"Stop it!" Robin shrieked, dodging Lon'qu neatly. Well almost. Her panic had her briefly stumble. He shot her a smirk, highly amused by her actions.
"What is it?" he asked innocently, letting a beetle run over his palm, and he turned his hand to keep it from getting off. She looked at him in disgust.
"How can you touch that—that thing," she took another leap backwards. "Eugh!"
"This is simply conditioning," he said, throwing her own words back at her. "The longer you're around these wonderful creatures, you'll love them," he was looking fondly at the black critter he had lured using Gaius's sweets as bait. Nether him nor Robin were pleased at all. Both parties were offended by the purpose of the candy usage.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Okay, first of all, bugs are not useful at all. They are a waste of space." She put her nose up in the air and he scoffed.
"They are indeed not a waste of space. I do not appreciate your words."
She snickered. "Gods, you sound like Cherche." She nudged him playfully and he bristled while turning red.
He righted himself and smirked. "Do I now? Well I must say, the sight of the critter on you is a wonderful sight."
"Was that a compli—wait. What?!" Robin let out a loud shriek that passed throughout camp. "Lon'quuuuuuuu!" She was wailing and flailing, trying every way to get that bug off of her. "I'm going to kill you!" she was hopping around, red from anger, fear, and exertion. He stood there in a fit of chuckles and she tackled him to the ground.
"What are you doing?" he abruptly stopped laughing, his voice ws slightly muffled from the ground. "Get off of me madwoman."
"Get this off of me then," she said.
"It's been off of you," he said. "Are you daft?"
"O-oh." She inspected her own body quickly to affirm that his words were true and sighed. "Never do that again," she growled leaning close to his face, in what she hoped was in a threatening manner.
"Get off of me," he said again, his face an alarming shade of puce.
"First promise to never do that again," she said, leaning in closer.
"Fine, fine," he said. "I yield!" He was talking rapidly due to being so flustered.
"Great," she got up off of him.
"I won't share anything with you again," he said curtly. If Robin didn't know him so well, she wouldn't have recognized the slight hurt in his voice.
"I'm sorry," she said, feeling guilty. "You're usually such a lone wolf. And you took the time to show me something you love."
"You're making a big deal out of this," he protested with a pink tinge in his cheeks.
She shook her head. "Thank you," she said. "Please show me again sometime." She found an opening to give him the briefest of hugs before walking off. "I'm going to check on the equipment."
He looked at her back and pressed his hands to his still warm face. He let out a weak, "heh."
He could almost hear her say, "I made you laugh again!"
And if she were lucky, he'd treat her to another one. Of course then he realized that he has heard a copious amount from him already, from this incident. He saw her glance back with a huge grin on her face.
Truly, a con artist of the highest order, was she.
