Note: This one is exceptionally sugary and sweet, even by my (highly fluffy) standards. Too much pre-Halloween candy? Maybe. Or maybe it's a sign that it's time for another horribly, horribly depressing lil' series like "trapped on the wire". You know you want it. :P
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"Prinzessin," Alek suggests, teasing.
For a moment Deryn wonders if she ought to be angry. She'll never be a princess, after all, and it seems a squick cruel to shove her nose into that fact.
But that's not like him, and besides, she's not of a mood to be angry just now.
"Not bloody likely," she says, smirking.
Belatedly, his eyes widen, and he colors. "I didn't mean –"
She puts a stop to all that blether by holding up one hand. "Aye, I know. Daft prince."
"Sometimes, unfortunately." He clears his throat. "Engel? You do like to fly."
She snorts and slouches lower in her chair, grinning at him over the top of her book. It was written by old Darwin himself, and she has no idea what it's about, but it's heavy enough to stun an elephantine. "Do I look like a sodding angel?"
Alek doesn't answer straightaway, the ninny. Of course she doesn't look like an angel. Her hair needs a trim, her tie's crooked, and she stayed up nearly all the night translating and then reading a paper by some Clanker fellow named Boelcke, about fighting tactics for aeroplanes and gyrothopters. She knows she looks a fright.
He gets that daft expression on his face, though, and she thinks he's going to say, Yes, you do.
Dummkopf. If either of them look heavenly this morning, it's him. His shirt is clean and pressed, his trousers new, boots polished, and his hair (except for that one curl which never stays put) is neatly combed. It's the middle of winter, but he puts her in mind of a crisp red apple, shined up and fresh.
Aye, and she'd like to take a bite of him, all right.
She drops her eyes to her book, hoping she's not turning pink. Blisters, it's a bit embarrassing, isn't it? – to still be mooning like this, after all the kissing they've done? At least there's no one else in the Barlows' library right now to catch her. Dr. Barlow's supposed to be chaperoning them today, but she's barking terrible at it.
Deryn had been a bit perplexed about that, at first. The lady boffin is so tiresome the rest of the time…
…but then again: who's she to complain?
Perhaps Dr. Barlow is relying on Bovril to be a chaperon in her absence. If so, she'll be sorely disappointed. The wee beastie is too busy napping on a footstool in the one beam of sunlight.
Deryn looks at it now: curled up, its little ears twitching every once in a while. Being off the Leviathan seems to have made the lorises pure dead lazy. 'Course, she and Alek aren't much better. It's been nearly a month and most of that time has seen their bums planted in a chair and their eyes in a book – orders of Dr. Barlow.
She should've known a boffin's house would be like this.
Alek coughs, lays his book aside (it's about life-threads and heredity, which she knows because he's been complaining about it all morning), and rises from his chair, saying, "Perhaps not an angel. Perhaps a more dangerous creature."
She quirks up an eyebrow. "Like what, your princeliness? I didn't think Clankers had a word for tigeresque."
"I suppose Tiger would work," he says, sitting beside her on the sofa. She scoots over a squick, so he'll have enough room (though being too close to each other really isn't much of problem). "But I was thinking of something like – Honigbienchen."
Deryn rolls her eyes. Little honeybee. Pure dead obnoxious, and he knows it, judging by the smug grin that keeps flickering out from behind that princely mask. "Only if you fancy another punch to the stomach."
"No," Alek says, turning serious again, "but what am I to call you?"
"My name, aye?" He frowns at that, so she lifts her hand and runs it gently through his hair, fingering the one curl that won't stay in place. "I like hearing you say it," she adds softly.
Alek catches her hand and presses a brief kiss to her knuckles. "Deryn."
"See? Brilliant." She smiles at him for a moment, then goes back to her book. This chapter seems to be about barnacles. No mention of the vitriolic sort, though, which is a mistake, in Deryn's opinion, as they're the only interesting -
A hand plucks the book from hers, and before she can do more than cry out indignantly, Alek has it set on the table beside him, out of her reach.
"You bum-rag!" she says. "I was reading that!"
Sort of, anyway.
"I should be allowed to call you by some pet name," he says, sounding a bit indignant himself. "Even Mr. Barlow can say 'my dear' once in a while."
"Aye, but we're not married," she retorts.
That daft look comes over him again, and – mooning lassie that she is – her heart skips and then thumps heavily against her ribs. Yet, is the unspoken promise in Alek's eyes. They're not married… yet.
Blisters.
Deryn might have to take a bite out of him after all.
Something of what she's thinking must show on her face, because he flushes red again, and he looks at the floor and clears his throat once or twice. Clanker.
"Still," he says, shifting a bit on the sofa. "What are you going to call me?"
" 'Alek', mostly," she says. "Probably 'daft prince' once in a while. And 'Dummkopf' when you deserve it. Right now, for instance. If I'm walking about as Dylan, it's going to be barking tricky to explain why you're calling me your little honeybee, aye?"
"I wouldn't say it where people could hear," he says, scandalized.
She'd thought it was funny, when he'd brought it up – the idea of giving each other pet names – and that's why she's gone along with it even this far. But this conversation is ridiculous. He seems to be dead serious, though, and that makes no sense at all.
Deryn shakes her head. "What's the point, anyway? Why're we talking about silly daft names for each other?"
He doesn't say anything for a long moment. He keeps staring at the floor, but his hand finds hers, and he weaves their fingers together.
Then, quietly, with a touch of that old sadness, he says: "My parents had endearments for one another. I suppose… I thought it would be… nice."
Oh, sod it all. Now she feels pure dead horrible.
She squeezes his fingers and moves closer. "Alek," she says.
He looks at her.
He has the most brilliant green eyes. Even when they're sad.
" 'Love'," Deryn says softly, hoping he can see the promise in her own eyes. "I'm going to call you 'love'."
And then she presses her mouth to his. Gently, carefully, sweetly. And she doesn't stop until he makes a little sighing noise and relaxes under her. Then she draws back and squeezes his hand once again.
"I think – I think that should do fine," he says, managing a crooked sort of smile. "And I shall follow your example, Liebe."
"Aye, that's barking clever of you," she says – or starts to, because he stops her with a kiss.
And that's quite clever of him, too.
