#unadeem prompts

[camillathe6th]

PROMPTS: list

Alright, work has caught up with me so I have to stop posting these for a while; here's a quick run down of the prompts I wrote during the end of the year break, all riffing (more or less closely) on the potentiality, the reality, the desire, or the diverting of a kiss.

Una and Nadeem are the two protagonists of my hypothetical though still mainly unwritten OG work, by the way, and they're both unhinged. They've known each other for 15 years and have NOT kissed on the mouth yet, I'm nice like that.

A kiss, to pretend (spoofy, funny; Nadeem's POV) HERE.

A kiss, in a rush of adrenaline (action-based; Una's POV) HERE.

A kiss, to shut them up (spoofy, pathetic; Una's POV) HERE.

A kiss, on a scar (sappy, sad; Nadeem's POV) HERE.

A kiss, forcefully (light-hearted, tender; Una's POV) HERE.

A kiss, where it hurts (sappy, tropey; Nadeem's POV) HERE. ADDITIONS over time:

A kiss, in water [To Unpath'd Waters, Undream'd Shores] (poetic, very (ew) romantic; Una's POV) HERE.

Maybe I'll add more to the list if I get time to write others; I have a wet dream one all written in my brain, it's a torment for everyone involved, but I've got no time to actually get it on paper. In the meantime, THANK YOU for prompting me, this was great to work out the kinks and get into their groove for real. Happy new year MWAH

[camillathe6th]

PROMPT. A kiss, in water.

Disclaimer: everything here is slightly obscure because Una and Nadeem belong to an original work (stagnating) of mine that takes place in a not-too-far future; for this one you don't need to know much, except maybe that water is more or less a luxury (everything about survival is a luxury under hyper-capitalism, you know that ofc.) Oh and Nadeem and Una are colleagues and they are not supposed to fraternize, by the way. And of course they DON'T fraternize: Una is BUSY doing IMPORTANT things!!!!! Context: It was Valentine's day a week ago, we shared kiss prompts, this is what I spinned (very late), let's do this. What to expect: Sappy and poetic and a little frantic, as Una gets when....... romance (ew) punches her in the face out of nowhere.

To Unpath'd Waters, Undream'd Shores

(2083) UNA.

When he leads you here, when he leads you through the tunnels under the city, he doesn’t understand. When he brings you out, out of the bowels of the sewer and into the night, when he extracts you from the dark and into the dark, he doesn’t understand.

Under the moonlight, when he—you stop, you stop at the edge. Under the moonlight, when he turns back, his face shadowed-etched against the sky, when he turns back to you, and takes your hand, he doesn’t understand.

“Oh now you’re impressed,” he dimples, you think—you can’t see, not in the night-velvet, but you know where they dig and what they frame, the dimples. “Are you coming?”

His smile is a gift. The water, the dark water is a gift. At your feet the lake is a mouth waiting, splashed with light, lapping murmurs around his ankles as he moves, around his legs, come, around your legs, and stretching—all the way into night’s oblivion, a drowning dream.

The water is a gift. Lukewarm, sticky, trapping, around your chest, and up to your chin, and further still, a mouth waiting, a mouth closing, close—close your eyes, forget the heat, forget the thirst, forget the floods, and sink, sink here, into this forbidden embrace.

They taught you to swim on dryland, in the training room, each conscript moving insect-like on their rectangular table, and hold—hold your breath, now, keep going, longer, arm stroke, pull—hold the glide, feel the water, but there is no water, hush—hold your breath, conscript, keep your head down, arm stroke, one more—pull—one, two, three—and sink—breathe—turn, arm stroke, pull—hold the glide, glide closer, and pull—you are, pulled, now too, and sunk, hold your breath, conscript, and open your eyes.

His are dark-shining, cupped high over the crescent chalice of his smile. He gives in first, without trying—bubbles, then a kick, and he breaks the surface, the fanning spreading ink stain of his hair suddenly splashed over the angle of his jaw.

“So?” he brags, eyebrows waggling. “Aren’t you glad you’ve cultivated such good connections, Conscript?”

Yes. You are glad, glad to painfulness. Of course, he doesn’t understand, the idiot, and neither does he understand when you grab his neck, surprise flashing, as you—keep going, conscript, arm stroke, pull—hold the glide—as you, press your mouth to his beautiful mouth, and—glide closer, hold your breath, and sink—into the water-mouth, warm, and sticky, and trapping, you, press your mouth to his beautiful mouth, and he pulls you close, warm, and sultry, and trapped, you are, you are: trapped into this forbidden embrace.

