GUNPOINT | 2

27.| More Fuel On the Fire

"Calm down Hercules, it's just me.", Natalia reassures as she pushes the door closed before noticing how hard and panicked Keith was, "Nightmare?"

"No.", Keith mumbles, rubbing his temples while allowing his body to slowly relax back onto the bed. "Just past memories."

"Care to share while I go grab you some water?", Natalia smiles; making her way to the small fridge at the end of the trailer.

When Keith remained silent, stubbornly aiding his aching head, Natalia began to slow her pace down; unsure of how to approach him. She found herself standing in front and over his dark presence as she handed him the clear bottle filled with glistening water when it encountered the sun.

Keith reacted as if he hadn't seen water in ages. He removed the water from Natalia's hands, removed the lid, and began to slurp down the water in large gulps; ignoring the drops slowly oozing from the left corner of his mouth. Natalia eyed him suspiciously but continued to approach him until the bed prohibited her of any further movements.

He had been avoiding eye contact; knowing that one innocent look from Natalia and he'd be spilling his guilty conscience within seconds, so he sealed his eyes shut. While he had his dark sapphire blue eyes under his eyelids, his thoughts bounced out of control after not only realizing that he was almost out of water, but to the fact that Natalia's fingers were wiping away his clumsy drool.

This only forced him to unseal his eyes and lower the bottle as he reached and pulled Natalia's hand away from his face. Keith's eyes broke the eye contact when he decided to slide his cold hand away from Natalia's warm hand and occupy itself with sealing the bottle.

"Keith what exactly is wrong?"

"I don't want to talk about it, Nat." Keith replies after he jumps up from the bed, walks over to the nightstand and places the bottle on its wooden surface before leaning his weight against his hand, gripping it's edges; closing his eyes in hopes that Natalia would take that as her que to drop the subject.

"Keith you can trust me-"

"I damn know I can! It's myself that I don't trust, okay?!", Keith suddenly snaps, turning around to face Natalia. "My whole family is dead besides Dallas and I. For these past few days I've had a guilty conscience and it's honestly felt like I've been using you to take my mind off everything."

Natalia yearned to pull him into a hug and tell him everything was perfectly fine but quickly took control of her intentions; knowing nothing was going to help. Instead, she let out an exasperated sigh while rubbing the back of her neck and looking away.

"You—you're not using me Keith. I, for one, can relate to your feelings. But hey, that's what I'm here for. ", She counters with a weak smile; reaching out and grabbing ahold of his hand.

He flinches at the touch; then slowly gives in but the moment that he looked into Natalia's eyes his mind swapped the faces, causing him to eventually retrieve his hand, and back away from the blonde he was imagining Natalia as. At first Natalia assumed he was struggling to start the break-up speech but her mind went blank the moment Keith's lips parted and out came the unexpected.

"Paisley?!", He whispered in utter confusion and shock.

"Paisley?"Natalia repeated in a suspicious tone; drawing Keith out of his memories, "Who's Paisley?"

"She's—uh—it's the surprise.", Keith responds after a few seconds of silence.

"She. It's. Surprise?! Keith what exactly are you not telling me?", She asks, baffled after Keith froze.

"She's... it's not a 'she' it's an 'it'. Party. That's the surprise.", he quickly covers hoping Natalia would buy his lie for the time being.

"Party?...Not pastry—Paisley—or whatever you said?"

"No, the surprise Denim mentioned is a party in our honor."

"Really?"

"Really.", Keith repeats with a poker face when he realizes Natalia wasn't falling for his trick.

"Then why the heck were you so worked up? Parties are fun!", she exclaims in a joyful yet convincing tone.

"These types of bloody parties are far more different to the ones we would throw at the Miller's cabin-", Keith defends after a moment of silence.

"Pft and? The more wild they are, the more fun! Aren't Dallas and Zelda going too?", Natalia cuts in with a more sassy and authoritative demeanor.

"We're not attending."

"We're?"

"Dallas said Zelda will only be at the party the first twenty minutes and then take off to do some test runs. I, personally, hate parties of such sort so Dallas offered to give me a tour around the camp. This then leaves you with the obvious choice of...", Keith trails off; awaiting Natalia's closing response.

"I'm still going.", she states after a few seconds of silence.

"Damn. Stubborn as usual.", he scoffs, rolling his eyes in annoyance, "At least do me a favor and stay sober."

"Excuse you?", Natalia asks; straightening her posture in a much more intimidating sense than she had anticipated.

"I'm not going to be your knight in shining armor tonight, so I suggest you stay away from the—", he calmly begins; leaning his lower body against the night stand while crossing his arms across his buff chest underneath the tight black t-shirt.

"Oh, and now when did you become the great and mighty hero who saves the damsel in distress?"Natalia snaps back just as the room darkened when the sun cowardly hid behind the clouds, obviously wanting nothing to do with their argument.

"When you started acting as careless as you are right now."

"I'm not acting careless Keith, I just want to have some fun-"

"Getting drunk isn't fun, Nat! It messes with your mind."

"I don't give a damn!", Natalia prolongs heedlessly.

"Not now, but don't come running to me when you've pissed off the whole camp."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine.", Keith repeats; noticing how they both wanted to have the last word in the fight so he gave in after a few seconds of silence, "You know what? I'm done with your childish games, have fun getting drunk."

He grunts as he walks past Natalia, purposely bumping into her shoulder while crawling into bed and reaching for the covers he had thrown earlier.

"Hypocrite.", Natalia mumbles, earning an obvious flinch from his behalf before he throws the covers over his body and turns with his back facing her.