Another few weeks go by before your next real conversation with Strider, the human putting up his own elusiveness and paired with yours, it makes interactions between you two pretty scarce.

You're honestly not too sure how you feel about the break from him. You know you should be glad about it, happy that you can finally go a while without him teasing and nagging at you every chance he gets, but you're not, and you hate yourself for it. You hate the fact that for a brief moment you felt something other than platonic hatred towards that douche, and you hate the fact that you can't even tell what that emotion was. You spend more time than is appropriate worrying about this stuff, ruining the few weeks of tranquility Strider was nice enough to grant you.

Whenever one of you happens to enter the area that the other is inhabiting, the space grows silent, neither one of you daring to say anything to the other. The other occupants of the room go mute as well, convinced that this is going to be the one time one of you finally snaps and speaks to the other.

And then one of you does snap, and of course it's got to be you. You don't want to, but at this point you feel like you have to. You just can't take it anymore. Strider's not supposed to be the coward, and you've got to make him cut this shit out, no matter how much your pride's going to suffer because of it. You're well aware of the fact that stepping up and breaking your avoidance of him could quite possibly throw him back into a cycle of tormenting you daily, and in a way, that's exactly what you want.

You catch him alone in what's been dubbed the nutritional block, scarfing down what seems to be a poorly alchemized burger of sorts. You almost turn to leave the room at seeing him but you stop yourself, making your way over to the crooked oval table in the center of the area and taking the seat across from him.

You don't say anything at first, favoring folding your arms over the wooden surface with your chin placed on top and staring at him with those bright orange eyes of yours over actually making an effort to strike up a conversation, be it an argument or something else.

He pretends to not notice you at first, eating his food in an almost cautious manner, delaying the interlocution that was sure to occur with you for as long as possible. Only a minute or two of his slow, deliberate eating goes by before he turns to face you, though, raising an eyebrow.

"Kay, so you going to say anything or at you just gonna keep sitting there staring at me like some starved kitten."

"What the fuck are you doing?" You ask, ignoring his previous statement and keeping it short. You're not sure if you can handle going off on a tangent right now, your heart-rate already higher than it should be. Jesus fuck, what are you even nervous of?

The human shrugs, setting his half eaten meat sandwich down on the table and leaning back in his chair a bit. "Nothing much. Just sitting here; chilling. Eating a burger."

You roll your eyes, picking yourself off of the table and sending him a glare. "I mean why the fuck are you avoiding me."

Dave smirks at you, although it looks a bit forced. "Dunno. Why, you miss me? Gee, I'm touched."

You scowl. "Yes, that's obviously the reason behind my deciding to waste my fucking time on you. Yep, I can't believe you were able to figure that shit out. I should congratulate you, really. You deserve a fucking medal for figuring out this stuff."

"What, so you're saying you have another reason to grace me with your presence?"

That makes you shut up, dropping your gaze to the table. You know he's right. You know the only reason of your being here is because you're forming this awkward sort of attraction to him, although you're still not sure what kinds of feelings are driving it.

He laughs, then, quickly and tiredly, his expression matching one someone might have when forcing themselves to humor a child who's going on about one of their made up adventures.

"Christ, I knew it." He shakes his head, pausing for a few moments before turning back to you, another worn out smirk showing on his lips. "So what, one little kiss from Papa Strider over here and I've got you wrapped around my finger, that right?"

You flinch and you try to cover it up by crossing your arms and sending him another scowl, but he probably sees right through you either way. "No, fuck you. This is just weird, okay? I'm just not used to seeing you act like this pathetic little coward, running away from me like I'm an actual threat."

Strider's smirk becomes more real at that; lively again just like it used to be, and you're not sure if you should feel relieved or terrified. "So you're saying you're not used to me acting like you then, right? Cause not all that long ago you were the only one running, babe."

You lay a hand on the table, curling it into a fist and baring your teeth in his direction, your expression this twisted sort of glower that no human could hope to reproduce. "Shut the fuck up, that's not what I meant. Yes, I'm pathetic, okay? I am so fucking pathetic, and I definitely don't you of all people reminding me of that fact, but I'm not a fucking coward. The only reason I've been dodging around interactions with you is because I'm smart enough to stay away from you; because I actually realize that arguing with you is pretty much the worst idea ever since it's only going to lead to. Fuck, I don't know what it's going to lead to, but it can't be anything good."

The human props his elbows up on the table and rests his chin between his hands, raising his eyebrows in your direction. "You realize you're the one that came to me, right?"

You roll your eyes, letting out a long, exaggerated sigh. "Yes, I realize that, but I had to, alright? You haven't been acting like yourself and do you know how fucking disturbing that is? Seeing you all submissive instead of trailing after me like a fucking woofbeast like you normally do? I'll admit that what I'm doing right now probably isn't all that logical, not in the slightest, but you really need to cut this shit out. Last time I checked I was supposed to be the miserable little wimp wallowing in self pity; not you."

Dave shrugs, picking up his food and standing up, heading off towards the exit. "Kay, well thanks for the advice but I've got other things to do atm so I'll catch you later."

In an act of desperation you get up and practically sprint after him, grabbing him by the wrist and spinning him back around to face you. "Fuck you. Do you know how much time I've wasted on you? Fuck, what has it even been, almost three of your stupid Earth months? Yeah, okay, so I've wasted like, the past eleven weeks of my fucking life on you and what do you do? Just decide that I'm not worth your fucking time? What kind of asshole does shit like that. What kind of bastard, just. God, I hate you. I hate you so fucking much that your idiotic human think pan can't even comprehend the massive amounts of loathing that I hold towards every single atom that make up your fucking existence."

Strider clenches his fist but makes no move to get away from you. He hesitates a moment before opening his mouth to speak, but you interrupt him, screwing everything over and smashing your lips against his. You know you're going to regret this. You know that having feelings this black towards a human of all things is only going to lead to tragedy, but you can't help it. Not when he's this good at making you despise him.

After only a few moments of your furious snogging, the human moves to return the gesture, kissing you back with an intensity that matches yours for a while but quickly fades away into that sickly sweet style from before.

You sigh through your nose, letting yourself relax as the kiss softens a bit more and continues to mollify until it's no longer a kiss at all and you're just staring at the person in front of you with perplexed sort of look on your face. You're genuinely confused about not only what emotions are flashing through you right now, as always, but also by the fact that all of your anger, anxiety, and hatred seems to have melted away for the moment, but you're still not pulling away from him. You're still letting yourself stand there, a mere fraction of an inch away from the one person you hate more than yourself and you're 0kay with that. Happy about it even.