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She had returned to the infirmary after turning in her mission report. New clothes, some sleep, and swiped MREs until she got one with skittles.

Expired skittles, but skittles nonetheless.

So she sat in the barracks, eating her victory skittles, surrounded by the constant noise of cuntasticular hunters who had, already, spent too much quality time together.

Clerise did not count herself in those ranks, but she surely belonged there as much as anyone else.

Especially because she was still bitching at everyone to shut the ******** up every now and again, slouching in her bunk.

Being a hunter was suffering. Now that she was idle again, Clerise's fingers twitched for her daggers (slowly but surely becoming reliable pals in her arsenal, though she missed the weight of Balthazar with every swing), and she was back to being ...

Undistracted.

Which meant thinking, or trying to avoid thinking.

Time to eat all the yellow skittles first and glare at bitches. All the bitches. All of them.

They were two peas of a pod in that respect. Without time away from people, Clerise detested more and more of them.

Especially two boyfriend Rep, who had decided to give her a s**t eating grin.

Clerise crunched down on a skittle, training her withering glare on him.

"Keep on walking, dude." Red eyes flicked to his shoulder, disappointed, in a way, that it was probably healing over at a nice rate. "Seriously. ******** off."

She should have known.

Clerise deliberately crunched on another skittle. "Shouldn't you be doing something productive? Preferably out of my general ******** area?"

A lower eyelid twitched.

"Aren't you a little busy for me, anyway? I mean, not just one guy has you as their b***h, but two." Clerise made a little b*****b motion with her mouth, poking her tongue at her cheek as she shoved invisible dong in her mouth. "********. Off."

Good. She hoped it stung just like his little comments had. He wasn't the only one with a selective filter.

"Oh, no, a b***h," Clerise replied, placing a hand to her chest and offering Rep a mock-hurt expression. "Gosh, what will I ever do? Someone called me a b***h! What a terrible insult-- ohh. Wait. It's just the truth. Why would I possibly be offended." She had dripped back into deadpan.

The words stung, but she had prepared herself a little, this time. He obviously held no regard for her or what had happened-- so why should she give a s**t about his?

So she laughed, low and jilted. "I am pretty sure if the weapons left us based on personality, you would have died a long, long time ago."

Clerise cocked her head. "Were you expecting more of a reaction?" The place between her heart and lungs ached. He'd been so ******** nice, for no reason, forcing her to talk about the fact that there was a void in her head and her heart and she was alone, so <******** alone and he had proved, that maybe, she didn't have to be, he had called her so ******** stupid, just talk to someone, get help, you don't have to do everything alone--

She, perhaps, did not school her face into perfectly emotionless, but she tried. And failed. Instead, the Life trainee just ended up looking even more miserable than before.

Smooth, Clerise. Smooth. She focused on her mental image of strangulating Rep with his own stupid scarf.

"So you think," Clerise replied sweetly. "I thought Balthazar couldn't ******** get away either."

Clerise recalled a very fantastic picture she had of the three of them, cozied up together looking comfortable. There was a well of issues buried behind her resentment for Rep, with how at ease he had been.

Oh, he wanted physical, did he? She carefully set down the bag on her bed, light on her feet as she got into Rep's face.

"Takes one to know one, huh pal?" Baring her teeth at Rep in snarl, Clerise jabbed him hard in the chest. She quickly felt herself unraveling. "You have a lot of ******** nerve without two braincells to ******** rub together. I'm sure if you lost your sorry excuse for , you'd be just a little out of sorts, too."

"..................................."

For some reason, being called Jerry and a woman by Rep were what finally did her temper in. She was no ******** moper, and she knew that tone of his when he was talking about girls. It had been the one she'd heard during their first duel, had read through the screen on twitter a few short months ago.

She raised a hand to slap him, but a niggling corner of her mind knew that he'd just take that and use it against her, too. So instead?

Clerise headbutted Rep, satisfied by the feeling of her forehead smacking into him.

It was on.

Clerise had not been a brawler before Deus. She couldn't throw a punch to save her life, and still, it was a weaker one than the average hunter.

As her face crashed into Rep's nose, the redhead started laughing almost maniacally, enjoying the fact that Rep hurt. Pain meant that your nerves were firing to your neurons, it meant that you were alive.

Feeling alive was better than not feeling at all, and exhilaration was a far cry better than incessant moping.

Especially as his fist careened into her face, head immediately whipping back, falling back against the bed frame. Her head spun-- god it HURT.

"I'm not a b*****d, you ridiculous little c**t," Clerise griped, raising up her leg to ofer Rep a kick in the side, slowly re-steadying herself on her feet. They were both bleeding from the nose, now, a real pair of champions.

"My parents were married but okay, whatever! Judging from your manners, did you even HAVE any?"

Clerise could parse this. There were no sad memories of dead anyone, no longing for what she couldn't be, no regrets and--

Rep deflated like a pricked balloon, looking like a morose, bleeding puppy dog. Clerise may have been cranky, but she wasn't heartless.

Clerise kept her arms up to guard herself, not trusting him to not suddenly go creepy child on her and slaughter her on the spot. He didn't know her full story, and she didn't know his.

It wasn't her place to ask. Narrowing her eyes, Clerise stayed silent.

She knew better than to ask. Instead, Clerise heaved a laborious sigh, crossing her arms tight about her arms.

On the one hand, Clerise still wanted to break faces. Just...maybe not his. Even if he did have his two ******** ********. Even if she still resented him for everything he'd said, resented him for being a complete c**t to her about Balthazar.

Huh. Maybe this was friendship. Weird feeling, that was.

Huffing, Clerise grabbed at her bag of skittles on the bed, then stalked over to where some towels were, snagging two. They'd stirred up some commotion, but now that they were QUIET, well.

"No, no. Don't do this judge everything based on a fraction of the story, a*****e. You're getting blood everywhere. Fix it." She chucked a towel at him. "Also I still hate you." She chomped on more candy, grumpy.

Clerise cleaned herself up, wincing. "Christ, you got me good, you ******** candy gone and blood cleaned, the acrobat pursed her lips at him.

"Feeling is mutual, dude. Believe me, I know that I'm a neutered b***h running off runic weaponry. Rubbing it in may make YOU feel better, but I want you to SERIOUSLY think about what you would do if you woke up tomorrow and your weapon decided to take a vacation."

It was easier to talk about now that she knew (hoped) he was coming back. "That presence upstairs that has slowly found a home in your miserable excuse for a brain? Gone. All that advice, whether you want or need it? Absent. That connection to something that saved you from whatever life you had before? Severed. All that's left is you and your own thoughts and it feels like drowning, so..."

The acrobat flipped Rep the bird. "I stand by my ******** you." Clerise huffed. "Plus, you started it."

Maturity levels going off the charts.