Ground Down

Chapter 45

Standing guard duty was the most boring thing in the world. She deserved it, she knew that, but she still spent an awful lot of time staring right at Polis' colourful streets, glaring little children down until they took their bullshit somewhere else and getting dirty glances from parents, making space for stray ambassadors or angry ambassadors or the Floukru ambassador moving around like a lonely ghost, but, all in all, fuck all ever happened. Except for Dio who insisted on trying to get chummy with her every time he stood guard with her and if he dared ask to get into her personal space one more fucking time, he'd find his spear very much up his own personal space. And very fucking intimately so. Octavia blew a stray strand of her hair out of her eyes. 

By her side, Lincoln kept grinning up at the bleak winter sun with his eyes all squinty against its bright white burn because he probably still wasn't over the face Dio had made when he'd joined her outside the tower and Dio had stopped dead in his tracks and then retreated as if he'd crapped his pants. Fucking served him right, she'd told him to screw himself enough times already, and he didn't measure up. Octavia tilted her head at Lincoln's profile with a smile playing around the corners of her mouth, let her gaze trace down the curve of his brow, to the tip of his nose, his smiling lips, the little nick on his chin where his stubble hid the evidence of fortified knuckles having scarred his jawline. All wobbly and hard whenever she touched that pattern, she'd traced it so many times she could probably shape it out in her sleep. 

"Chit [What] ?" Lincoln opened one eye in her direction and she had to grin, shook her head and turned back to the plaza. 

"Dison laik yu daunplei [This is your free time] ," she thought out loud while she glared some kid running straight across the plaza down. "Yu nou gaf in gran au [You don't want to go train] ?" 

"No, ai gaf in kamp raun hir [No, I want to be here]-" he smiled at her, nodded towards the kid finally fucking off- "Chit em don bos op [What did they do] ?" 

"Non [Nothing]-" Octavia underlined her glaring with a warning tilt of her spear and the little thing ran for the hills, she smirked to herself- "dison nou bilaik pleigeda [This ain't no playground] ."

"Bilaik os taim yongon ste fong raun hir [It's good when the children play here] ." Lincoln shuffled closer to nudge her with his elbow and she squirmed into her stupid guard uniform. "Yu ste pis kos yu sis don teik yu lev op kom yongon [You're just mad because your sister made you train with the children] ."

Octavia made a choked-up hoover noise that burnt in the back of her nose. 

"Nou ste [I am not]." 

"Ste [You are] ."

"Nou ste [Am not] !" She kicked at him. 

Lincoln gave her a long, head-tilted down kinda look that emphasised the fresh scar drawn along the curve of his skull, and then started grinning again. 

"Ste [So are] ." 

"Jok of [Fuck off] ." She crossed her arms, had to uncross them again because the spear had no balance and she had to hold it, which got kinda hard with her hands stuffed into the crooks of her elbows. "Nou ste [Am not] ." 

He chuckled to himself and she couldn't help but smile at the sound, no matter how hard she rolled her lips in to keep up her scowl. The sunlight made his skin shimmer. She'd get lost looking. She'd trace the flitting rays from his jaw down his neck, over his jacket down his shoulder to his hand, the callouses on his fingers, the muscles under his trousers, the scuff-marks that made his boots blunt. His scent. And his warmth right next to her. Octavia let her head drop towards the shoulder facing him.