Note: Original inspiration from a sketch by the fabulous Shenli on DeviantArt. I thought this was going to be some short little funny thing, and then it… grew. DARN IT.

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There's a moment when Deryn realizes she's made a horrible mistake in agreeing to more fencing lessons from Alek.

Unfortunately, that moment is just a squick too late to be helpful.

Before then, however, things are going well.

She dashes through her other morning duties so she can spend a few extra minutes with Alek. He's still confined to his stateroom, even though Deryn has been indignantly informing all the officers, the bosun, and the boffins – anyone who'll listen, in other words - that Alek might be a Clanker, but he's no enemy of theirs.

Sodding war.

Well, it's not going to stop her from keeping up with her friend. Deryn raps on the door of Alek's stateroom with an "Oi, Alek, breakfast!" before barging right in.

And nearly gets herself skewered on a mop handle.

Deryn ducks, dishes clattering and rattling on the tray, and manages not to yelp like a girl or drop anything.

Eyes wide in alarm, Alek hastily lowers the mop handle. "Dylan! God's wounds - are you all right?"

"Aye, fine," she says, recovering and closing the door behind her. "Lost ten years off my life, though."

"I'm sorry," he says. He's wearing his fencing gear, which still looks perfectly daft. Even more so when it's paired with a wooden stick instead of a proper saber. He puts the mop handle down, leaning it against the wall alongside another, identical stick. "I wasn't expecting you to be - well, there."

She sets the tray safely down on the desk and gives him an arch look. "So I noticed. A squick bored, are you?"

He grimaces. "Perhaps just a bit."

"Just a bit," Bovril adds, popping up from wherever it's been hiding to beg attention from Deryn. She obliges, letting the beastie clamber up onto her shoulder.

"Even if I wasn't a prisoner, Captain Hobbes has declared that he won't let a prince near the engines. There's really nothing else for me to do." Alek gestures towards the bed. "And I seem to have exhausted the books Count Volger sent over for my edification."

"Blisters," Deryn says, eyeing the stack piled haphazardly on the mattress. Alek must be going mad from boredom to have read even one – they look deadly dull. "Did he lug those all the way from Vienna?"

"Konopischt," he corrects. "And it would seem so."

"He ought to have tossed the books and kept the gold, if you ask me," Deryn says, meanwhile thinking about Konopischt. It's the castle he grew up in. Near Prague, if she's not misremembering; he'd talked about it some, one afternoon in Istanbul.

Right, Konopischt, near Prague. There's a lake and a rose garden, and a great round tower… and barking spiders, she's got better things to stuff into her attic than what Alek's home is like. She'll never get to see it, for one. For another, it only makes her feel like a silly mooning girl.

Meanwhile, her Clanker finally manages a smile, even if it is tinged with sadness. "Are you staying to breakfast?"

Deryn glances at the door, thinking of the long list of duties she ought to be carrying out and Mr. Rigby's wrath if she's caught skylarking. Then she looks back at Alek.

Easiest barking choice she'll make all day.

"Aye, I think I will," she says, grabbing a chair and a cup. She serves herself coffee and takes gloriously unladylike slurps as Alek eats. They talk for a minute, but he seems to have gone into one of those sad princely moods, and the conversation drops off into silence.

She takes the chance to study him, secretly, over the rim of her cup and under her eyelashes. He sounded surprised that the captain wouldn't want him on the engines. She isn't. She understands Captain Hobbes' thinking – it's one thing to have a Clanker boy getting windblown and grease-smeared and shot at by ninny engineers, but it's quite another to send a royal Clanker boy out there.

It occurs to her that there are maybe downsides to being an archduke. Beyond the bum-rag tutors, the fussy manners, and the barking cluelessness, that is… and the fact that he'll never be able to love a commoner like her.

"D'you really want to be back on the engines?" Deryn asks after a long moment. Bovril gets bored with her shoulder and clambers down to pick at Alek's crumbs and leftovers.

"Yes," he says, setting down his fork very precisely. "But most of all, I would like a trip to the heads to not be the most exciting part of my day."

