The Eye of the Beholder

[Sören]

Even as the pain began to ebb, the desire to gouge the offending eye from its socket lingered. He itched to run the numbers but suspected it was better to wait a while before testing the tech, not least for the quiet of privacy. Because of course she still drifted about in his peripheral, as if she were a moth batting repetitively against some hypnotic light. Though what she found so riveting he failed entirely to comprehend. The new silence suited though. He simply tuned her out.

At least until she invaded and attached herself like a limpet. Sören flinched in surprise, arms caught awkwardly aloft. Where was he supposed to put them, with this thing attached to his chest? His teeth grit, muscles corded tight as he for a moment contemplated retaliation -- or half expected the sharp pain of something stabbed through his guts. Nothing happened though. Just the press of soft feminine heat. “Tomtar på loftet*,” he muttered, low and irritated. If it sounded like an insult, it’s because it was.

It was not like he could not force her off, but he did not particularly want to touch her. The last time he had been caught with a girl in an alley way it had not exactly ended well for him, and the memory of that avoidable loss still burned. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Get off me.”

[[*"Elves in the attic", ie, you're crazy]]