Vertex - Chapter V, Building Houses and Relationships

		Chapter V, Building Houses and Relationships

"My, oh my... Craigie, you're such a piece of shit, aren't you?"
"Y-yes'm"
Farai slapped his face as hard as she could.
"I didn't give you permission to talk, shitnugget. Honestly, you're just digging yourself deeper into trouble..."
She was holding his face up to hers, grasping his hair painfully. He was naked and she was wearing... well the boots, obviously, but what else? Like, those opera-glove thingies, maybe? A corset but no bottom? Sure. And her titties were... uncovered? Nice, yeah, that's nice.
"Whatever am I going to do with you?" she asked, another rhetorical question. Then there was a gleam in her eye, and a wicked smile spread over her face.
"Oh I think I know what the problem is~!" she cooed, bringing her face closer to his. Close enough for a kiss. But Craig wouldn't dare do such a thing.
"You're still just thinking with your dick, aren't you?" she asked, her voice venomously soft. If there is such a thing. There must be, isn't that how an Apophis talks? That's what all the actors do, they try to sound like an Apophis.
"I'll just have to put it in it's place, won't I?"
And by the time that sentence was over, her boot came down on his flaccid  member. He cried out.
"Oh shut up~!" she slapped him again. Pulling harder on his hair, Farai forced him to meet her eyes as she delivered one smack after another on each half of his face in turn, grinding her foot down to squash him.
"Eeeh~? You're getting hard from this? Fucking weirdo!"

Meh. Craig stopped jerking off. This wasn't how Farai would behave... even if she did somehow... nevermind.
"Can't even think of her while jerking off anymore..." Craig lamented under his breath. It's not like the scenario had been especially arousing  anyway. He wasn't a masochist or anything. He just... because she had said... I mean, she obviously meant for her to be dominant partner?

"You don't think I'm a racial stereotype, do you?"

That's what she had said. Did that mean she was actually... submissive? That she had known he would naturally assume she wanted to be the dominant partner?
That's not really... I mean, she had never really behaved like, like she... wasn't she always so... I mean, she had handle on things a lot of the time, she took the initiative. Doesn't that mean she was a dom? Not really. But...
No use wallowing over it. School soon... oh. It's 3:40 in the morning. I could try jerking off to something else...

				***

Craig wasn't exactly on his best game that morning, so he was caught completely off-guard when Farai was once again at the bus stop, greeting him with the same enthusiasm as before.
"Hey you!"
"Y-yo..."
Lame.
"You look like you didn't sleep too good" she said, all smiles and glimmering eyes.
"Not really..."
"You didn't stay up all night watching porn did you?"
WHAT?
"W-whah?"
"Just kidding! Ahahaha! It's not like you'd look so down after something like that, I mean come on, a night well spent would leave you on cloud nine, right? Ahahaha!"
Wow, she really is easy-going.

"So... you're up here again?" Craig said to say something.
"Yeah, I went to check out Slender Woods for our Tigger. She wasn't there, of course, but the stuff was, just like we left it. Crazy, right?"
Craig shrugged. It was, kind of. Maybe.
"You put any thought on how we're going to help her out?"
Craig felt his armour turning shinier by the minute now.
"As a matter of fact I did" he said, feeling confident she was pleased to hear it. "I did some inventory and got all the tools ready, so I can just grab them and get to her. And then there's the old, torn down and unfinished secret bases back in Nordwoods..."
"Nordwoods?"
"Oh, the little stretch of forest at the back of the school's soccer field, my place is almost at the edge of it, so I spent a lot of time there..."
"Did we use to play capture-the-flag there during P.E.? Isn't that in school grounds?"
"Yes to the first and no to the second. The school border end pretty much at the ditch, you know? And Nordwoods is a lot bigger than that stretch, there's this tiny segment, with like, a path and only a some shrub, that connects it to thickets next to the highway, right? And there's a few more, like, isles of actual forest here and there. Back when we were kids, it was plenty easy to hide there. You can find a lot of building materials there"
Farai looked at him with an expressionless face. Did she think it was lame he still talked about stuff he had done as a kid as if he was still doing it?
"And I sometimes walk the cats there" he added hastily.
"Eeh? You walk cats?"
"Well, yeah, I mean, it's not that much different from walking a dog, except for all the tree-climbing and that they don't go where you tell them to go..."
"Tree-climbing? Heeeh? You take a cat out on a leash and then he or she climbs a tree?"
"Well, yeah. If they get squirm out of their harness, like they sometimes do, they can get so high they'll just stay up there and hunt down squirrels and birds"
"Whoah, really? You ever have to climb a tree to get them to come down?"
"Sure..."
"I'm kind of jealous, I never climbed a tree in my life! Well, successfully, at least..."
"We are going to Slender Woods today, why not give it a shot?"
"No way, I don't want you to see me fall!"
"You're not going to fall Farai"
"You don't know that!"

