Adam had been caught and he knew it.
Amelia's eyes were wide as she stared at him, the two of them having frozen in place next to the vast pillar on the dry aquifer floor below a Celzex city.
"So it is true!"
"So is what true." He tried to keep his voice level, tried to make it seem like he didn't know what she was talking about, but despite her seeming inability to shut up he knew she wasn't stupid.
She flicked her dark hair out of her face with a hand, "You're dating an alien! Is it that blue one that came with us?"
Adam felt his lips draw into a thin line as he tried to hold himself back from jumping in and insisting that her name was sunny, "You asked me what it's like to date someone with four arms. I said its like getting hugged twice." Hopefully leaning into it would make it seem less obvious, "which has nothing to do with dating one and everything to do with hugging one."
He turned to keep walking. Despite this setback they NEEDED to finish the mission, and him being forced to do damage control was not exactly conducive to being focused and ready. He heard her footsteps tripping lightly behind him as she jogged to catch up.
"Than why did you answer?"
He shrugged, "I imagine dating a Drev is like getting extra hugs, my apologies for not adding in the I imagine part, but I assumed you were smart enough to put two and two together." He allowed his voice to sound as derisive as he felt.
"Oh don't be like that. I promise I'll keep your secret."
"There is no secret."
"Sure."
"So like what do you guys do for kissing, I mean it has no...... lips?"
Adam continued to bristle, but he forced himself to stay calm.
"I wouldn't know."
"Or does the double set of hands make up for not being able to kiss. I imagine that two pairs of hands would be.... Very nice."
Adam clenched his fists.
"I wouldn't know." He repeated
"And like if you wanted to marry her, would you have to give her father a dowry of like seven space cows or something, or would you just arm wrestle for it?"
Adam's knuckles where white where he clasped them, and the fight to keep his face from depicting the rage which he felt was a loosing one. Luckily they didn't have to cross the entire room, just towards one of the central pillars, which was good.
They were almost there and the central pillar rose before them as a great stone monolith towering towards the ceiling. Circling around it's base, he frowned at the wall trying to find the door that was mentioned on the map keeping his back pointedly towards Amelia as she continuously asked him questions that somehow managed to be both xenophobic and racist at the same time, though how she managed it was almost a feat of magic, and all without batting an eye, completely unabashed about her behavior.
"So what is she like in bed?"
Adam nearly ran himself into a wall letting out a short splutter before turning towards Amelia who was standing behind him, hand on her hip and a shit eating grin on her face.
He could feel that his neck had turned red.
She looked at him eagerly, the corners of her mouth twisting into a more devilish smile.
"how the hell would I know." He managed to squeak out
"Because you're dating an alien."
"I never said that." His neck was still red by the time they found the little door. It was just lucky enough for them that the Celzex had big opinions about themselves, otherwise they never would have managed to make it through the doors and up the stairs. Even so, the stairs were rather small, and it was more like climbing a very bumpy ramp than it was going up stairs.
Amelia was still talking, "You never said that, but the look on your face told me everything I need to know."
"anyways you never answered my question."
"Because I don't have an answer." He grumbled squeezing his eyes shut once and opening them again in the hope that when he opened his eyes she wouldn't be there. For the momentary silence that followed he was convinced the universe had taken pity on him an answered his prayer.
"So you two haven't...."
Those hopes were dashed.
The redness in his face flared up again.
"No, we haven't, because we aren't dating."
"So you're saying if you WERE dating you would know by now."
He huffed, "I am saying that even if we WERE dating, I wouldn't be likely to talk to YOU about it, and since we AREN'T dating its not like I am going to make up stories for your amusement. If you want that sort of content, I am sure you can find it on the internet."
"Ok, so touchy subject. Is It you who can't or her?"
He didn't speak but his face was on fire.
"You then I am guessing. Seems logical."
"That's not...." He insisted, but she cut him off.
"Then again, are you blushing."
He kept his face straight ahead as they continued to walk their way up the stairs. He had hoped that their near vertical assent would shut her up, but she was in remarkably good shape and was able to keep the string of conversation going despite the stairs.
"You are!"
"Or it's the blood flow, from all the stairs we have to climb." He knew that that wasn't something she was likely to believe, but he had to try something.
"So, it isn't her, your just a shrinking violent, a blushing bride. That's very cute and old fashioned of you Admiral. Then again is it just a compatibility issue. I always wondered how that would work with aliens."
She tilted her head to the side.
He knew the answer to her question, but he stubbornly refused to answer it. He was sure she would take it out of context.
"So, you can't kiss her and you haven't, you, know, done it, so what do you guys do? Do you like spoon aggressively or something, or do the Drev have a thing they like to do? Did you know that some species of birds dance for each other to show off their colors. Do Drev do that?"
He squeezed his eyes shut. He was dying, not only because she kept talking but because of these damn stairs. He was sure they weren't even halfway up by now.
"When ARE you two going to seal the deal anyway? I mean I assume you have been going out for a while, and if you are going to get freaky, best to do it early on. I mean you are already dating an alien so might as well go all the way."
He did contemplate pushing her down the stairs could even imagine her body thumping against the stone all the way down, but he assumed leaving her with a broken neck would be very unkind of him, and his mother hadn't raised a hooligan.
She kept talking, all the way up, asking him increasingly salacious questions until his face was the color of a freshly picked beat and his knuckles were the color of some mushrooms that you find in caves, a sort of sickly off-white sort of color.
