Move

Bird smoothed his hair back with a bare hand, sitting up in bed.  Wrapped around his bare waist were a pair of smooth, slender arms, connected to a body beneath a pool of thick green hair.  He moved his hand to where the head should be, stroking through the soft locks gently, earning a quiet sigh. Sly squeezed him softly as she nuzzled inwards, an ear flicking as she slept.  

How it managed to come to this always eluded Bird.  When they first met, Bird and Sly were practically at each other's throats.  They would take turns poaching marks and stealing jobs, dogfighting and almost coming to blows.  During business hours, they would bicker and argue in public, but in the quiet corners and dark alleyways, their methods of attack shifted. Teasing words, brushing hands, devious looks: If someone had seen them, they would've mistaken their relationship for anything but hostile.

Then, one night, something changed.  Maybe it was the copious amounts of alcohol and narcotics involved.  Maybe it was that someone wanted something more.  Maybe someone called someone else's bluff and played it all the way out.  Maybe it was all three.  Whatever the cause, the effect was that now between verbal spats and teasing words, there was a rapidly growing amount of physical interludes between the two, and this was one of those.

Bird peered down into the emerald locks, trying to see between the strands of hair to see her face.  She always looked content when she dozed off after their tryst, both of them pushed over the edge and ending up panting and exhausted.  Normally, Bird didn't mind, were it not for the way this particular session began.

No alcohol.  No drugs.  No arguing.  Just a relatively normal day of accompaniment turning into a night of wild abandon.  There wasn't any excuse he could tell himself to still his turning stomach.  Normally, they would have been fighting the entire time, but something unidentifiable prevented it that day.

He knew. He was lying to himself; he knew.  The way her golden eyes glimmered up at him.  The way her toothy smile beamed.  The way she lit up at certain things.  The way her ears swiveled and her tail flicked.  Something about the way she was seemed at ease, letting him drop his guard.  Without their bickering and bitterness, the two of them were surprisingly... compatible, both emotionally and physically.  The very thought made him uncomfortable.

That part, deep down, wanted that connection to her; he craved it.  To be able to relax with someone of his own caliber, someone who he didn't have to put his guard up around.  Knowing her and what she was capable of, though, was all the more reason to stay on his toes.  She was clever, conniving, and a certified cutthroat.  She had to be in this business, so he couldn't blame her, but that didn't stop him from wanting her.  It was selfish.  It was greedy.  It was wrong.

Bird pulled himself out of bed, out of the arms that wrapped around him, and set about getting dressed.  Each time he found an article of clothing, strewn about in their rush to feel each other, he reconsidered inside.  It would be much easier this way.  If he kept this space between them, then he would be safe.  It would be easier this way, he told himself as his heart pounded around the dagger he pushed inside himself.

As he put on his coat, he turned and looked over his shoulder.  Sly had repositioned to lie on her back, still sleeping soundly.  He strode over as silently as his boots would allow, reaching down to stroke her cheek.  So soft and peaceful, she was.  It was a privilege to see her like this.  As his eyes lingered on her, he wished he'd never seen her like this as he walked out of their room.

Sly's eyes clenched as she rolled over, grabbing the pillow across the bed and curled into it, not so ready to relinquish the night they had together just yet.