Helena Chu (lostchu) wrote in thefield, @ 2009-08-08 14:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | helena, kenneth, z - 1st tribe - day 32 |
Tensions
Who: Kenneth and Helena
When: Early Afternoon
Where: Some back route away from the beach and camp.
What: A chance encounter from two people who were hoping to avoid other people.
Rating: PG, pretty much
Kenneth had been avoiding people all morning. The giddy mood that he was in was so not him. He almost felt drunk but he hadn't been drinking. Kenneth could only assume it was the pink pollen that was covering everything this morning. It was the only thing that made sense. He's already seen people hanging all over each other and his own thoughts regarding Bazzer had made him decide that he really shouldn't go find his...well, whatever Bazzer was to him. Boyfriend, maybe. That sounded right. Anyway, given the thoughts he was having, he knew that seeing Bazzer would just be trouble. Probably more than he could handle.
When he heard footsteps, Kenneth turned around quickly and saw Helena. "Hey there, Sprite. How's it going?"
Helena looked up in surprise when she heard Kenneth's little pet name for her. He had one for everyone, she knew, but no one had ever really given her a nickname before. It felt nice to hear it, especially today. Her inky black hair hung wet over her shoulders and the clean green scent of the soappods clung to her. Despite the heat, she was wrapped in her pink flannel robe, her feet bare and sandy. "Kenneth," she said in surprise. She, herself, had taken a path pretty unused by the rest of the tribe. She'd reluctantly left Cross to shave at the little inlet they'd found to bathe at after their morning of, well...it had been quite a morning. She hadn't expected to run in to anyone and the surprise and the pollen had her heart racing faster than it normally would have. "What are you doing out here?"
He stood up and wiped his hands on this pants. "Hiding," he admitted with a casual honesty that was not the norm for him. Actually, none of his behavior was at the moment Kenneth had to admit that he'd always found Helena to be sort of cute. Not his type though, since she was far too sweet for him. The thing he'd done and would do again if he had too would not have set well with her. That didn't mean he didn't admire and respect her, but neither of those were what he was feeling at the moment. "Feeling a bit off, really. You?"
Fidgetty, as she had been all day, Helena wiped damp palms on her robe and then reached for her hair where it fell over her shoulder. Unconsciously she twisted the locks in her hands, wringing more water. "No one is right today," she told him. Her dark eyes stole to the ground all around them. They were standing amidst some of the bushes. "It's the pollen, it has to be." She said it more to herself than to him, feeling light headed now that she was back in the thick of it and out of the water. "Everyone is effected. Um...camp is a little bit...uncomfortable today."
Kenneth nodded, "Yeah, sort of figured it was the pollen and that camp would be...uh. Well..tempting." Oh, what the hell had made him say that? His gaze followed Helena's hands to her hair then moved over her body again in a way that Kenneth never, ever would have allowed himself to. Jaw clenching, Kenneth looked everywhere but at Helena. "I noticed it when I was doing morning patrols....haven't really gone back to camp. Been avoiding Tiger."
Too much in all of that was too hard for her to follow without wandering off on her own mental tangents. Tempting? Helena wondered who at camp had caught Ken's eye. When he said he'd noticed it during his morning patrols, had he been checking on the camp? Cross had mentioned later that he'd heard someone pass by their lean-to fairly closely right about the time she'd been moaning with abandon. She raised a hand to her flushed cheek and dropped her eyes as well. Tiger? Who did he call Tiger? It took her a minute to sort out the names and faces but she eventually found it. "Bazzer?" she shot Ken a curious look. "Why are you avoiding him?" Clearly, it didn't even occur to Helena that either of the two men might express anything sexual for each other. She'd seen them talking from time to time but nothing about Ken told her that he was interested in men. She just didn't make the leap on her own. Of course, the fuzzy feeling inside her skull might have something to do with it.
