Lost and Found.
“There's no one following you,” I heard, causing me to come to a quick stop, pivoting to see who said it. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed and a smirk plastered across his face. “So, where's the fire?” Between the body language and the use of metaphor, I could have mistaken him for my Travis if I hadn't known better.
“Leaning against the wall, at the moment,” I retorted as I bit back a growl. This provoked a laugh that tugged at my memories and only served to irritate me that much more.
“I figured you were going to relieve me of that problem named Maddie.”
“That's next on the itinerary once I settle the small matter of my d'k tahg,” I explained much cooler than I expected myself able to. He shrugged.
“Then don't let me stand in the way,” he responded and produced the blade from a random pocket. He then offered it up by holding the handle towards me. I stared at him and it was a moment before I all but snatched it out of his hand. As I carefully inspected it for damage or abuse, he watched me. Finally satisfied he'd not defiled it, I slowly slid it back into its sheath. “I take it you expected a fight?”
“You had proved difficult so far,” I muttered. He cocked his head to the side as he looked at me and chewed his lip a bit.
“He wasn't, was he?”
“He was, but not in the same ways.”
“I must feel like a bad carbon copy.” His statement amused himself enough that he snorted over it.
“So many things are the same. The choice of metaphors, body language, nervous ticks...” I started, then forced myself to take a step back. “But then you do or say something to remind me you're not him. Hold my blade correctly, effectively respond to my defensive moves, fail to respond the right way to my ticks...”
“So you want me to be combat inept, and throw you against the wall for a quick fuck?”
“You're not him,” I said, easily as much to remind myself as to push him away.
“No, I'm not. I'm probably better suited to you than he was-” he started, and I cut him off by violently pinning him to the wall with a snarl. He chuckled and jutted his hips out to meet mine, while putting up no fight to escape my grasp. “Careful, Darlin', or I will take this as an invitation.” I had one hand on his throat, the other holding both wrists against the wall above his head.
He slid one wrist free of my grasp and brought that hand to the back of my neck. He drew me close and caught my lower lip between his teeth, drawing from me a soft growl. My grip on his neck slackened, and I involuntarily arched my body towards him. His other wrist came free of my grip, and found its way to the small of my back.
As suddenly as he'd caught me, I realized what was going on and pulled away. “I don't have time for this,” I insisted. He tried to close the space between us and I slammed him back into the wall again, keeping an arm's length between us.
“I can make it quick, if you'd like,” he offered with a grin. He was clearly finding amusement in this struggle I was going through. I made the mistake of blinking, and found myself pinned to the opposite wall, his leg between mine, my hands held against the wall about shoulder height, and his body was right against mine. "I wouldn't want to come between a predator and her prey, but I think the hunting might go better if we cleared your head a bit first," he suggested, his lips within an inch of mine. I could feel my heart pounding, and I wasn't sure if it was the anger, the frustration, or the thrill of it. Quite probably all of them. It took me a moment this time, but I managed to focus enough that I could shove him away. He stood back and looked at me when I pulled my d'k tahg to keep him at bay.
"Nice scar on your hip. He did it, didn't he?" he smirked as he asked this, and I narrowed my eyes at him. "Thought so. That's one of the places I would have likely focused upon given the chance."
"If you want to keep this up, I'll put you onto my to kill list right before Maddie-" I started to threaten. He laughed at me.
"I don't think you could do it."
"I've killed warriors twice your size." I rushed him with my d'k tahg raised.
"It's not your skill I doubt," he spit out when his knife met mine to block my attack. Our eyes locked for a moment, then he pushed me away. "I'd expect nothing less than kill or be killed, if it really were as simple as that." When I didn't charge again, he put his knife away, and stood looking at me. I spit a string of profanities at him in a mix of English, Klingon and the occasional sample of Andorian, causing him to laugh and I quickly turned to stalk away.
"Don't think of this as victory, I will return to settle this with you," I directed over my shoulder. I heard him chuckle at me, and growled.
"I expect nothing less. Meanwhile, I think I'll try to track down your counterpart, she should prove fun if you're any indicator." I elected not to say anything in reply to that, and turned my focus towards finding my way back to the engineering section.