She hated him.
She hated everything about him.
His smug little smirk, as if he knows something she doesn't (blasphemy).
The hint of condescension his voice gets when he's explain something (the bastard).
He thinks he's smarter.
No, she knows that isn't it.
It's that he knows more about things than she does.
And he knows he knows.
And he never lets her forget it.
And that's perfectly normal, she's told.
The first conversation, she made fun of his lisp. He tried to get angry. And she bsed him, put on her sincere little smile and said –very convincingly, she should mention–, in tomes of the utmost apology, that she didn't mean it that way, of course not, she gave him the same apology she gave everyone, when she apologizes for something she isnt' sorry for.
The only difference is that he doesn't take it.
It's when she realizes that he's much, much more intelligent than she gave him credit for, that he isn't someone she can simply flatter into obedience. He isn't the rest of them.
And she hates him for it.
When he kissed her –hate snogged her– she cut her tongue on his sharp fangs, and he hissed in her ear, and she bit his neck, and he clawed up and down her back, and everything was suddenly gold and red as lips bruised and tongues twisted and it was so terribly painful and so, so intoxicating…
She called him a bastard. He called her a prude. She calls him as "copper", because she'll be damned before she calls him "genius" like she knows he wants her to. He calls her "honey", and she can see a flicker of complacency behind red and blue shades when he does, and she nearly slaps him.
He calls her his bitch. He loves to flaunt his species in her face, and it wouldn't be so bad, really (everyone knows that in an interspecies war, humans sadly would be massacred by the trolls, in all likelyhood)…but it is bad, because he's so goddam smug about it, and it's him.
It's bad because it's him. It's bad because he's Captor, and she's Lalonde, and she knows that despite his skinny computer alien geek boy demeanor, he is annoyingly more physically strong than she. It's bad because he isn't as idiotic as she likes to believe the rest are. It's bad because he's not just smart, he posses intelligence. It's bad because he has the kind of dual intelligence that allows him to think in both the science (binary, analytical terms, accurate and exact in equal measure) and in the aesthetic (he wields emotional stability and psychological security), and it's annoying because he can have an actual conversation.
He isn't sane by any stretch of the imagination. He's a bifurcated, binaural, bipolar son-of-a-bitch and a psychotic sadomasochistic psionic (and excuse her, she meant beefurcated, beenaual, and beepolar, because conversations wouldn't be complete without your endless pun-offs), and she hates him with the fire of two thousand green suns.
And that's perfectly normal, she is told.
He liked to act as though he were the teacher, she the student, that he's only in this relationship because he feels that humans should be educated in the many-faceted twists and turns of a kismesis blackrom relationship. But she knows better. She hadn't pursued psychology for naught: she can read his body language like the troll erotica novels he makes fun of her for, and she knows what it means. When they hatesnogged, of course she noticed his dilating pupils and his increased heartbeat and the sudden warmth of his mouth against hers. When she spoke to him, she can see the subtle glances at her mouth, she watched him swallow, and she saw the minute movement of his leg. And when she got close to him, she always knew exactly where his eyes were.
So she always knew what was coming, and she learned to anticipate his moves. It's all a game of chess, and they both knew when the other got the lead.
He knew what happens when she is drunk, and he tricks her into a relapse on the second date. She knew the place on his throat where the skin was softer, and she bit him bleeding every time. He was almost always in the lead, but she learned how to hurt him without resorting to physical violence, and she revels in the slight twitch of his eye that means she gave him a headache.
The two of them watched the shitty horseometer explode within five minutes of a conversation, and both pretended not to notice.
Her name was Rose Lalonde, and she has never hated anyone more than Sollux Captor.
And that's perfectly, perfectly normal.