Well, now how was he supposed to explain that slip. He was usually way more careful than this, but the pollen was making him sloppy. "No reason." He looked at Helena again and remembered the sounds that had been coming from Helena's lean-to that morning. Deflect, that might work. Maybe he could tell Helena that Bazzer had a crush on him? No, that would only highlight issues he was trying to keep hidden. "I guess things with you and Cross are going well then." Based on what he'd heard, they were doing more than well. Part of Kenneth was jealous that they could have that openly.
Helena might have better kept her face under control but today she was just incapable. She went through shock, embarassment and into dreamy contentment just at the mention of Cross's name. "Yeah," she said, her heart thudding fast and her colour rising again. "We're doing really well." She didn't really think that she and Cross flaunted their relationship any other day but today. Most of the time they were just companionable when they were in camp together. The finished most evenings sitting in front of their lean-to. Life was so busy they barely had time to be a couple but going to sleep and waking up together ever day made her really happy. Especially when she got a wake up like this mornings. That slightly dazed and happy expression, something pretty common to the thoroughly physically sated, stayed on her face as she thought about her blonde giant back at the beach. Maybe she should go back without the food, she thought.
Kenneth felt another low tug of attraction as he watched those expressions flash across Helena's face, but for some reason he didn't lock it down right away. At least, not until he saw the contentment that shown in her expression, then he did. She deserved that kind of happiness. Hell, most people did, but Kenneth felt something deeper for Helena than he did for a lot of the others here and it had nothing to do with the rampant thoughts of sex he was currently experiencing. "Good," he nodded shortly. "I'm glad to hear that." Cross had proven himself to be invaluable to the tribe even if he was a bit standoffish personally with people. "I don't need to threaten him over hurting you then do I?"
Helena opened her mouth to inform him that they had discovered a method to ensure that it didn't hurt when she caught up to the fact that Ken meant in general and not just in lovemaking. Her colour flushed from the deep vee of her bathrobe all the way up her neck to the tips of her ears. "No, you don't," she assured him. She didn't think Cross would stand to be threatened by Kenneth in any sense, most especially where she was involved. Unfortunately, she had a suspicion the men were fairly well matched, if not tipped in Ken's favor after years of study on the matter. Not to mention Ken was usually armed with more than a pocketknife. She didn't like the direction of her thoughts and so she looked for a way out of them. "Um...I found that going for a swim helped." She touched her temple lightly. "Clears the head a little bit."
Nodding, Kenneth was pretty sure he needed some head clearing. He cleared his throat and nodded, "Sounds like that uh, might...be a good idea. The head clearing, not threatening your boyfriend. Pretty sure he already knows you're well loved and hurting you get him into some hot water." Right, that was enough on that subject. "So...any problems in camp from this stuff? Other than probably some fairly wild romping about?" At least Kenneth hoped that was the only affect it was having.
Helena just blinked at Ken for a long moment. She didn't even hear him ask about what might be going on at camp, not that she could have told him in the first place. She hadn't been back there in hours and she hadn't really noticed what was going on there when she left. "Ken," she said, her voice and face feeling tight and sounding neutral. "What gives you the right to make candied threats toward the man that I live with, even though you are only saying them to me and not him? You know perfectly well that he wouldn't take that kind of treatment, if you brought it to him. Why should I have to listen to your threats? I never asked you to protect me. I've done pretty well looking out for myself." Her dark eyes fairly sparked with veiled outrage. "If I felt I was being abused in any way, I would handle it."
Kenneth simply raised his eyebrows at her. "You don't have to listen to damn thing I say, Sprite. And if you'd rather I make them to his face, I'll be happy to do so. Like it or not, people, including me care about you and it doesn't really matter if you invited them to or not with that caring comes concern and with that concern comes a desire to protect. If I thought you were being abused in any way, it would already have bene handled, but I wasn't talking about abuse." There was no doubt in Kenneth's mind if he'd suspected that, Cross wouldn't have been in any shape for his and Helena's morning activitires. "There's a lot of ways to hurt someone without crossing that line." Feeling his own, rather impressive temper rising in a fashion that frankly he found alarming since he hadn't really gotten mad since Shannon had been killed, Kenneth shook his head, turned on his heel and walked away.