[camillathe6th]

1, 33, or 48 for the kiss prompt for ship of choice?

Thank you so much!! I'm still going with the same guys, nobody can apparently stop me (waiting for the writing fountain inspiration to dry up and leave me writing-impaired for 3 weeks).

Happy one this time, since I haven't written them short and sweet with each other yet.

33. (A kiss)... Forcefully

2084. (UNA)

It took you a long, long time to even dare—dare talk about it, dare look into it, dare scheme together, dare steal another model, dare dissect its content. And you. You, it took a longer time still to dare put risk to reality—screwdriver to mecha—no; no. Put your fingers on his skin, like this—like this.

Like this. Not in impulse, not in play, not to fight, not to spar, not to guard; but like this. Like this.

Your knee wedged on the dingy armrest, you tilt his head a little further down. He is pliant beneath you, he is liquid beneath you, as warm as a dream of running water. Look at him—no, don’t, don’t look at him, but—you feel, you feel it, his breathing a ripple, his trust so entire, his absolute peace. Under your fingers—the dark wave of his hair, pushed back, the sweet curve of his temple, revealed. You work slow and silent inside his unveiled ear canal, with your pliers and your cutter, so close to the flesh, so—so close to the flesh, this—impossible, his—flesh, close to the, to the cartilage, and blood, and bone, and brain, within the ungemmed jewel of his ear.

You breathe in. You work. You breathe out. You focus: not the flesh; just the work. The last fragment screw detaches. Unclasped, the cover lifts under your fingers, and reveals—thank fuck, reveals—what you thought.

“I’ve got it,” you say, but he can’t hear you, of course—so you touch—what are you doing—instead of his arm, his shoulder—you touch—the angle of his jaw, the relief of his cheek.

He jolts and looks up, his gaze a hit too direct.

“I’ve got it,” you articulate again, and sign it approximately, with only one hand.

“The tracker?” he says, out loud. “You found the tracker?”

The tracker, the fucking tracker: slipped thin inside the cover of the implant, as you thought, as you hoped, since the alternative would be to dig it out of his skull, all the way behind his ear drum, but he’s enough of an idiot already that you’d rather not give him an impromptu lobotomy with one wrong screwdriver move.

You don’t say that, though. Instead you swagger.

“What, did you doubt me? For shame—”

He doesn’t let you finish; he doesn’t hesitate, despite the dangling implant and the shitty chair and the tools, doesn’t hesitate though you gasp and stagger, doesn’t hesitate though you—you—he—grabs you hard, grips you quick, both hands, in your hair, on your ears, and his mouth—your face, oh, your heart-heart-heart, when he kisses you full on the head, on the brow, on the cheek, on the eyes, a kiss a pulse, your pulse his kiss, and you—what can you do?

“Fuck off!” you whine, struggling inside his hold, one fist still closed around the precious quarry of the fragment screw.

“Oh, my hero, my handyman prince,” he sing-songs, pressing a kiss between your eyebrows, one, two, three, and maybe you'll die right now, “my tech whisperer, my goddess, my liberator, thank you, thank you, you saved me again—”

“Shut the fuck up, you stupid idiot,” you try to twist your face left—right—down, trapped, and burning, BURNING to the tip of your ears to the edge of your toes, “stop fraternizing with your partnered recruit or I WILL tattle on your skinny ass—”

“Scream harder, loser,” he murmurs, and pulls you close, so close, close to blur, cheek to cheek, a whisper of eyelash at your temple, a touch of his mouth to your ear, and your heart all the way up into your throat. “Did you forget? I can’t hear you at all.”

Other prompts here.

[camillathe6th]

20... on a scar 😏

LKHGLKHGH get your stupid smirk emoji outta here loser. This one is SO long and SO sappy and I think some plot points make it illegible but DING DING DING we have a kiss folks we have A KISS!!!

@punkranger also very nicely prompted me this one, so here goes, thank you both 🫶

20. (A kiss)... on a scar.

2089. (NADEEM)

Implant off—for focus. The silence is entire at last. The light wanes, and the world, for a minute or two, for a minute and a century, in this small shadow room, is pinpricked into the relief of her dark eyebrow. Under my fingers’ work, you see, there is nothing else under my fingers but her speckled skin, as giving as cloth. The needle weaves, in and out, a careful dance, paced with my breathing.

