[ CAUGHT ] receiver catches sending getting flushed because of something they are doing or wearing.
Their campfire was a paltry, feeble thing. Belching more black smoke than heat, its flames squirmed and struggled at the wet mouth of the cave, writhing unhappily on their bed of damp kindling. Annie was not convinced it would survive the night, but could not bring herself to coddle or coax its burning – just as she could not bring herself to coddle or coax its architect. If left to her own devices, she would have preferred to face this aptitude test alone. As it was, Jean had been assigned to her, slipped around her neck like a millstone by Commandant Shadis.
She was being unfair, of course. After all, he had been the one to set the fire, and its vapid heat was better than none in the face of such a drenching. Doused in rainwater, her features were made all the harsher, with her fine hair clinging to her skull and neck in a wet sheet. Annie understood that she was not easy on the eyes, that her edges were sharp, almost avian in their composition. Dagger of a girl, any careless glance in her direction could cut, could draw blood. Most chose not to look, or to overlook, yet she was aware of Jean’s gaze humming against her skin like moth wings, furtive and powdery and persistent.
A well-stuffed backpack leaned against the stone wall, her sodden jacket and hooded sweatshirt heaped on top. Everything was soaking and the cold already licked at her bones, washing away what pale colour she possessed, leaving her translucent. While in the process of fixing her wet hair, scraping it back and refastening the tie, Annie paused to look at her partner. In that moment, she was lit by a dazzling flash of lightning, framed by the beaded wall of torrential rain that had brought their three-day hike to a halt. Droplets hung like diamonds and, for the briefest instant, her eyes took on the subtle shine of an animal’s, of something primordial or predatory. Of something inhuman.
Blush had crawled up Jean’s cheeks and he scuffed a hand sheepishly against the back of his neck, his lips parted but his tongue wordless. Annie had seen that look before, although never directed at her. Only ever at her Titan, only ever at girls more appealing than she – girls who were soft in the right places, comely in their features. Annie was soft too, in places normally kept secret. Stripped of her layers, the teardrops of her breasts were apparent beneath the damp cling of a white vest. It ought to repulse her, this foreign sort of attention, the way the dark boreholes of Jean’s pupils damned themselves to the curved edges of her silhouette. Instead, it made her feel strangely powerful, and only a sliver self-conscious.
“What is it, Kirstein? Have you only just figured out I have tits?”
