A/N: Anyone who's a writer for this fandom and wasn't tweaked out of their minds to write something- anything- about Couples Retreat after watching it today is made out of adamantium or something! I have been twitching to get this out all day!
Disclaimer: Ben 10 and all the characters in this fan-fiction belong to MOA. I'm only borrowing them because they totally inspired me with today's episode.
Enjoy!
The Anodyte stared at the uncommonly morose Osmosian as he drove her home. They had already dropped off Ben and she was eager to get home and into a hot shower after the day's events at Ledger Domain. They had 'subdued' Michael easily enough and he'd be spending the next few months in the Null Void. The rest of the night had been pretty quite by their standards, but her boyfriend had been somewhat introspective the whole time. He hadn't been cold to her exactly.
He just seemed… distant.
She hated when he was quiet. It usually meant he'd reverted into some deep recess of his own psyche. That was just never healthy. She leveled the most casual expression she could muster at him, trying to keep her voice conversational so as to mask her growing concern. "Hey! You've been a little quite tonight. What's up?"
The raven-haired teen didn't move a muscle to reply. He just kept his onyx gaze resolutely on the road. "Nothing."
Her eyes narrowed somewhat in aggravation at the dismissive reply, but she quickly decided to use a different tactic to cajole him out of his brooding state. She forced out a giggle and commented sarcastically. "You have way too much weirdness running through your twisted mind at any given moment to ever truly be thinking nothing, Kev. Come on, dish it out!"
This got a reaction out of the austere teen- albeit, not the one the ginger was hoping for. His face warped into an indignant scowl and he turned blazing onyx eyes to lock with hers. The inflection in his voice held both warning and an edge of danger. "Drop it, Gwendolyn!" Then, he turned his eyes back on the road, his grip on the steering wheel tightening to the point his knuckles were whitening.
The Anodyte's every nurturing instinct was on high alert now. Her very nature would not allow the man she loved to go on being this disgruntled without even an attempt on her behalf to resolve whatever was causing this. Did he honestly not know her at all? She tentatively leaned forward, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing comfortingly. She kept her voice low and soothing, "Kevin, please talk to me. Don't shut me out when you're like this…"
The Osmosian still didn't turn to look at her. He did however, release a frustrated breath, jerking violently on the steering wheel and pulling into an empty strip mall parking lot. He pulled into a space away from any streetlights. The darkness really fit his mood presently. He turned off the ignition and ran an aggravated hand through his raven hair. He still didn't look at her once he started speaking. "I honestly think Charmcaster is one of the hottest chicks I've ever seen, Gwen!"
Before he could continue with whatever else he was going to say, the ginger pulled her hand away from him as if scalded and wrapped both arms around herself furiously. She couldn't help the acrimonious, shrill pitch the quality of her voice achieved. "Excuse me!"
Now Kevin turned to regard her, narrowing his eyes in a mix of vehemence, frustration and an unreadable emotion the redhead was remiss to identify. "Do you want to know what's bothering me or not, Gwen? 'Cause believe me when I tell you, I really don't want to talk about this- Especially to you!"
She quickly changed her demeanor to one of diffidence, indicating her desire for him to continue. She wasn't about to press her luck here. She tentatively kept her arms crossed, though.
Upon seeing her submissive deportment, the dark teen turned back to facing the front of the vehicle and continued. "As I was saying, Charmcaster is hot and powerful enough to have any guy she wants! Any guy would give an arm to be with a girl like that!" He pointedly ignored the way his girlfriend shifted and huffed heatedly in the passenger seat beside him. "And Morningstar actually had her! He had her drooling all over him! He had one of the most amazing girls ever to exist in the palm of his hands! Yet when he was wiping the floor with Ben and me while boasting about what he actually wanted… "
He paused there for a second grimacing and Gwen really wished she hadn't pried. She really didn't need to hear about how desirable her own boyfriend found her archrival. However, the man chose this precise impasse to finally turn and lock eyes with her. All she could read in those impossible depths of obsidian was a combination of despair, longing and that previously unreadable emotion which she now recognized as… covet?
