Dutch and Benny. But Benny's skills were dangerous and he was loyal to Dutch. If he wanted to, he could interfere on a great deal of digital information that Hotel Moscow needed. He was too dangerous, so Balalaika had ordered his death as soon as Dutch was dead. And Rock? Rock had been an….annoyance to Balalaika for a specific reason for a long time. She had never had the time to actually be alone with him, except for her time in Japan. And what Balalaika had seen in Japan between Revy and Rock had been reason enough to want him dead.

Balalaika almost had considered shooting Rock right through the head that day at the garage when Rock used that ridiculous, filthy, stinking word, "justice." She had decided against it not because of Rock's feeble attempts at being humorous, but because Balalaika knew as soon as she pulled the trigger, Boris would have had to as well because Revy would protect Rock to the end.

And Balalaika knew that if Revy was killed...Revy had sparked life inside Balalaika. Life she hadn't felt in years and years. A kind of life that she hadn't felt since before she first went to war. Balalaika wouldn't just let her go. Not by gunfire, not by letting some weak man come between them, not now, not ever.

Revy was hers.

Balalaika watched the now patched up Revy being hauled to the door, struggling the whole way, feeling a smirk stretch over her face. Revy would need time. But she would adjust. She'd curse to all high heavens. But she would adjust.

Balalaika moved out of the way while her men dragged Revy out the door, Revy's wounded, honey brown eyes glared with betrayal at Balalaika. Balalaika sighed, following out the door, leaving the Lagoon Company to its now lifeless shell, with only two corpses inside and one at the doorstep.

Balalaika followed her men carrying Revy to the car. It would take a while, but one day Revy would accept her new life. And she would sit next to Balalaika as her closest guard besides Boris. And her wife one day. Revy's safety and her new authority in life all came from the destruction of those holding her back. Balalaika grinned with pleasure. And she would be the one to raise Revy to her new heights in life.

Author's note:

So yeah, out of character, I know, but hope you liked it. Also, I probably screwed up the Russian when I used that word that Balalaika called Revy. It supposedly means "beloved," but I probably screwed it up in the translation I looked up. It's been a while since I've written a Black Lagoon fic so be easy on me (a little), please.