*yawns* The author is tired. Man, recovering from a weekend of no sleep is haaaaaard.
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As the euphoria induced by the kiss began to fade, fear crept up over Knives. Fear, and confusion. How the hell could something like this happen to him? How could he go from despising the vermin to craving her in one single instant? Even now that the energy that had invigorated him had mostly faded, there was still a portion of him that craved her touch.
He found himself absently rubbing at the marks on the back of his hand and deliberately stopped himself, only to find himself doing it again a moment later. Very carefully he didn't look at her, didn't stare at her, didn't watch her, but still he knew exactly what she was doing. After their aborted attempt at a conversation she had looked wildly around for Ace, only to find the girl looking unconcernedly at her new clothes. For all that the experience had seemed so long, only a couple minutes had elapsed. She had gone off to question the girl, but she had sensed nothing out of the ordinary. Or if she had, she wasn't letting on. Then she had gone off and sat at the imaginary edge of the oasis, leaning next to one of the rock pillars and staring off into the sand.
No, whatever had just happened, it was between the two of them, alone. He would have given a lot to know what she was thinking just then, but the whatever it was hadn't left him with any fresh ability to see into her mind. If anything, her barriers were even stronger now then they had been before, like she was being even more careful to not let anything slip around him. No, he had to muddle through this like any…human, he thought with fresh distaste.
How the hell did she do this to him? One day, he was fine, minding his own business. All right, so he was a little bored and slightly pissed off, but that was normal. He had merely underestimated his brother a few times. The next time was going to be different; the next time he was going to win. Most of his time and energies had been spent making sure of that single fact. Then she just…shows up, and somehow he lost control of his life.
But he was the type of person who never lost control. He might lose his temper, but he was always in control of the situation. The only person who had ever wrested control from him had been his brother, and as much as that galled him, at least he had been bested by another plant. Now she came along, and he lost control again. At least she didn't seem to know what was going on either, but that was cold comfort.
Comfort. He fought the impulse to go over to her and slip his arm around her shoulders. Comfort her? The vermin who had started all this mess by not backing down? Surely she was driving him mad. It was the only explanation. He casually glanced over in her direction, making sure that she was still there.
She looked so small and sad, sitting there alone. Her shoulders were slumped and she leaned against the spire as if its support was all that saved her from sprawling in the sand. He pushed down the urge to cradle her against him, to coax away the blues that were defeating her. She had spent a good deal of time and effort convincing him that she was strong enough to look after herself. He wasn't going to defeat her purpose by running over there and acting completely unnaturally. However natural the act might feel now.
He tried to argue himself out of his feelings. It wasn't but a few days ago that she had shot him, for crying out loud. She was rude, obnoxious, aggravating, entirely too full of herself, and a pain in the ass. His hand rested on his leg where she had shot him as he tried to regain some of his hate. Instead, he found himself massaging the new skin, trying to find some last vestige of pain to fuel his anger and finding nothing. She might be quick to anger and quicker to cause pain, but she did a good job of fixing things after her temper tantrums. Not that this made things better, but he grudgingly had to respect her willingness to try to pick up after herself.
Respect a vermin? He was mad.
Idly, he walked over to her bag and began to look through the food. Somehow, that kiss had made him hungry. And if nothing she had already taken out of her bag had been quite what he wanted to eat, well, maybe there was something in there that would. He pulled out some more clothes, then some books. Idly, he looked at the names on the spines. Fiction, fiction, oh, he had actually liked that one, fiction…what the hell?
He opened the one that had caught his attention and began to read, absorbed in the subject matter despite himself. Oh, the humans could be funny. As he flipped through the pages he chuckled to himself. That was so wrong…that too. That was almost right, but was just wrong enough to be completely hilarious. That one was so wrong it was frightening, but that one was right.
His chuckles became short barks of laughter. Kiley heard him, and her head turned languidly, then she moved faster as she realized what he was doing.
"Just what gave you the right to go through my bag?" she demanded as she rushed over. Knives laughed and hid the book behind his back, keeping it from her grasping hands.
"I didn't know you had such a great sense of humor," he commented as he danced away from her.