"The only girl he still wants is you, Gwen! Do you have any idea how crappy it feels to know that a guy who can have literally any girl he wants, 'cause he's already had her- and we both know it- only wants your girl? And this isn't some ordinary looser, Gwen. He's a billionaire! He can give you anything you could ever want! How am I supposed to compete with that?" He ended the rant, turning away from her once more and bringing a hand up to rake through his hair again in exasperation.
Gwen just sat there slack jawed shortly. Here she was getting all flustered and jealous over his opinion of Charmcaster, when all along the root of the problem was his own poor self image and apprehension about getting jilted over Michael Morningstar?
Okay! She seriously needed to remedy this egregiously erroneous little conjecture her boyfriend's ridiculously overactive imagination and self denigrating psyche had mangled up within his mind. She once again leaned forward. This time, she brought one hand up to tangle in the Osmosian's dark tresses at the base of his neck and the other to cup his cheek lovingly while turning his face to regard her. She sent him a flattered loving smile and spoke with absolute sincerity and conviction. "Michael could never even wipe your shoes in my eyes, Kevin. He's not competition. He's not even in your ball park! I have no idea why he wants me, but it can't possibly be for anything good. He's incapable of giving me what I really need… what I really want- because that is you."
To punctuate the candor in her statement, she bridged the gap between them by pulling him down with the hand that tangled in his hair. Their lips grazed lightly first in what was an affectionate flutter. Then he responded by leaning further towards her, wrapping both arms around her and crushing his mouth to hers. He delved into the kiss exploring her mouth with his and imbuing all the emotion only she could evoke within him into the way he ran his hand up and down her back. He'd never told her he loved her. This was his way of showing her.
She knew.
They pulled away from the kiss out of breath, keeping their foreheads touching. Blazing onyx burned into brilliant emerald and both of them smiled contentedly. It was as if they could hear that little voice in the back of each other's mind. It was presently chorusing the exact same sentiment.
'I still want only you!'
Fin
Extended Ending: Courtesy of Dark Shining Light
Looking into those amazing emerald gems that were his redhead's eyes, the raven haired teen couldn't help but succumb to the overwhelming urge to steal one last kiss before he inevitably had to restart the ignition and get her home.
He tightened his grip around her waist and descended once more upon her slightly swollen lips, his eyes fluttering closed. They shot wide open in confused longing, however, when he felt her delicate hand pressed firmly against his chest- effectively precluding him from achieving his goal of melding their mouths.
The Anodyte's eyes shone with an unbridled intensity and poorly concealed mirth as she spoke almost directly into his mouth, her breath mingling with his. Her inflection held an unequivocal undertone of disparagement. "So you think Charmcaster is one of the hottest chicks you've ever seen?" She had to try very hard to prevent the smile in her eyes from migrating to her lips when he cringed here. "Then, for your sake, I very well better be the hottest chick you've ever seen, Kevin Ethan Levin!"
An amusedly intrigued dark eyebrow shot up on the Osmosian's face as he smirked wickedly, bringing one hand up to stroke the ginger's cheek and allowing his thumb to graze across her swollen lower lip. His onyx eyes diverged down to her mouth as he began his retort, his voice husky. "You're not the hottest girl I've ever seen Gwendolyn." At her expected reaction of recoiling indignantly, he forced her flush against him and spoke the last words heatedly with his lips literally on hers. "You are far beyond that! Hot fades. Whatever you are… just keeps getting better and better!"
Before he'd even finished his little declaration, that kiss he was so hoping to steal was bestowed upon him feverishly, acquiescently and decidedly with the greatest of pleasure.
Fin
A/N to Extended Ending: Okay. Dark Shining Light seriously has to pop out a Gwevin fic soon because all these awesome little ideas she gets while reading my stuff are going to cause her pretty little head to pop soon! ROFL! I know school is tough this time of year, but seriously… scribble something down and post it for your own health, my friend!
A/N I had to write this. I just had to. I was absolutely compelled! Oh, wow! It's actually short! Woohoo!
Please review!