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Chert stood and stared at blank, unforgiving face of the duplex as he had several times before. These were beginning to be very familiar walls, indeed.

I'm just here for a moment, he thought.

I'll leave as soon as I know she's alright, he thought.

If only there were some way to do that without actually having to knock on the door. After several moments of reflection, during which no miraculous alternative appeared, he finally gave in and announced his presence.

"Coming," a voice yelled from the other side of said door. It took longer than usual due to her crutches, but she eventually arrived there. One look out the peephole made her frown. Despite her doubts, she opened the door anyways, hopping back a bit so the door could swing inside.

Though she kept silent, Antony gave him a pointed look to explain what was going on.

Part of her was relieved to see him safe, however.

Chert scratched at a forearm in agitation, wondering if she'd seen him and decided not to bother, after all. But then the door swung open and revealed the squirrel woman, still slightly taller and a good bit furrier. Her silent demand for information was lost upon him, as his eyes had already flickered over the crutches and darted down to lock onto the object wrapped around her leg.

"Antony," he said stupidly. "Your leg's broken."

Antony returned his stupid look as she tried to decide if she should smack him upside the head with one of her crutches. "No really? Thanks for telling me, I didn't know." Her sarcasm had a bite to it, and she glared at him for a moment before finally speaking again, "Yes, I'm still changed too. Anything else?"

God Chert was dense.

Antony's acerbic tone dissolved the blank look of surprise on Chert's face, which was replaced by a dark scowl. "What happened?" he demanded, his words nearly accusatory, as if the broken limb had been something she had endeavored to obtain.

Far in the back of his head a small voice threw up its hands in dismay- you're off to a wonderful start there, champ. But Chert was worried, and like any emotion he wasn't quite sure how to handle, it found its outlet in his well-developed sense of outrage.

"Oh, -now- you care," she sneered, pushing the door open all the way in case he wanted to come in. Though, the squirrel woman made sure to glare pointedly at his muddy boots just like the last time. They had to come off before he came inside.

Her tails behind her twitched in irritation as she crutched backwards just enough so she could lean against the wall and effectively cross her arms over her chest. "Someone that wanted to eat me chased me up a tree, and I fell when I tried to get away." Why she told him most of the story Antony didn't know, but maybe it would make him feel worse to know that she was attacked.

"Like hell," Chert scoffed automatically in response to her sneer, although there was a flicker of something indefinable behind his eyes. Despite the sullen assertion, however, his next question after hearing of Antony's misadventure was, "Who?" He had yet to make any move towards the inside of her duplex, caught uncomfortably between the determination to follow his original plan of action and the desire to find out more about the situation. It was quite possible he'd be content to stand outside making terse inquiries until she shut the door in his face.

She gave him a long hard look before turning to crutch back inside, muttering Jamal's name over her shoulder. He may be content to stand there all day, but she had had enough of standing. Her broken leg especially. "My leg's bothering me so either come in and shut the door or just run away again like you probably want to."

Spiteful? Not at all.

Sitting down as carefully as possible, Antony propped her leg back up on the pillow atop the coffee table, immediately moving to close her sketchbook and stuff it away.

The muscles in Chert's shoulders tensed at the jab. For just a breath, it seemed he might listen to the pull of well-worn habits and turn his back on the duplex, but when he moved again it was to bend down and unlace his boots. Mulishness had won the day. His fingers attacked the laces of the footwear like an enemy. Run away? he hissed silently. Like hell. Chert's new mantra.

"Jamal?" he muttered, stepping through the door. "Zach mentioned a Jamal- said he might be the person I was looking for."

"He had just changed..." She explained, glancing over to him when he actually unlaced his boots and came inside, an eyebrow raising. "Who are you looking for?" It was asked while she finished pushing the notebook away on the end table.

The couch next to her was empty, and she looked slightly comforted that he hadn't run away again.

"Who do you think?" he asked impatiently. Antony hadn't slept through the announcement too, had she? "If Jamal attacked you, then maybe he went after Aubrey, too."

The notion was troubling. Chert had originally assumed that whoever had wounded the red-head had done so because she was a staff member; the possibility that it had been an act of random, unrestrained violence hadn't occured to him until just then.