In, and out. She–she breathes too, in and out, and doesn’t speak. I tug on the nylon thread. The smile of her cut purses its lips, and sighs close, a dark red line, neat as an inter-rib stab. I test the line with a stained thumb, and cut the thread, and put down the scissors, and then, only then, I admit back into my world the weight of her gaze, a flash of light instantly stolen away.

“Painful?” I shape out of my mouth, though I don’t hear it at all.

“Of course not,” she signs for me, even if I could have read her lips.

Of course not. Never pain, Una. Never pain but this excruciating, inaudible pain, curled in the swollen space between us.

“Good,” I wink, putting away the surplus nylon. “Wouldn’t want your ugly face to get uglier, would we?”

I get a prize for that; a crooked smile, hooked to her left dimple, almost taken away as she turns—no, don’t turn. I keep her in place, hand-snap against her jaw. Don’t turn; don’t move.

“Careful,” she shapes. “You’ll be uglier than me if I break your teeth.”

I show her my teeth, a gift horse offered, not yet denied.

“But who’ll bite your head off then?” I whisper.

For a while, she doesn’t speak, and she doesn’t look away. She’s ugly, alright. I watch her face unmoving. She’s ugly, ugly, ugly with gashes, old and new, ugly with bruising, with grime, with sweat, made uglier with the beating sun that charted on her too-pale skin the red outline of her eternal siftmask—ugly, spattered deep-fawn, burnt at the nose-bridge, lovely, my traitor, my specter, lovely as a dream, dream of her fox-eyes, edged moon-white, a flash of light—long ago—stolen away.

I remember her eyes, when the shot rang. Wide, before they dimmed. I remember her eyes, and this: still here, under her silly orange hair, at the line of the scalp, unveiled by the hand I push into her hair. Look at that. Exit wound. Head shot. Look at it, on the curve of her skull, its gentle shape now, pink with baby-skin, sweet-puckered, raised like the mouth of a kiss. Just a scar. Just a scar, though it shattered then, though it bled and bled black and bled death, pulsing with my screaming.

When I swallow, my throat is tighter than my clenched teeth. And I—

No. Her hand GRips my wrist before her meaning catches my eyes. Don’t, she enunciates. Don’t. Not a prayer: an order. Her grasp is hard, her gaze is harder. Her face gives nothing away, which gives everything away. Don’t, Nadeem. Cold as stone, clear as glass. Don’t, Nadeem.

Don’t, Nadeem.

For a moment, I’m almost tempted to yield—just so she can look away, stone unturned, glass unbroken. For a moment, I am, almost, tempted to—grant us both mercy. But I don’t. I don’t yield. I never yield, and she neither. I don’t want her to look away. I don’t want me to look away. I don’t. I don’t. I don’t. I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.

Instead—instead, I touch the scar, thumb-brushing. Her nails sink into my wrist, and spurred by forbidding I catch her gaze. The silence is entire. The silence is ours. The space between us resorbs. Thumb-brushing, skin-to-skin, and in turn my mouth, mouth-brushing, slow, and low, and pressed, and pressed again, a kiss upon the kiss of the exit wound.

No space now. Under my mouth, the glass of her mask cracks. Around my wrist, the stone of her hand trembles. A kiss, upon a kiss. No space between us, and the silence is ours. The silence… The silence. Inside of it I slide my secret, a secret pressed, and pressed again, a kiss upon a kiss upon a kiss:

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Other prompts here.

[camillathe6th]

Number 34 please!

Oh shit, Shivs, the ULTIMATE cliché... I hadn't even seen it was on the list KLHGLKSHGH thank you so much, let's make this ridiculous (trying to keep these under 200 words) (failed that)

34. (A kiss)... to pretend

2088. (Nadeem)

No time to get into that stupid room, no time to hide in that doorless corridor. I see the Tribune coming before she does—no, I don’t see, I hear—rounding the corner, coming closer, a shuffle at the edge of my implant. I hear the Tribune, and I’m not an idiot, so I could probably, I should probably suggest another type of distraction.

But I don’t. Not when I can stir her hatred and watch it spark. For lack of feeding mine, I can make it rhyme with catharsis:

“Quick, give me a kiss.”

Silence. She stands close. Square, tense, black mask, black stare, she turns her face towards mine, slowly, slowly. Her voice is filed on the edge of a couple of shown teeth.

“What the fuck did you say?”

“It's just a play, Una,” I spit-spin a sough, a sigh, sugar-soft. “Kiss me. The Tribune’s two seconds away now.”

“I’m supposed to be your bodyguard, not your boytoy.”

