#blackx

Amused, she stepped into the living space, quickly taking in the spartan furnishings and dingy wallpaper. It wasn't the fanciest of places she'd ever had to hide in, but it wasn't bad either, clean and had plenty of the electronic toys Earth boys stereotypically liked to own.

"You have a roommate?" she asked, crossing her arms as she took in the large flatscreen mounted on the wall.

"Well, no," he admitted, playfulness in his voice. "But it sounded less pathetic than confessing I have a twelve-year-old tan Persian who sheds everywhere."

Blackfire pursed her lips, unsure if that was another lie or not.

She decided to match his teasing with her own. "Aww and here I was hoping you had your own butler I could order around."

He chuckled. "Maybe I can hire one with the next big score."

His black-gloved hand caught her around the waist from behind, snagging her and pulling her closer, and despite her misgivings she allowed herself to be tugged against him.

He held her flush against his hips, his body warm and solid, and Blackfire sighed softly as she slid hands up his chest.

His head nuzzled into the side of her face, the breath whistling through the mask slots to tickle her skin. So much inside her wanted to just melt into the embrace, let it lead where it always did—to a familiar tangle of bare limbs in soft sheets.

They stood there, swaying to silent unheard music, leaning this way and that against each other and the space between them got smaller and smaller.

Her hands drifted up, draping over his shoulders. She slid them up his neck.

He pressed his palms against the open skin of her back, his breaths relaxing.

But as soon as she chanced putting her hands on the edges of the skull mask, while he was lowering his guard, he stiffened.

He grabbed her hands at the wrists with a firm, whispered, "Don't."

A little disappointed he'd caught her so quickly, she leaned back to give him the full sultry eyes treatment. "C'mon X... just a little peek?" she begged.

Red X pulled away, breaking the embrace and ruining the sensual moment.

"We've talked about this," he just said, shutting down debate on the matter.

He turned away and busied himself with stripping off his gloves, fiddling with the xenothium dispensers in them, eventually setting them to the side and trying to clean up a pile of dishes left in the sink.

He wouldn't look at her.

Blackfire stepped back a bit, fuming internally, and crossed her arms.

"So you'll let me crash at your apartment and you'll sleep with me but you still won't tell me who you are?" she accused. "Won't let me see your face?"

"We have an agreement," he emphasized, his movements terse now. "You don't ask about my backstory, I don't ask about yours. Surface level only."

That stung, somewhere deep within Blackfire's Tamaranian nature. "Well, I want to renegotiate that agreement," she said sourly.

"No can do sweetheart," he said, having the audacity to turn and wink at her, the eyelet of the mask squeezing closed.

"Don't 'sweetheart' me!" she snipped. Her eyes burned, hot with a hurt she didn't fully understand why she had.

His placating hands reached for her shoulders. "Babe, c'mon," he crooned. "What's the big deal?" The black-clad shoulders shrugged. "So you haven't personally seen my mug. So what?"

She glared fiercely, but didn't roll his hands off her shoulders. "Maybe I'm getting tired of opening up my bed and my body to someone who won't even show me his eyes."

Red X snorted. "That sounds like a personal problem. Your sister manages just fine, dating the kid."

Blackfire bit down a comment on how Starfire had clearly seen Robin's eyes at this point in their relationship. She didn't even have to ask about it from her in-the-know sources (AKA Jinx), she could just tell from looking at them from a distance that that level of trust was there.

"What are you so afraid of?" she demanded instead. "You think after all this time I'd sell you out to the cops or, X'hal forbid, my sister and her do-gooder friends?" She looked at him with disgust. "I thought you knew me better!"

His hands dropped off her and he stepped back with an indignant huff. "Like you're one to talk!" he shot back. "Don't think I don't know about you handing your own sister over to Gordanian slavers. Twice."

Well, he had her there. She did in fact do that.

"And we've been together how many months and you still won't admit your little nighttime bathroom visits are because you get nightmares instead of bladder issues?" he went on. "What, worried you'll ruin your image as a cold and heartless bitch by being a little vulnerable in front of me?" he sneered.

Blackfire's hands tightened on her arms. She looked off into the entrance hall and refused to meet his gaze. Apparently Red X wasn't as heavy a sleeper as she'd thought, if he'd been able to hear her get up in the middle of the night from their bed and lock herself in the bathroom to work out the inexplicable panic that had started seizing her recently.

(She didn't understand it, she had never had nightmares about the war or the Citadel before.)

"Not like I care about your childhood traumas anyway," Red X dismissed.

She rolled her eyes and pinned them back on him, in challenge. The very fact that he was bringing it up as an issue he had with her meant he did care about it in some fashion. So that was yet another lie to add to the pile of falsehoods she'd collected from Red X.

He met her gaze with an unfriendly expression of his own.

"I'm not afraid, sweet cheeks," he defended, a little too tersely. "I just know from experience that as soon as you let people get too close to you, as soon as you start letting your guard down, as soon as you begin to open up—" He snapped his fingers to emphasize. "—that's when you get stabbed in the back and hurt."

She didn't answer that, her eyes dropping guiltily.

He leaned back, surveying her coolly. "Am I wrong?"

For a moment she didn't say anything.

Then she sighed an exhausted and sympathetic, "No."

No, he wasn't wrong. She knew that process intimately as well.

So once again they were at impasse. He wouldn't move the line further for her, she wouldn't crack the door open wider for him.

She'd always told herself she was beyond Tamaran's silly cultural norms for open intimacy and earnestness, that she could keep herself closed off and emotionally unavailable, that she could lie and not feel bad about it.

But apparently, she couldn't shake her upbringing. And being constantly lied to by an intimate partner, even one she'd agreed to keep things "surface level" with, irritated her more than she had anticipated it would.

X'hal help her if she was growing any kind of conscience.

They stood there in that moment an awkward second or two longer.

Deflecting, Red X's tone turned playful once again. "Come on, let's just forget about it." His hands were on her arms again, rubbing them with reassurance. "Let me make you a dessert and some drinks. Whatever you want. Okay?"

She huffed. "You're incorrigible," she told him.

"If that means handsome and charming, you're exactly right," he quipped brightly, moving to the fridge.

Blackfire turned the opposite direction and made to find a perch on the squat, plush green couch in the living area.

"Don't even think you're getting any sex tonight unless that dessert blows my socks off," she grumbled.

She flopped herself onto the couch to the sound of his annoying amused chuckle, and stewed in her own resentment.

---

Best part about writing villain couples is getting to explore extremely messy dynamics. :)

So! Both Red X and Blackfire have obvious trust issues, and Blackfire is quite literally fighting against her own nature to try to keep her aloof walls up, because Tamaranians are culturally earnest and openly expressive. Though they can lie they are not generally duplicitous. Blackfire's actually a bit of an odd man out for being able to hide her ruthless and cruel side so well. (Her jealously and pettiness? Much harder to hide.)

Red X I kind of headcanon as having been through a string of failed foster homes and broken relationships, which is where his trust issues lie. Blackfire just doesn't want to admit she's more like her sister than she'd thought, lol. (Frustrated by a partner who closes himself off, not fond of deception directed towards her, etc.) At this fic's stage in their relationship I think Blackfire's beginning to catch feelings and also start to feel very safe around him. Hence her mind and body feeling okay enough to finally start processing that backlog of PTSD she very likely has from Tamaran being a warzone for years. (That's where the nightmares are coming from.)