Note: I'm on a roll!

The original request from blackfuzzdevil: Well...I've been wondering about Alek's reaction to Deryn's first kiss, that being with another girl.

Title from the Hall & Oates song of the same name. :)

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"I feel such a fool," Alek says, frowning. "I've only just realized - you kissed another girl."

"She kissed me," Deryn points out. "And I could hardly complain too much about it, now, could I, without ruining my secret."

"Still. I encouraged it." He looks deeply concerned by this, as if he'll be struck down by an invisible Tesla cannon for not knowing something she was desperately hiding from him. "God's wounds, I thought it was amusing."

"It was, really," she says. Especially the look on his face at the time. "I mean, she knew the truth about me – did she think I was going to kiss her back? Barking mad anarchists."

For that matter, the look on his face right now is dead funny, too. "That doesn't make it better! – it's perfectly immoral!"

"So's my wearing trousers," she says. Then, reflecting on that: " 'Course, I wanted the trousers. Lilit, not so much. Mostly I just wanted to keep her away from you. Guess that worked, aye?"

He shakes his head, nose wrinkling up in distaste. "A little too well, it seems. But you must admit, it's rather unfortunate as well, to have wasted your first kiss on… on a mad anarchist girl."

"Oh, that wasn't my first kiss," she says without thinking.

He blinks at her. "It wasn't?" he asks, sounding just as dumfounded as he looks.

"No," she says, a little confused herself. Does he think she was a nun before she became an airman? "My first kiss was my second cousin Robbie. Second cousin once removed, actually… but I don't suppose that counts, since it was on a dare. My first real kiss was Ned Wakefield, behind his da's shop. The next day he told me he fancied Katie Campbell more. Broke my heart for a whole week."

"I see," Alek says faintly. Now he has the look of someone who's been blindfolded, spun around, and asked to find his way again.

But she's warming to the memories and hardly notices. After Ned… "Jamie Duncan, now, that's who really taught me about kissing. Aye, he was quite good. But he turned out to be a pure sodding bastard and I had to kick him in the shins. If I'd known how to throw a punch then, you can bet I would have… What?"

He's been staring at her, but now he reddens and clears his throat and looks away. "Nothing."

She narrows her eyes and tells herself that she won't laugh if her suspicions turn out to be true. She was no nun, but sheltered Clanker prince is awfully close to monk. "Why? How many girls have you kissed, your archdukeness?"

"That's really not important –"

"Aye, I think it is! Come on - I've told you all about mine."

"Very well." He looks down his nose at her, the picture of wounded princely dignity. Clipped and imperial, he says, "One. You."

"Oh," she says, and as sweet and sad as that is (very), she has a terrible time of not spilling over in giggles.

He scowls. "You don't have to be so amused. And what on earth were you doing kissing all of those boys, anyway?"

"Practicing for you, Dummkopf," she retorts, and pulls him close and proves it.