This is a teaser. It was going to be one of the possible openings for chapter 7, but since it didn't fit well with the rest of the chapter, and since the whole chapter was taking long enough, I thought… hey, why don't I update this alone?… and so here we are =B

~The Machine~

# Teaser: Many A True Word... #

A normal morning in the girls' cabin was Courtney bolting out of bed immediately after waking up, while Beth stayed soundly asleep on her bed. The CIT would then wander around to kill time before breakfast, and she was usually the first one up.

Today though, she had competition.

Courtney drowsily exited the trailer with a change of clothes tucked on one arm. She gently rubbed one eye and tried to accomodate her bed hair –limp from hours of tossing and turning-, as her sleepy mind took in what she was seeing.

Not three feet away, there was Duncan in front of the door to the little cabin Chef Hatchet usually slept at. He was fumbling with the lock, most likely trying to bust it open.

Courtney instinctively frowned. She approached the red-handed delinquent, and when he didn't notice her presence, she made herself be heard. "What are you doing?"

"Gah!" Duncan jumped in alarm, before turning around and seeing the face that belonged to the snobby voice. "Shh!" he then reprimanded her.

Courtney raised an eyebrow, insulted at the treatment, and still waiting for an explanation. Meanwhile, Duncan pulled the metal stick out of the lock, and went closer to her. "I'm trying to get some real food before everyone wakes up," he whispered.

"And you're gonna get it from Chef's cabin?" she whispered back, eskeptically.

"He keeps his fridge under lock and chain now," he explained. "And I'm pretty sure he keeps the key with him." He gestured to the cabin behind him.

Courtney rolled her eyes. "Well, have fun with your pillaging," she said as she turned around to leave.

"Hey," he stopped her. She turned her head. He was smirking. "Wanna join me? You know… for old times' sake?"

Courtney scoffed. "Please. As if I want to repeat that experience." She then resumed walking away.

"Riight, I forgot" he said after her, hands on his pockets. "Now you're at the level of lobster, good ol' peanut butter just doesn't do it for you anymore."

Courtney ignored his last statement and went in direction of the communal bathroom. Duncan shrugged and went back to working the lock.

The brunette was halfway to the bathroom when, for some reason, she stopped and turned around. She saw Duncan concentrated on operating the door; any second now he would open it, she knew. Then he would have to quietly enter the cabin, hold his breath as he got the key, possibly from around Chef's neck, leave silently, raid the fridge, and then indulge himself in his loot and the exhilarating feeling of an –illegal- job well done.

As if I want to repeat that experience, her own words were thrown back on her face. Right. As if she wanted to live a mind-bogglingly exciting, heart-changing adventure next to the only person who had ever in her life made her feel free.

Courtney then caught herself and shook her head furiously. She immediately blamed the sneaking thought on her sleepiness –in reality, it partly was, because she would have never let her thoughts go there had she been of sound mind and body-, turned on her heel and sped towards the bathroom.

Around this time, Duncan paused from his work for a second time, and looked up at the CIT, who was quickly walking away from him.

He thought back about his last words to her, and against his better judgement, he started to regret them.

True, at first sight it was an innocent tease; and true, Courtney hadn't seemed at all affected by it… but Duncan had to supress a shudder when he thought of the meaning behind that sentence.

Sometimes the greatest truths peek from among jokes and teases. That was a fact of nature nobody understood better than Duncan: about half of the biggest development his relationship with Courtney had had, half of the episodes that had allowed him to know her as well as he did, had happened while they were teasing each other.

The other half had been the rare and fleeting heart-to-hearts, but that was not the case.

The case was that he knew –and he knew she knew- that his joke hadn't just been a simple joke; it was the truth. He was the peanut butter, and Courtney the lobster that thought she was too good for him. Ever since she had come back, she acted like she was above him; like she had moved on without him, and simply left him behind.

Many would say it was because she was still bitter about the 'Gwen' thing. That was probably true but, honestly, Duncan wouldn't know. They had never actually discussed the incident properly. She never gave him a chance to.

She answered with evasives, she put on a mask of anger and let nothing else get through, and he had never gotten a glimpse of what it was that was really bothering her.

It made sense, too— back when they were together the heart-to-heart's were rare, so what made him think he was getting one now they were broken up?

It was almost as if she was trying to hurt him. Scratch that— that was totally what she was doing. He didn't know how she could manage to do that so... flawlessly. He knew he would never be able to torture her like she was torturing him.

And she? She thought she could just go on dissing him, and he'd be there, following like a lost puppy, hanging on her every word.

And you know what the worst part was?

That it was kinda true.

That's all for now. I'll update chapter 7 as soon as I can.

~The Lighthouse