Tent Fever

You got accustomed to them - the ones who could shut their eyes anywhere and pass right out. Men who made it through flights that practically bucked across the sky without so much as a snort – and eventually stopped begrudging them so much. The ones who just dropped out there in the sand and were sleeping like babies in an instant. People whose minds could just switch off in an instant while yours raced and tumbled and took through daredevil loops and whirls before your own sleep came. Even with the way she’d been worn out just a couple of hours ago and the drape of a large body over her own like a weighted blanket Katja had struggled.

It was never the same when it came to waking up. The snap of a twig, just a subtle shift of sound and she was waking. Hair raising on the back of her neck, the heat instantly flaring in the pit of her stomach in case. In the middle of a military camp it had made for a sharp learning curve. Coming to full consciousness in the dark, breath a gasp in her throat, hands gripping at the edge of a cot. The flash of eyes in the dark softened by a gleam of teeth, her own people knowing just what it was like. Each had their own story of that first rush of adrenaline, even if her exact nightmare was hers alone.

Years of immersion in the camps had eased those early ragged nerves. Now it wasn’t the same fear that left her heart pounding jack rabbit fast in her chest. Nerves popped like live wires beneath her skin, the thin blanket rasping over them as she sat up, fingers caught in that rough wool. Blue eyes fixed on the paler slit where the curtain flap tied shut.

Flimsy. Its protection as shitty as the blanket she held against her chest like she was a damsel in distress about to shriek and swoon.

No. Nothing to just dismiss. No rolling back over to try and find a cool spot alongside the additional furnace on her cot. By now she had learned to trust that thing in the pit of her stomach. The spot where the scream had bubbled up as she had seen the blade cut her father down in a darkness almost as complete as this one. Now it was whispering to her.

Clutching mental fingers around it the same way she had clung to the blanket she slapped at the man in her bed, waiting for that flash of blue eyes under the opening lids. Summer sky or electric blue, either way it didn’t matter as long as she could get him awake.

Katja growled low in her throat – not the sort of sonorous vibration he could muster up, low and animalistic enough to have the hair on the back of her neck raising in a different way – as he groaned and scrabbled deep again. A slap of her hand, the gritty bite of stubble against her fingers before she curled them around his shoulder and went to shake again.

No need. He was stumbling up, her fingers slipping over that solid muscle as he tumbled out of the cot. Covers snared around him, those eyes finally opening and look at her, bright, not hazy with sleep. ”What.” She bit the word back at him, dark brows rising. Katja’s teeth gritted, a low string of Quechua rolling out of her, questioning whether his IQ dropped with every item of clothing he stripped off. One finger pressed to her lips as she finished, her head tilted towards that sound that still whispered outside.

Goddess. Her hands tangled in her dark hair, dragging it back from her face as she knelt on her cot, watching him drop and roll as though there was anywhere in the tent that was going to provide enough cover for him. Blue eyes narrowed right back at his. She pursed her lips, reaching down to pick up the pants he’d discarded the night before when the only thing that had mattered was shedding everything in as little time as possible. ”They’re not barging in here at all,” she hissed. ”Weeks here and nobody’s checked on me … this is something …” Scrabbling for her own underwear Katja tapped a finger against her nose, jerking her chin up towards the tent flap.

The footsteps came to a stop on the other side of the tent flap. That strange feeling in the air intensified, like energy crackling over her skin, rising goose flesh in its wake. Katja stopped, stared at it with her panties wadded in one fist. Her heart tripped into double time leaving her jumping as the tent fabric rippled like fingertips were dragged across it. ”Did you bring your weapon?” Katja mouthed the words at Kit as she glanced at him, lowering herself slowly until she was on her knees beside her cot, trying to find her own in that tangle of clothing.

Tagged: KIT CLARKE * Word Count: 839

Training didn’t – hadn’t – covered being roused from sleep to fight. The men in camp should’ve been used to the idea by now. Places like this had no adherence to the civility of waiting until business hours to fight. War was messy and stuck to no clock. Just like the men who had attacked her village. They’d come with the dark, waiting for the village to be settled before they had mown their way through it. For years after Katja had found herself waking at the slightest noise. Clinging to the covers as she shoved herself upright in the tiny room she’d taken for herself at the Order’s headquarters, heart thumping in her throat as she strained for some sign of the trouble her dozing brain had anticipated in something innocent.

This didn’t feel like something innocent and she wasn’t sitting there still naked until her heart had settled. This felt like something more than the teachable experience she’d made everything outside of these entanglements in the sheets with Kit so far.

She’d finally gotten the impression through to him, although it had taken a while. Super senses her ass. The cursing question that had rolled out of her had those blue eyes narrowing at her, she narrowed her own back, a disgusted little sound following. Maybe she should’ve left him snoring on the cot and dealt with it herself, shown she was more than an interpreter, a teacher to one who could be so dense.

Feeling the wrong still shiver over her skin she scrambled into her own clothing, well, enough that she was decent enough in case she was wrong with all of this. Her smile was tight, the heat at the base of her throat growing. ”Exactly. Weird shouldn’t be on base, hmm?” There’d never been a dividing line for it in her life before, although until she’d come across Kit that first night out here it had neatly clustered back home. Now the fire was building, threatening what she’d made here too. How did you explain to your superiors you needed a move because something supernatural had come looking for trouble in the night?

You didn’t. You dealt.

And sleepy as he might’ve been a few moments ago Kit was doing that. A glint of pride burned in Katja’s eyes as she hauled on her pants. She rolled to her knees, cursing lightly as she saw him get ready to spring. The t-shirt was over one arm, barely drooping to waist level as Kit bounced out into the night. She yanked at it. Cursing louder now she wasn’t worried about letting anything know they were there, Katja scrambled after him. He’d handled it, claws like that stupid character in the movie the men had made her watch at the last camp. The one who could heal anything. A mutant. ”OK Wolverine.” she drawled lightly. The thing had been secured at least, bloodily pressed back before Kit descended into double entendre again.

That heat furled lower as she hummed lightly. She dropped to her knees atop the thing, straddling its thighs as she pushed back the dark hood of the sweatshirt that had covered its face. Katja’s own teeth bared as she saw the fangs, not like the wolf that had crouched over it – a snake’s, venomous. ”Careful!” she snapped at Kit in warning. Her hands went for the thing’s throat to hold it down as the heat began to spill lava hot from her palms. ”Vetala! Snake creature. Their bite is venomous and usually they are not alone. You must take its heart or its head. Now.” The heat was already sweltering, her skin glowing red hot with it as she began to sear through the struggling flesh.

Katja’s head came up, the eyes that glared just as red hot fixed on the tent flap and then on Kit. She jerked her chin towards the outside. ”They usually do not hunt alone. You don’t find another out there, maybe we’ll still have some of the night, huh?” There was amusement working its way thin over her face. Had those things come for the two of them? Not likely, but the camp was a smorgasbord at this time of night. People patrolling alone, a meal for anything that would do them wrong here.

Tagged: KIT CLARKE * Word Count: 715