“Scandalous,” if I were better, this would sound like a purr, but I can't swallow back the hiss; and then I catch it, the dart-quick look to my smile, my ugly smile, that smile, just for her, the lie of my mouth, the grimace of my threat.  “Forbidden encounter. Inter-class drama. Tussling with the help... I think my character would, don’t you?”

Clearly, she doesn’t. To be fair, she might not think at all. She’s always been an act first, act later kind of jackass. She acts first: fists my shirt, close to the punch, white-knuckled.

“Let me show you what tussle means really, Nadeem.”

Well. I guess that’s as good a distraction as any. I square up for the hit.

[camillathe6th]

number 4? ^_^ 🩷

Hi!! Thank you so much--sorry, these got derailed by family time, but I'm back with a stupid-ass prompt. Wanted to try my hand at Nadeem and Una bantering next, so this is where we are. I think this counts as a kiss, even if SOME PEOPLE (Una) are making my job harder as usual.

4. (A kiss)... where it hurts

2089. (NADEEM)

Something pulls me back from the dark. Maybe it’s the hard jolt of the car under us, jostling my wound into night-pulsing pain. Maybe, most likely, really, it’s the clammy warmth of her ungloved hand, tense on my forehead, spreading into my hair, a hard hold, a rough caress.

All this took was dying, then.

Jokes later: first assess. Pillowed: my head on her stiff thighs. Stomach wound: open, quenched with cloth, still gushing. Lost consciousness, I did, but not for long. Good enough. Questions still: how did we get here? This car—how did she get a car?—, this backseat, this road, which road? It’s damaged, which means we're going south, every bump a very literal pain in my derriere. She’s tense under me, though, curbing some of the asphalt impacts before they reach me, keeping me still.

“You’re awake, jackass,” she states, suddenly, correctly. I open one eye. She’s wearing her mask still; I can only guess at the grim line of her mouth, the hard clenching of her teeth, but I can see what she’d want to hide, exactly what she’d want to hide: mirrors of the soul, eyes red and burning.

What, tears, for little old me? I close my eye again. Damn. Getting gutted feels sweet.

“I’m alive?” I check, just in case. Who knows—maybe my heaven is Una’s uncomfortably hard thighs under my cheek, just like this.

“No thanks to you,” she hisses, pulling at my hair, stopping just at the edge of painlessness. “Are you fucking insane?”

“And you’re alive,” I smile, sliding into the pulling, “very much thanks to me.”

“I don’t need you sacrificing yourself for me,” she barks. “Did you forget I’m the bodyguard?”

“Well? Then guard my body better, conscript.”

“Oh, sorry, I was working under the assumption that you had a brain.”

“I forgive you.” I’m generous like that. I open my eyes again: the gaze that meets mine is a punch to the gut, as heart-hammering as a tongue to my throat. “You didn’t stitch me up.”

She looks away first. Always first, my lovely coward.

“I can’t.”

“Come on. You know I tru—”

“No,” she snaps back, taut as a rubberband. “You’re fucked up, you stupid idiot. What did you want me to do, kill you faster? You need a real medic. We’re on the way.”

We’re on the way. What did she do to get this car? Downfade doesn't have cars. Who’s driving, and who’s waiting for us? Who did she call?

I know—I know who she called. She shouldn’t have done that.

“Una…,” I whisper, and touch her face, just a finger, just two, just a tugging back to me. Her frown is a dam, cracked and quaking. “I don’t understand… Why didn’t you just kiss it better?”

The frown-dam hardens, blissfully dark, a stronghold of comfort against sentiment.

“I don’t know, Nadeem. Why don’t I punch you in the dick?”

“Fine. If you insist. Let’s compromise—”

“Don’t.”

“—You can kiss me on the dick instead.”

“Thanks, but I don’t give losers head,” she fast-grabs my hand before it brushes her jaw. “Also, I’d rather drink acid.”

“Hey. Come on. I’m fairly sure I taste a little better.”

No mouth: can’t prove the quirking of her half-smile, but I catch it, the slight crinkle of her eyes, speaking of chuckling just bridled.

“Just as lethal is what I meant,” she mutters, settling my hand back on my chest, and getting trapped between my fingers for her trouble.

“Uh-oh.” I stroke the length of her index, from split knuckle to bitten nail. “You’re making metaphors. I must be dying.”

“Shut the fuck up. You’re not dying.”

“Would you cry?” I coo, honey-sweet.

“I would break your stupid face, asshole.”

“Wait. You mean you’d keep my corpse with you? That’s so romantic.”