She laughs mid-drink and snorts a slurp of coffee half up her nose. "Barking spiders!" she exclaims, rubbing the sleeve of her jacket across her face. "Don't crack jokes, Dummkopf - I'm not ready for you to be funny."

"Oh, well, my apologies." He grins at her, really and truly pleased, and she feels a familiar crackle of electricity go dancing across her skin.

And that's sodding daft, because he's not even touching her this time – only looking at her.

But it maybe explains why, when he says, "Care for another fencing lesson before you leave, Mr. Sharp?" she says, "All right, but you'll have to keep the standing dead still to under twenty minutes this time," instead of Are you mad, Mr. Rigby will kill me if I dawdle any longer.

Alek neatly folds his napkin and lays it aside as he stands, saying, "I shall make no promises."

Deryn retrieves a mop handle. "Then I can't promise not to give you a good thump on the head with this."

"You won't be able to," he says confidently. "You haven't got the skill or the speed to get past my defense – although I understand Count Volger gave you a few lessons?"

There's an odd note to his voice on those last few words. She gives him a look. He's not jealous, is he? Barking spiders, he'd better not be. Those lessons were awful – and ended up tipping Volger to her secret.

"Aye, he did," she says. "I liked yours better."

"Let's see if you remember anything from either," he says, motioning for her to take her stance. A challenge.

Blisters. She doesn't remember a thing: a lot has happened in the month since that last lesson with Volger. Still, she's good at pretending, so she buys a moment by heaving a resigned sigh and adjusting her grip on the mop handle, all the while thinking furiously about how her feet are supposed to go. Weight on the back foot, aye, and her arm does something daft, like a teacup handle –

"Haven't got the skill," Bovril says cheerily.

She shoots the loris a dark glare and quits trying to pretend.

Alek sighs, being overdramatic about it. "Your stance is still dreadful, Mr. Sharp. In fact, I believe it may be worse than before."

"Aye, forgive me if I've had other things on my mind lately than my barking stance," Deryn says, being snappish about it.

"Try it again," he says. She keeps her glare, but follows orders, and he moves closer. "Now –"

Oh, sod it all, she thinks, he's going to pose me again. And indeed he does, grabbing her arm and adjusting it, nudging her foot back and her knee into bending just a squick more.

Deryn crosses her fingers he'll keep his hands safely away from her chest. She may not have any diddies to speak of, as her brother once thoughtfully pointed out (that bum-rag), but she's still got more than any Dylan ought to. One little slip north, and it's all over. Alek would never be friends with a girl, and that's all a commoner like her can hope for: friends.

…and at the same time, daft mooning girl that she is, her brain gets stuck on Alek, standing right next to her, touching her. Electricity burns through her skin wherever his hands go, settling and coiling low in her belly. She finds herself wanting to lean closer towards him; she could stand here and breathe in the smell of him all –

"-turn more like this," he's saying, hands on her waist.

No – hands above her waist. And then, before she can do more than realize This was a horrible mistake, one of his fingers stretches that inch too high.

A shock of pure sensation – not good, not bad – kicks her in the gut. She bites down on a yelp and concentrates on holding perfectly still, although her thoughts are instantly racing.

Alek's pure dead clueless most of the time – maybe he won't notice – maybe he'll move his hand before he can realize – maybe he'll think it's only something in her pocket – maybe she should make a joke – would a boy make a joke? – or should she pull away and punch him? – would a boy punch another boy over this? – and why hasn't he moved his hand yet?

Deryn glances down. It's only been half a second, really, though it feels ages. His hand is frozen in place, gone stiff like all his gears have rusted.

Helpful as always, the bloody sodding loris says, "Mr. Sharp," and giggles.

Then suddenly Alek's halfway across the room, mop handle whacking into the desk and making the cups on the breakfast tray rattle dangerously.

"Gottes Wunden," he says, sounding every bit as rattled as the teacups. "You're – I haven't – that is – ?"

"Aye," she says weakly.

Bovril breaks into fresh giggles.

"God's wounds," Alek says again, to himself this time, putting a hand to his forehead. He's gone bright scarlet.