A part of his mind was momentarily occupied watching Antony store the notebook in a safe place, and found it oddly distressing. But the thought was quickly cut off at the source, and he steered his brain back to the central matter at hand.

"He may have, but I'd say it was suicide going AFTER him yourself! He's turning into a ******** tiger. A big, angry black man who's been outfitted with claws and a jaw full of knives! Besides, Moreau probably already suspects him." She snapped, moving to stand up and face him due to a natural reaction, but she stopped short when pain shot up her leg, causing her to collapse back down on the couch, wincing somewhat. "********, we don't even know if the chips still work... And if they can't zap him down, he could very well kill you."

Her chest heaved somewhat through her anger, which had sprung from the fact that she, deep down, really didn't want him to commit suicide. Especially if it were thanks to her.

chert looked both baffled and irritated by her infuriation. "Well for ******** sake, nothing's ever going to happen if everyone just sits here with their thumbs up their asses," he spat. Someone had managed to lay their hands on a staff member and it rankled to think that Moreau might cart them off into the belly of the labs, never to be seen again, without anyone finding out how it had been accomplished. But if the murderer really was someone like Jamal- someone who attacked others indiscriminately- Chert was also appalled that they'd been allowed to run loose on the island. That meant the attack on Aubrey was less of a deliberate victory than it was a simple, stupid mistake on the part of the staff. If you stuck your hand into a hungry shark's tank and wiggled it around, something unfortunate was bound to happen sooner or later. Idiots on top of the hill, madmen at the bottom- it's a bad situation, he thought grimly.

The implications of Antony's last statement buzzed around in his head, drawing him into a preoccupied silence. <********, we don't even know if the chips still work... And if they can't zap him down, he could very well kill you. True, Chert wasn't very big on the whole getting mauled by a man-tiger thing, but if the chips actually were malfunctioning... Needless to say, it was worth the risk of getting zapped again to verify if it were so. There was still the matter of Antony, however. An inquiry like, Hey, would ya mind if I had a go at your head with this lamp? probably wouldn't go over especially well right then.

"Well I can't exactly do anything about it now can I?!" She growled, tails lashing behind her, "Considering I'm on crutches you know!"

His thoughtful look caught her offguard, but she soon connected the dots and gave him a pointed look. If he decided to try anything on her, oh she'd be pissed. Volitile enough to beat him with a metal crutch that's for sure. "Why'd you come here anyways? Think -I- killed her?" Antony rolled her eyes and set her jaw, daring him to answer the last question with a 'yes' sort of answer.

Chert stiffened perceptibly. Most of Antony's barbs had sunk deeply into his guilt-weakened defenses, and though a part of him felt it was a well-deserved punishment for his early cowardice, he was also beginning to tire of their raw sting. "It's always possible she choked to death on your acid wit," he said without thinking, like a dog that snarls when a hand touches a wound too roughly.

"Is the kettle calling the pot black again?" She grunted, eyeing him with a bit less anger as she calmed down ever so slowly. Falling silent in order to focus on taking a few deep breaths, Antony fussed irritably with the pillow under her cast before speaking again, voice calmed considerably. "You never answered my question, Brian."

At the use of his name she looked over at him, searching his eyes for a moment before sighing roughly, "Why'd you come here? We haven't exactly been on good terms since your morning after panic attack..."

The use of Chert's real name caused him to flinch and grit his teeth, and he appeared almost suspicious of the unexpected softening of her tone. Scanning his expression would only reveal that he was still fighting the same old war with the tangle of conflicting impulses that he always was.

You can't fix this- get out while you're still ahead.
Maybe you should actually try answering her directly this time. It couldn't hurt.
Oh ******** yes, it could.
Why'd she calm down? Is this some sort of trick?
Don't just stand there- say SOMEthing.
What the hell are you doing? You weren't going to get involved, again!

Chert's jaw worked soundlessly for a moment. Then, "I was... worried."

The word somehow managed to slip out, unbidden, in the middle of the mental chaos.

Antony blinked.