She huffs: I win. I win, so I bring it—I bring it, her hand, split and bitten—to my mouth, and kiss the trembling away. This is where it hurts.

“Yeah,” she doesn’t blink, tensing. “You’d make a great punching bag.”

“But less fun without the enthusiastic moaning,” I hum, gratified, keeping her fist close. The world has slid back into the dark, but only because I must have closed my eyes, just for a little while. I can feel her pulse around me—her heart, her flesh, her breath, and the pain too, my pain, faraway, kept leashed by the tight stranglehold of her torn shirt.

Her voice is just a murmur now, spearing through the haze.

“I don’t want you sacrificing yourself for me, Nadeem.”

“You said that.” Almost that. The difference isn’t lost on me. “Are you going to say thank you, though?”

Her shifting is a—heart-leap, breath-theft, making me gasp, in pain and pleasure both—as she bends, bends over me, and cradles my head in the embrace of her arms, and clasps her burning cheek to mine, a mask-cloth away from contact. Against her Kevlared chest, I shiver, I press closer.

“No,” she mutters. “Fuck off.”

I snort, and give my mouth to the hollow of her throat, where her blood pumps as quick as mine.

“Good. You’re welcome, jaanu.”

Other prompts here.

[camillathe6th]

7 for the kiss prompt and anything you’d be willing to share about una and nadeem 🥺

klghsklhglhg thank you! I'm answering you and @kittlesandbugs for this one, this is our chance, this is the moment I write some mouth action as I promised more than 24hours ago.

(Before that, a few details about Una and Nadeem, thank you for asking!! They're ex-partners who worked for the same organisation as partners for ten years, and then Nadeem defected in a bang--they're both convinced that they, themself, are working for the greater good (one of them at the very least is wrong), and that the other betrayed them for not choosing to remain at their side. At the moment the story happens, they're reunited and have to work together against their will. They're supposed to gather information on each other, but they're a little busy dreaming of killing each other and finally taking that sweet, sweet, normal-amount-of-obsessive, we're-not-over-our-strictly-professional-break-up revenge. Una is a still a huge asshole in this one, a trained assassin and what amounts to a child soldier (don't tell her that, she doesn't agree). Nadeem is an asshole and a bitch and a very good honeypot. When they worked together, she was the muscle and he was the infiltrator.)

OKAY, THE PROMPT. this is way too long and really dumb? I'm sorry, might be my dumbest yet.

7. (A kiss)... to shup them up

2088. (UNA)

Babble, blather, gabble, tattle. Prattle, jabber, yapper. It never stops. Of course he’ll tell you he never wanted a cochlear, of course he’ll tell you he never wanted to hear the world, but the truth is he’s so in love with the sound of his own voice he simply never shuts the fuck up.

“I’m surprised you even dare break into Reyes’ office,” he throws over his shoulder, not without catching a satisfied glimpse of himself in the chrome lampshade when he thinks you’re not looking. “What will daddy say if they catch you?”

“They gave me access,” you mutter, opening another drawer, coming up empty—the files aren’t here, which means the files are hidden, which means your “access” is tenuous at best.

He snorts.

“Bullshit. You have viewing rights on empty folders and censored scatters, that’s all. Just enough for you to gnaw on and keep the blinders up. You know that, right?”

Beyond the babble, blather, gabble, tattle, prattle, jabber, yapper, you catch it: at the end of the corridor, the sound of machinery gliding, of doors gliding, the same sound that accompanies your forbidden unlocking when you slide inside this corridor you don’t have security clearance for. Just a hush, hushed up, hush-tight sigh as bodies wait, enter, then walk, flashed inside in the wink of a biometric reader.

“Don’t you see? Una. You can’t even put your hands on SEER’s file—don’t you s—"

“Shut it,” you snap, and push him fast under the desk, heart in your throat.

This can’t happen. This can’t happen. Not here. Not when you’re close. Not when you haven’t had time to—think, to think, to hear yourself—to dismantle it, to unravel it, the many-stranded knot of your mind. You can’t be found here. You can’t be found guilty, here, here and now. Why did you listen to him?

Why did you. Why did you listen to him?

“I wasn’t finished,” Nadeem hisses, because to your endless torment he’s still here, and so close now that his whisper hurts like a scream. “Why are you so scared? I thought you had access? Is it because you’ll be punished for your offence, conscript Mhmh–?”

You clasp your full, dirty, gritty hand onto his stupid, sunlike, sourflooding face.

