It was a fairly normal night within the sphinx of San Francisco. Presley was learning Egypt-su from Armon with Ja-kal observing and the other two guardians were in the garage repairing the Hot-Ra for the third time that week. From their last confrontation with Scarab, Nefer-tina got so fed up with fighting the useless Shabtis that she decided to skip the action and try to run them all down. Unfortunately, the Hot-Ra didn't take too kindly to being assaulted by rock.

"You just had to act and then think, didn't you?" Rath berated the female mummy from under the hood of the vehicle.

"But it's gets so tedious fighting those statues all the time! Aren't you tired of it, Rath?" Nefer-tina said, trying to defend herself by appealing to his empathy.

Pfft. As if that would work.

"No, what I get tired of is repairing the Hot-Ra every other day!" He huffed, shifting his hands around the engine some more, trying to find exactly where the problem was.

The female guardian rolled her eyes before yanking on the loose bandage hanging off the back of his neck and pulling him out. "If it bothers you so much," she started, taking up Rath's previous position, "Then just let me fix it. It's not big of a deal."

He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at her back, hoping she could feel the hole he was trying to burn into her wrappings. "Yes it is! You'll do it wrong."

"Oh yeah?" She tensed and grunted a little as her elbow shot back slightly, apparently successful in pulling something out. "What make you say that?" Her voice was teasing, but also a dare.

"Because-" he paused looking for how to say it,"Because you're a-" He stopped again, knowing it was an inappropriate thing to say, but having no other answer.

"Because I'm a what?"

"Because you're a woman!" There. He said it. "Now get out of there and let me get back to work." That last part was meant to redirect her impending rage and get her out of his workspace, but it only half worked.

"A woman?" she echoed, her tone incredulous. "What does that have to do with anything?" Her eyes practically crackled with the force of her whip. He was lucky they weren't able to physically harm him.

"It has everything to do with it! You're always wrecking whatever you touch! Who else but a woman could do that!"

Nefer-tina threw her hands up in the air and turned around angrily. "It always come back to that with you! You had no problems when you thought I was a man!"

"Well you weren't exactly ready to be honest with us. It took the Prince exposing you for us to even know! Don't expect complete trust when you do not give it yourself," Rath spat.

"It's not that," her tone softened and her shoulders slumped slightly at the attack on her character. "I do trust you, it's just that-"

"What?" he cut her off bitterly, "I didn't need to know?"

"No, it's-"

Rath interrupted again, his volume steadily growing with the harshness of his voice. "I wasn't important enough to be informed?"

"No-"

"Then what!"

Nefer-tina spun around, her rage reignited. "I knew you'd do this!" Her hard eyes were locked onto his shocked expression. In an instant, though, they reverted back to normal and she turned away again. "I knew you'd treat me different. That anything I did would be because of what I am and not who I am."

"Nefer-tina," he started, a heavy wave of guilt setting in.

"Don't," she said, much more softly than she normally spoke. "I'll just finish what I did and then leave you." Then she went back to working under the hood.

Rath pressed his thumb and index finger to his forehead, wracking his brain for a solution to this problem. It's not that he wanted her to leave, exactly. He just wanted to have control of the situation; he didn't like not knowing exactly what she was doing to the Hot-Ra. He sighed lowly to himself, his hand reaching up to run through his hair, but having to settle for scratching his temple instead. Head-dresses and wrappings really were an inconvenience sometimes.

Nefer-tina continued to quietly work, making the small adjustments that the parts around the engine needed. They would need a new fan belt, but she decided to let Rath figure that one out. She'd apparently given him enough help today. "Just one more," she trailed off to herself, leaning further into the car.

"Nefer-tina," Rath gently addressed.

"What," she replied, obviously still not pleased with him. She then felt a light tugging on her hair and turned her head to look over her shoulder at him.

He smiled sheepishly, like Presley did when he was caught trying to sneak a scroll, her white locks collected in one hand and strand of wrapping in the other. "Your hair will get caught."

She stared at him for a moment before facing the engine again with a snicker. She couldn't help it; sheer will power alone couldn't stop her small, albeit brief, laughter.

"What's so funny?" he asked, the guaranteed frown nearly audible in his tone.

"It's nothing, nothing," Nefer-tina assured him, a soft smile painted on her lips. Where had the earlier scorn gone?

Rath let out a small "humph!" from behind her as he finished tying up her hair.

There a silence in the garage except for the small noise of Nefer-tina's tinkering. The edge of the vehicle suddenly sunk down as Rath leaned against it, staring at the sand-stone floor.

Another silence.

"I don't mind your help, Nefer-tina," he muttered, having mixed feelings about whether he wanted her to hear that or not. "It's just a," he trailed off, at a loss of the word this time.

"Just a guy thing?" she offered, filling in the blank. He was sure she was smirking at that moment.

"I suppose that's one way of putting it, yes."

She finally backed out from underneath the hood, grease and oil smudging her gray skin. "Rath, just promise me this," she started, and took his attention on her as an invitation to continue, "Don't bring up that gender crap again." Her tone was light hearted, only wishing they could heal silly rift between them.

Rath chuckled from behind his hand. "Yes, I suppose that is something best left behind. Especially if we find more similar," he trailed off again, looking for the right word again, "Hobbies to pursue."

"I can handle that," she said with her usual spirited quality of voice. "Oh, and Rath? Where exactly did this bandage come from?" she asked, meaning the one that was currently holding back her long hair.

"Why from my person. Where else?"

"I'll try not think about it," Nefer-tina deadpanned.

They looked at each for another moment settling silence before breaking out in shared laughter this time, the Hot-Ra's dilemma completely forgotten for the moment.

All right, so I really expect no one to read this story, but oh well. I wanted to write it. Each chapter is going to be a line from the song "Little Things You Do Together" from the musical Company, so there's much more to come and with a lack of readers, it's really all for my benefit. xD

There was just such a lack of RathNefer-tina that I had to do something. And I couldn't help myself once I got the idea.

Anyway, yeah, more to come. Definitely won't be as serious as the middle portion of this one. I just remember that Rath had an issue with Nefer-tina being a woman and it was never fully addressed.

So, if you're reading, please review! Please?

And tell me if you're in the mood for slash. I'm thinking I might try to write a RathJa-kal story, but it might turn into too much of a comedy.