Darling (A Star Trek fanfiction)

I'm telling them you shot me

Abigail considered herself one of the more reasonable Augments.  She never talked without purpose, never lingered where she wasn’t wanted, and never argued with her “superiors”.  In truth she only ever began to falter when she was paired with him.  Khan Noonien Singh.  He was the bane of her existence and she avoided being around him as much as possible.  That was much easier before the director decided to assign him as her permanent sparring partner, roommate, and partner in guard shifts.  What had possessed that woman to believe that this arrangement would be a clever idea alluded and frustrated her to no end.

The thought of why Khan was so truly terrible may have crossed an outward party’s mind.  He was a handsome man, afterall.  Capable of making any species of woman swoon.  To say he was intelligent would be an understatement.   And he rarely engaged with anyone unless necessary.  No, the things that made him such a pest to Abigail were not generally perceived by the Augment population, which only fueled her hate fire.  What set her on edge was the fact that everything he did that annoyed her was purposeful.  He quite obviously took time out of his day to throw an extra smirk her way or brush up against her.  He enjoyed that extra fire that burned in her eyes at the slightest quirk of his lips because his distaste for her was quite equal to hers for him.

It could be said that Khan had not particularly minded being paired with Abigail at the beginning.  She was a beautiful, fierce, and talented woman who was always capable of getting what she needed, no matter the circumstances.  It wasn’t until after sharing a room with her for a week that he realized what a pain in the arse she was.  Technically, she was better than Khan.  But as far as he was concerned, that was solely in the technical detail.  She was the last genetically engineered superhuman to be created at their facility, so everything that the scientists had been trying to perfect was nearly perfected.  However, Khan was not interested in her perfections.  He would have been...if he didn’t resent her so much.  He knew that she meant to make him angry by taking too long in the shower or making him say “uncle” just to get out from beneath her pin in training.  Every little thing she did annoyed him, so he tormented her equally.

The two continued this vehement game for months, the fights that took place in their room growing ever more heated.  Their spats usually ended with physical violence, not ending until one had the other pinned to the ground.  The win ratio was about 50/50, depending on who was angrier over the situation at hand.  The competitive nature that burned between the two of them only increased this deadly game they played.  Almost all of the paired off Augments had their altercations about little things, sharing a room was hard for anyone, but none of them hated each other like Abigail and Khan.

It had been about six months since the two of them had been paired together with training sessions almost every day.  Their guard shifts were usually the days they had off from training and towards one o’clock in the morning when most were asleep.  The confrontations they had were at least once a day and growing more and more frequent, but the nature of their altercations began to change to a much different kind of frustration.

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Abigail smoothed a dark strand back into her braid before walking up to stand beside Khan at the front gate.  He handed her back the tatang knife meant to be sheathed in one’s boot.

“You left it on your nightstand,” he murmured dismissively when she raised her eyebrow at him.

“Thanks,” she muttered, slipping the knife into its sheath and holstering her gun at her hip.

Out of the corner of her eye she could’ve sworn she had seen the corner of his lips twitch up with a smirk, setting her teeth on edge.  The mid October chill nipped at her exposed throat and cheeks making her zip up her warm uniform collar under her chin.  Khan glanced at her sideways, eyeing the cloud that formed each time she breathed out through her nose.