This ship will be the death of me. And it won't even be a happy death.
"Can I kiss you?"
It was a fairly simple question, at least comprehension-wise. Ruby understood what Heathcliff had asked her. His wording was simple and the request was as obvious as humanly possible. It was elementary.
The response, however, had Ruby puzzled.
"…why?" she asked, her hand immediately flying to her arm to itch.
The counter-question seemed to confuse Heathcliff almost as much as the initial one had thrown off Ruby.
"Because I… want to?"
Oh. Well, that made sense.
Ruby bit her lip because she could feel it swelling. "Like…" she started, "…on the mouth?"
"Preferably," Heathcliff responded, and the color of his face was started to match his hair. "I mean, not if you don't want to. That's why I asked."
Ruby scratched her neck. And her right shoulder blade. And the outside of her left thigh. And she had her lower lip sucked into her mouth because it was starting to burn. Ruby had led her team into open-fire situations, rescued kidnapped world leaders, and had been awarded the keys to two major cities. But this was hands down the most intense thing she had ever been forced to handle.
"Um. Okay. If you want to," Ruby mumbled.
The thirteen year old leaned forward uncertainly, turning her eyes to look everywhere but at Heathcliff. She could see him lean forward in her peripheral vision, and then she felt something soft and rough all at the same time on her mouth and decided that Heathcliff was getting Chapstick for his birthday.
He pulled away before she was even sure what was going on. He covered his face with his hands. "Wow. Wowwowwow. I'm so sorry. That was so bad. I'm sorry."
"It's – uh, no, it's fine," Ruby mumbled. She laughed uncertainly. "Actually, it happened so fast I didn't even really… notice… it…."
Heathcliff peeked at her from between his fingers. "So it wasn't awful?"
Ruby shrugged. "I… uh… dunno." At the look on Heathcliff's face, she backtracked. "I mean, probably not. It was probably fine. Good, even."
That seemed to satisfy him. "Okay," he said. "Uh. Thanks. For letting me do that."
"Sure," Ruby shrugged, smiling at him encouragingly.
Ruby made a mental pledge to forget that ever happened.
The Chapstick thing, though. Yeah, no. That was happening.