He was trying so hard to ignore her that he didn't exactly notice when she started slipping in other comments, comments that were darker, bitter somehow that he could not place a finger on.
"I'm not entirely sure why you would date one of them. They are kind of freaky looking."
He lifted his head a little, frowning, not sure that he had heard her correctly.
"I mean they have that weird beak thing, and the small hands on their lower arms." She shuttered, "It's just gross."
Adam frowned, he could hardly believe her right now, and his desire to push her down the stairs was rekindling.
"Have you ever even tried a human. I mean with you being such a wallflower, and lets be honest, kind of dorky, I doubt you had much luck when you were younger, but you really should at least get out there once or twice, try a human on for size. I mean its unnatural to go outside your species. It leans a little bit too much into bestiality if you ask me."
This time he did stop, and he felt her as she ran straight into his back.
He turned to glare at her.
She stepped back.
"Touched a nerve did I."
"They aren't "beasts"." He snapped, "Now keep talking about my friends like that and I WILL throw you down the damn stairs."
He turned back around and marched even faster upwards.
She kept pace quiet for a long while, and for a moment he hoped that he had scared her off, before.
"That was..... actually kind of hot."
Oh no.
"I like it when you get all angry. Did you know that your voice get's deeper when you do that? You sand up straighter too, which with that shirt on looks really nice." He could almost har her grinning behind him.
"You know I'm a bit of a gymnast actually?"
He had no idea what that was supposed to imply.
"people say I'm very flexible."
Ah, yes, even he wasn't dense enough to get that.
They had made it to the top of the tower now, and he did his best to press himself hard against the wall inching outward to peer around the corner and down the hall. There was nothing there other than stone, and it was mostly dark aside from a sort of dim luminance in the distance. They would likely be in the basement of the palace right now, and the doors were supposed to be well guarded the further they moved up. They would have to rely on Lord Avex to get them any further.
Something pressed against his back as Amelia inched forward to take a look grabbing his arm for support and leaning into him as she looked around him and down the hallway.
He stood stiffly.
Uncomfortable
"And I think we have a little time." He felt something brush against his leg.
He reached down and caught her hand, turning around to look at her with her wrist still gripped tight.
She grinned at him.
He dropped her hand, "Touch me again, and I take your hand." He whispered, "Now shut up and be quiet."
She just grinned at him, not perturbed I the least by his threat, and followed him down the hallway as he moved on silent feet.
As far as stealth was concerned, he wasn't great.
Out of all the people he had trained with.
The Academy
The Drev, and the Spartans, none of them had ever put a great emphasis on stealth.
Even so, he was at least smart enough to know how to step so not to go clattering up the hall like he was wearing a pair of clogs.
Even so, in comparison, Amelia was as silent as a ghost.
That was something he could give to her, she was very very stealthy, once or twice he hardly realized that she was behind him, and almost forgot on another occasion. He supposed it would be surprising considering that she hadn't shut up on their whole way here. Whatever stealth she might have been capable of was covered up by her constantly running her mouth.
His quick respite did not last, and upon realizing that they were mostly alone, she began to speak again.
Adam was generally dense when it came to flirting, or subjects that related to flirting, but whatever she was doing was so exaggerated it might have been naked and dancing in his face for metaphor sake.
She subtly included complements and comments on his body into her observations making him blush on at least one occasion, not because he felt flattered, but because the subject matter was rather.... Questionable. If it had been Sunny in her place, he might have enjoyed it, but with Amelia, there was something missing altogether.
Not that he didn't appreciate the complements.
It wasn't every day that he got praised for physical attributes, all accept for Sunny of course, who only recently had told him that she liked to watch the UV patterns on his skin, could have picked him out of the crowd by his stripes alone. He remembered her trailing her finger down his cheek and onto his neck, following an invisible line that he could not see.
He shivered with the memory.
Someone else took that as an invitation.
He could feel her behind him again, her breath close up against his neck, sometimes brushing right up against her.
"Come on just once." A hand trailed down his arm, "Just so you know what you're missing."
He had his eyes straight forward on the corridor.
A hand traced up his arm from elbow to tricep, "Not like she would need to know, and I am sure she would understand anyway. I am sure she's already been with another Drev. It's only fair."
His movement slowed.
He kept hard to the wall and when he paused, she inserted herself in front of him pressing up against his chest slightly before he managed to pull away and keep going. The further up the path they went the more obvious and straight forward she got. They were close to an intersection, when a couple things happened at once . She began to speak at the same time her hand traveled somewhere that didn't bare thinking about, just as a group of Celzex guards came marching around the corner.
Amelia's eyes went wide as Adam turned, grabbing her by the shoulder, and pressing one hand over her mouth, pushing her back into a small, shadowed alcove. He threw her up against the stone hand still over her mouth and stepped inward. They were chest to chest now, and he was looking down at her their faces almost touching in the tight space. Her eyes were wide with shock.
She lifted her hands to- but then the Celzex guard marched past, and he saw the look on her face as the guard vanished off down the hall.
He let go of her then, turning on his heel, "Will you shut up now?" he hissed.
She didn't speak after that.
He was sure she was back there pouting, but he didn't care to look.
What he wanted more than anything was to get back to Sunny.
Without her he was starting to feel more and more nervous.