So be it on earth...

Ch.2 Near Fire

"Hey, what was that for?!" Lincoln didn't remember having done anything that made him deserve the punch, since he hadn't even missed a single comment about the lousy telenovela she was forcing him to watch, "Has anyone ever told you that you act like a cat at times?"

Frowning, Lincoln continued rubbing his arm. He looked quite annoyed, this, instead of putting a stop to the latin girl's attitude only managed to put a bigger smile on her face.

"I'm sorry Lincoln, it's just that something triggered me to punch you but I don't know what, I swear it wasn't on purpose!" And she wasn't lying, every time the two of them were alone, Ronnie Anne suffered a kind of nervous impulse that forced her to hurt the albino. "Here, let me help you with your poor wittle arm."

Neither the smile that remained glued to the girl's lips, nor the mocking voice with which she had said the last thing, helped much to improve the atmosphere between the two friends. Turning down the volume of the television and trying to sound as motherly as possible, Ronalda began to sing a song that her grandmother had taught her years ago.

"Sana, sana, culito de rana" Lincoln's face lit up when he felt his friend's lips touch his right arm just above the place where she had punch him, " sí no sanas hoy, será mañana..."

"Hey... What are you doing?" The boy didn't know how to react, the few times Ronnie was affectionate with him, she managed to stun him in every possible way. Feeling a second kiss on his arm, Lincoln was about to relax and let himself be pampered when he suddenly felt a cold row of teeth close just below his shoulder.

Again with a gesture on his face that clearly denoted annoyance, Lincoln turned to the right, only to find his friend with her mouth open and glued to his arm as she stared at him with a nervous expression. Despite knowing she'd been discovered, Ronnie Anne continued to bite playfully.

"All right! God knows I wanted to be good to you," Lincoln quickly and nimbly wrapped Ronnie in a hug making it impossible for her to move freely, "but he knows better than anyone that you brought this on yourself."

The girl didn't understand what all the dialogue or the spontaneous hug was about until she felt Lincoln's hands enter under her hoodie, a light squeeze just under her ribs made her back curl backwards like a piece of chewing gum as she let out a loud laugh that surely could be heard in the whole apartment.

"I always suspected you were a very ticklish girl," a creepy grin was beginning to form on the albino's haggard face. "The toughest girl in the whole state has a weakness in her costilithas."

"Come on, lame-o," Anne loved listening to Lincoln 'speak' Spanish, he got all the words so wrong that it was kind of adorable. She probably would have made some comment 'praising' Lincoln's ability to say costillitas if she hadn't had her mind on another priority, "let's act like the mature people we are and stop playing these games, shall we?"

"I don't remember you being very mature about punching or biting me," Ronnie could feel her pupils shrink in pure terror. "Oh yeah, I'm going to enjoy this."

The Latina tried to break free of the embrace and run, but Lincoln didn't loosen his grip one bit before squeezing her sides again causing Ronnie Anne to squirm again wrapped in nervous giggles.

"All right, all right! You win" After trying for a few minutes to return the tickle attack without much success and failing equally in her attempts to free herself from Lincoln's grip, the Latina girl had no choice but to give up. "Stop it or I'll pee!"

After a few minutes of forced breaths, in which both friends tried to catch their breaths, it was that Ronnie Anne realized how close their faces and bodies actually were: Lincoln was still on top of her, giggling softly, his hands still inside Ronnie's sweatshirt barely and sporadically rubbing her stomach.