“Shut. Your. Fucking. Mouth,” you enunciate, eyes inside his eyes, your body taut and your ear perked, as the steps echo closer—two people, one of them heavy, heavier than skin, heavier than muscle, too heavy for biomaterial, and its slow-purposefulness a tempo you’d know anywhere: they’re coming.

Coming, but not before your endless TORMENT slides his disgusting tongue all over your palm, lapping its grime, wiping its sweat-salt, slipping between your fingers with aggressive slaver, the shock of his mouth a jolt, a thunderstrike, and wet and warmth and AUGH—

“Are you twelve?” you snarl as low as you dare, and WIPE your drool-full palm against his fucking fuckface, so he gasps, so you pull his hair, so he catches your wrist, so you bite his free hand, so he slaps your free cheek, so you twist his ear, so he knees you down, so you push him back, so the DESK trembles, and the DESK whines, and your bodies stop and your eyes stare

                                                                  and silence falls.

Inside of it, your mirror-pantings are almost as loud as a moan, enmeshed.

“They’re gone,” he whispers then, turning up his implant with a finger at his scarred ear.

“You think, you stupid asshole?” you bark, slipping out from under the desk before you succumb and strangle him dead.

Other prompts here.

[camillathe6th]

Kiss for 22? 👀

Ohhh, 22... Thank you!! You know Una so well, she would. Okay, let me think. (I once again tried for 200 words but fighting is my kriptonite, this is so long I'm sorry).

22. (To kiss)... in a rush of adrenaline.

2088. (Una)

You breathe in. You advance, advance into the wide space of the ring, fingers flexing, hamstrings jumping. This is the moment you’ve been waiting for. Thirsting for. Snarling for. Pulling on your leash. Pulling, pulling.

Pulling. Pulling closer. He pushes back his hair, coquettishly, on the other side of the ring. He watches you, unhurried, his lying lying smile hooked at the mouth, but the eyes—the lovely dark eyes tell you what you know: quick, glacial, a snake in disguise, ugly with cheat, his gaze darting, calculating terrain, planning speed as he remains still.

“I’ve been wondering if you rusted away, after all this time,” he says conversationally, taking off his last ring.

Words. How little they matter. Look at him, his body dark-clad, so similar to the shadow that has haunted your nightmares. All this time. All this time, and this is the moment you’ve been waiting for. Hungering for. Howling for. Now the leash is off. The muzzle is off. You are allowed to make him bleed.

You’re on him in an exhale and a flash, impatient enough to telescope your first move, betting not on surprise but on the overwhelming strength of the hit if it lands—no, doesn’t land, but brushes, but touches, the angle of his neck as he dodges jusssst—oh, just in time, on the edge of a choking you would have delighted to inflict and savored to feel inside your palm.

No matter: you don’t stop. Balance intact. Defense useless. Why defend, when you’re fighting sand, fighting water? Keep your fist close; don’t let him slide, slide away, don’t let him run, run again, through your fingers, and disappear, liar, cheater, traitor, don’t let him—don’t let him—FEINT, no no, you see the feint, and you hear his gasp, when your elbow connects with his jaw as he turns; don’t let him—TRICK, trick you again, no no, not so fast, don’t go, not when you can drive his head into your shoulder because he moves too well to be slammed into your knee.

HARD he pushes you away; HARDER you use the hardness of your goddamn skull, sideward, to knock him temple-to-temple. What is it they always say? Use your head. Use your head, Conscript Moore. You you you use your fucking head, once, twICE before he slithers out of your armlock and pushes you back against the corner pad, a hand clasped tight into your hair.

Pulled back? Too late. The leash is off, remember?

“Not rusty,” you rasp, smiling, unhurt as he bleeds, oh he does bleed, eyebrow and lip, he bleeds for you, and he seethes now, you see it, how your strike has landed, pain-blinding like a rock in the smooth surface of his lake-face: a ripple, a tremor of hatred, at last, at last the hatred shows under his mask, unveiled in the surge, mirroring—mirroring you.

“But caught,” he hisses, too near for comfort, pulling on your scalp, “and blocked, you idiot. Was it worth it?”

That, you had forgotten, hadn’t you? That: the way his tongue taps the line of his teeth, once, twice, and shapes the word clean, the careful enunciation of the many-times-said. Idiot. Idiot, that's you. Not again, though. Never again. His breath too quick, his mouth close. His mouth hard. His hand hard. Hard all over, tensing with a hit he won’t get to throw.

It was. It was so worth it. You smile in the face of his tension.

And then you KNEE him SMASH-dab in the groin.