“Playfight.” I barely know the meaning of the word, you know? I’m always either playing or fighting. Not a lot of overlap.
But. That dirty old man has been springboarding off my back like a cat and throwing socks at my head for twenty minutes. “Dude,” I say after ducking one of Lore’s knee-highs, teal-white-pink. “Your flirt game sucks. Are you ten?”
Tin’s lips part to reveal inhumanly sharp teeth, stained with lemon. They distract me. He distracts me, really, this four-foot mod that looks for all the works like a pink otter. He looks strangely at home here, a native species to this bedroom with its neatly papered walls, the constant low thrum of Lore’s noise machine, the scattered remains of what clothing we pulled off each other last night. He’s sat on the bed like I am, except with nothing in his hands. He licks his lips and I’m distracted again. “If I am,” he says, “you better start running before the feds hear you love sucking my cock.”
I make a face at him. Gross, on two counts. This guy sucks. “Stop throwing shit at me,” I say, and go back to the game I was playing. It’s an old handheld by modern standards, I guess, but it has my game I like and it fits in my pocket. The Master Sword doesn’t seem very popular, but it keeps me from getting too bored.
Ten seconds later, Tin throws a plastic cup at me.
I don’t think he realized it still had some water in it. Maybe he did. Tin’s hard to read, even for me. It’s not a lot of water, but enough to make me yelp as it flies out of the cup and splashes across my front. It stuns me for a second, which Basalt would kick my ass for, and by the time I gather myself enough to look aghast at Tin the rat is grinning wide as ever.
“Okay,” I say, losing grip on my patience as the half hour of time I put into my look this morning drips onto the rug that decorates Tin and Lore’s room. I set my handheld down on the bedside table, next to Lore’s bifocals and the wrapping from last night’s newest toy. “I’ll play.”
“Huh?” Tin says, but not before I launch myself from the bed and straight into him.
He’s not expecting it, so I manage to get one of his wrists pinned. The problem comes when he starts squirming. He’s a foot shorter than me, and at five-foot-two, most of my grappling training has focused on dealing with opponents bigger than me. I don’t quite know what to do with one that’s smaller, especially when he starts wriggling. “Lemme go!”
“Nope,” I say. “Payback—hey!” It’s here that he’s kicked his way out from under me, that huge tail thrashing around.