For that matter, Deryn's a bit flushed herself, and she can still feel where that hand was pressed against her side.

Well. Not her side, exactly.

She takes a breath and does the hardest thing ever: she looks Alek straight on. He looks back at her, green eyes wide, and for a long moment they simply stare at each other, both of their faces as red as tomatoes.

He looks away first. "I beg your pardon," he says to the teacups, stiffly polite and formal. And embarrassed. She's never thought that "embarrassed" had a sound, but it does.

"It's all right," Deryn says. Her voice has gone high, which isn't so very awful now, and wobbly, which is just annoying. She clears her throat and starts over: "I don't blame you –"

But he's already saying, "I would never have –" and their voices tangle and both of them stop talking at precisely the same time, and they fall into a deadly, painful silence again.

Barking spiders.

Deryn glances at the window. Maybe she should toss herself out and have done.

Or maybe she should stop being a sodding girl and get back to being a proper soldier. Aye, that's it. Accordingly, she straightens her spine and says, "I'd rather you didn't mention this to the captain."

His forehead wrinkles up in confusion. "The captain? Why would – oh. Yes, of course. I mean – of course I won't. And I am really very sorry for – for – ah, touching you. I never expected – well. That you h-had – Um. "

It's a cold sort of comfort, knowing that she made such a pure dead brilliant boy that Alek never suspected a thing until he had his hand square on her chest.

All the same: watching him labor through an apology for grabbing her diddies, while keeping his Clanker modesty intact, is just painful.

"Stop there," she says, uncomfortable and impatient and doing her damnedest not to be embarrassed; one of them ought to get through this without stammering. "No harm done, aye? Blisters, you should be angry with me for lying to you!"

He looks startled, as if that idea hadn't occurred to him yet. "Oh. I suppose I should. I'm certain I will be, actually. Right now I'm rather too, ah, surprised."

"All right, then," she says. Clears her throat. "I'm – going to leave. Mr. Rigby will be looking for me."

He nods mechanically.

She steps backwards, fumbles for the handle, and is on the verge of making her escape when he says suddenly, "Dylan, wait!"

Deryn stops. She even – somehow – lifts her eyes to look him in the face again.

Just in time to see an expression of consternation flash over his features. "But it's not really Dylan, is it? Never mind – You'll come back, won't you? And explain… everything?"

"Mr. Sharp," Bovril pipes up, chipper as can be. "Beg your pardon. Mr. Sharp."

"Aye," she says, swallowing. Later on his gears will have unfrozen and he'll have had time to get properly angry about it all. And what if he decides he doesn't want to hear her explanations? "Only if you promise not to be a bum-rag about it."

Alek's mouth quirks up in a sickly half-grin. "I shall do my best."

Her own grin can't look much better, but she tries. Her hand grips the metal handle and turns it, but she doesn't quite open it yet. Maybe the knowledge that escape is near is what lets her find the courage to blurt it out: "I wanted to tell you. And I should have, ages ago. You're my best friend, aye?"

He seems heartened to hear it, but then that look of consternation returns. "I know that – now isn't really – but… What is your name?"

She takes a breath. "Deryn," she says quietly, mindful of ears on the other side of the aluminium hatch.

"Deryn," he says, testing it, and somehow those two syllables make her feel more exposed than when he had his hand splayed flat across her chest.

A shiver runs down her spine – and like that moment when he touched her, she's not certain if it's good or bad. She nods.

"Deryn," he says again. His fingers flex and curl against his side, as if he's remembering that moment too. She wonders if he even notices. She wonders if he realizes his face has gone pink again.

He meets her eyes. There's a light flickering there she hasn't seen before.

She wonders if maybe it's hatred.

Then she wonders if maybe it's not something else.

"I'll come back quick as I can," she says. And she leaves, before his gears unstick and things go pear-shaped, before the shiver slips down from her spine and into her stomach.

It's a long talk she's not looking forward to, later. And nothing can come of it – she'll still be common as dirt and he'll still be royal. But…

Maybe not such a horrible mistake after all.