The Upstart Puppy Banter Routine

Priest comes one night while he lies awake on the cot he shares with Lucy, following cracks in the ceiling with his eyes and wishing for a proper pillow. His jacket and spare pants refuse to so much as be mistaken for a comfortable place to rest one's head, no matter how much punching and adjusting he does.

It's nights like this that he misses Luce most when she's away. He would never think of her as the soft-spoken, darn-my-socks-by-the-fire missus, but she has a way of making impromptu pillows. He recalls the stinging kiss she'd left him with before swinging onto an unfamiliar Priestess' bike and speeding away, heading towards some secret hidey-hole for a few days of training. She had a penchant for knives that Hicks recognized, and found terribly entertaining.

He thinks there was sand on her lips, for some reason. That's probably why it hurt, just a little.

It's then that Hicks doesn't hear so much as feel the floorboards of the little old house give beneath a booted foot, no matter the care of the intruder. One of the young man's hands hangs carelessly off the side of steel-frame cot, fingers trailing the ground. The position is not an accident; Hicks moves three inches to firmly grasp the handle of his gun, secured to the underside of the frame.

Priest swings the creaking bedroom door open and eyes Hick's concealed hand with faint amusement, clearly unimpressed.

"Really?" He says, voice rough from the desert and days on a bike.

Hicks scowls, abandoning the weapon as he sits up. "What did you expect? Coming into a man's…well, not home, but…" He trails off; Priest doesn't care and he's too tired for it. The upstart puppy banter routine, as he thinks of it.

A short silence as Priest meanders across the tiny room (barely five paces), before Hicks prompts, "News?"

"There's a hive, a new one, far north and to the west." Priest appears to finish his study of the floorboards and settles directly opposite Hicks, shoulders leaning heavily into the wall.

Hicks tries hard not to admire the holy man's ragged lines.

"Lots of activity, supposedly."

He could see himself framing that silhouette with thrown knives; he's pretty sure he has enough.

"I heard Lucy went with the Priestess from Babylon. When is she due to return?"

It'd be a delicious challenge to snare a few inches of his robe, here and there, and miss the skin. A Priest pinned to his bedroom wall and his girl away.

"What?" Hicks is astounded by Priest's ability to cut through the fog of fantasy with his glare alone. The question isn't repeated. Hicks fumbles through recent memory.

"Oh. Ah. Another two nights, I think."

He catches the boots that are thrown at his chest with an oofh!

"Get dressed then. We'll go ahead and have them meet us on the way." Priest pulls some piece of tech that Hicks doesn't know (but could probably identify) from his waist and starts thumbing the controls.

"Wait. Uh, is the other Priestess going to be there?" Hicks shoves his feet into his shoes and stands to flip the frame, intent on his gun.

"Which one," Priest, making for the door and still focused on his probably-communicator, doesn't look up.

"That's kind of my point…" He says to the knot he's struggling with; Lucy tied it. "How do you guys differentiate? I mean, Priest and Priestess, okay, but Priest and Priestess and Priestess? Come on."

Priest rolls his eyes. Hicks is still shoveling what canned goods he and Lucy had lucked upon into a hastily made pack when an engine revs outside and he hurries for his own bike with a swear.

I always catch myself thinking of Hicks as a puppy.

-Oceans