That was not what she had expected him to say, and her jaw actually dropped slightly. Her mouth was quickly closed as she tried to process this new, obviously honest information. She kept her gaze on him while she remained silent, soon resorting to chewing on her lip ring as an old habit.

"You were worried?" Maybe she had heard wrong? It seemed like such a non-Chert thing to say. An eyebrow cocked upwards to accentuate the question.

Chert looked, if anything, nearly as surprised as Antony... and perhaps just a tad bit horrified. He belatedly masked the expression with a stormy scowl.

"What?" The single word dripped with scorn. Maybe if he pretended the possibility was ridiculously laughable, she'd mark the slip off as a product of her imagination. "I said I was hurried- I don't have time to pick and choose who I question, when Moreau might find his suspect at any moment."

Her eyes narrowed dangerously while she carefully stood and gathered her crutches, closing the distance between them rather quickly. "You're a horrible liar, and a cowardly a**," she said, tone intensifying from relatively clam to nearly yelling as she continued to speak, moving so that she was almost face to face with him. "You don't even respect me enough to be honest with me, and if you think by being Mr. Snitch you'll get a 'Get Off the Island Free' card, then you're denser than I thought. Either way you'll end up a rat..."

Antony's knuckles were white from the grip that they had on her crutches, and she shifted slightly as if she either wanted to hit him. Maybe with her crutch?

"Better a rodent than a vicious, self-righteous b***h!" he shouted back, glaring up at her with fury etched into every line of his face. Antony's words were flaming arrows, and each one of them had painfully hit their mark, igniting feigned anger into real rage in the process. But there was also a tinge of naked shock to the expression- no one in the history of Chert had ever called his bullshit quite so forcefully. Part of him was reeling as if it'd been punched in the face by a 200 pound boxer named Larry.

"You want to hit me?" he challenged. "Do it. Go the ******** ahead!"

"A squirrel is a rodent -too- you a*****e," she countered, catching the shock but saying nothing more, caught offgaurd by his challenge.

At first she wanted to, maybe knock some sense into him while she was at it, but it wasn't long before it dawned on her. "You'd like that wouldn't you?" She chittered, glaring at him as a heat worked it's way across her body.

He wanted a reason to leave and never have to come back. A way to exalt him from any guilt he harbored when it came to her. He was trying so hard to stay in control and repair his broken defenses, and Antony wasn't about to let that happen.

Suddenly, she let go of her crutches and roughly gripped the sides of his head as she converted passionate anger into unbridled passion. She was unrelenting, the crutches were even ignored as they clattered to the floor, her tails keeping her balanced while she pressed herself against him. The previous fight fueling pent up frustrations and good ol' animal lust.

Chert's thoughts scattered like startled birds in the face of her sudden passion. The only thing that managed to stay centered was the enduring anger that pulsed white-hot and jealous around the vulnerable contents of his psyche, but even that was not invulernable. It responded warmly to the demanding touch of Antony's lips, shifting from the pure white incandescence of rage to the bright crimson glow of lust in a heartbeat. He pressed his hands into the small of her back forcefully, as if to ensure that she didn't change her mind again, and moved to deepen the kiss.

She groaned low in her throat when he held her tight and increased the fevor, arching her back against him at the sensations burning through her. Without thinking, she slid her hands down his neck and along his shoulders, nails leaving marks as she needily gripped the muscles there for support. The kiss grew in heat and as her left leg moved to try and hook around his hip and pull him closer.

Pain mingled together with pleasure in a sharp, compelling sensation that set his blood aflame. He gladly submitted to the pull of her leg, pressing his hips against her as he broke the kiss for just a moment to n** at the edge of her ear with his white, even teeth.

Antony shuddered against him, breath ragged as she dipped down to taste the flesh along the crook of his neck. The taste and smell of his skin, heightened by her changes, drove her hormones even further. Even her tails were quivering in the excitement.

Chert purred huskily in appreciation. Her tails over her shoulder, their shivering strange but also strangely encouraging. Still pressed against her, his pelvis tilted upward in a silent question, driven by the demanding heat her close proximity caused.

His question was answered with a soft noise of pleasure as arched her back again, pressing herself against him. Her answer was obvious. How could she say no?