And so they talked about nothing as the bus showed up and took them to school. They parted rather hesitantly.

			***
Craig was preoccupied with plans on how to get materials for Raquel's house, and it was only because he was thinking of the Tiger Girl that he registered Andrea's whining.
"I wish I had a big, strong Tigress to hold me in her arms..." he sighed, looking depressed and beaten.
"What?" Craig asked, confused that Andrea was talking about things he was thinking about, kind of.
"I just finished reading this thing..." he waved a paperback in his hand, "...and it was a total bummer!"
Craig tried to look at the cover, but Andrea was hiding it on purpose. Probably another smutty romance story he had grabbed while buying chewing gum or something. What he saw in those he would never understand.
"So what happened? The bland nice guy with a big dick ended up melting the icy heart of the proud and independent Jinko, turning her into an innocent little kitten with belly rubs and sex?" Craig asked cynically. It's not like he'd ever actually read on of those things, but he assumed this was close enough to describe the content accurately.
Andrea puffed his lips and crossed his arms. He was adorable when he pouted.
"Aren't you snarky? For your information, that's not what happened at all! This book is about a martial artist and battle against an evil warlord! But I bet that's too girly for you..."
So it was martial arts this time? Some cheap pulp fantasy probably. Honestly, just because he did karate, Andrea behaved like he was some big martial arts buff.
"So what's this about a Jinko then?"
Andrea stopped pouting since he now had Craig's undivided attention.
"There was this prophecy, see? And the hero, he needed to find his true love to defeat the warlord..."
Craig lifted up his hand to get him to stop.
"The power of love? Seriously? I thought we agreed we'd stop it with the My Little Centaur stuff in high school..."
"That's not what this is about! Jeez!"
Was there anything better a guy could do during recess than teasing Andrea? Probably, if you had a girlfriend who'd drag you into a bathroom stall for a quickie, but Craig didn't. He'd make do with this.
"Okay, then tell me how finding his true love to defeat the evil warlord wasn't about the power of love?"
"Well that didn't happen! He had these three girls, right? All three of them were martial arts masters..."
"Oh my, what a coinky-dinky!"
"Shut up! And one of them was a Ryu, one was a Hinezumi, and the third was a..."
"What the hell is a Hinezumi?"
"You know, they're like, fire-mice, come on, you've seen them somewhere before..."
"Whatever, go on"
"Aaah, where was I? Oh, right, the third one was a Jinko. And as the story went on, he had sex with all of them, right?"
"And I bet you totally didn't read it for that alone"
"Shut up. They had sex, he spent time with all of them, but then at the end, he fucked everything up, lost against the warlord, saw all of them added in the warlord's harem, and the was Alped and made to join the harem too!"
Craig shook his head.
"Sounds like the Bad End in a Visual Novel"
"It was! The last 30 pages are nothing but the heroines and the heroined hero getting raped over and over again!"
Craig nodded. The book wasn't all that thick, the last 30 pages was a very significant portion.
"So that's the bummer?"
"YES! Also that I don't have a Jinko to hold me in her arms!"
Craig sighed.
"Why would you even want that?"
"Why? Because! Think about it! All those muscles, feeling all that strength, covered in some healthy softness! That's how a woman should be!"
"You just want to be princess carried because you're a wimpy little sissy" Craig said, knowing full well what reaction it would cause.
Andrea blushed, bit his lip and squirmed for a bit, as if he had ants in his pants. It's not like he could deny it, so anything he said from here on out could be used against him, and more importantly, WOULD be used against him.
As he watched this, Craig found himself wondering if this was what it meant to be a dom, enjoying this feeling of power and the absolutely adorable reactions of the one he held his power over.
Though that might make this kind of gay.
"I actually know a Jinko" he said to silence the nagging in his head. Oh shit, why did I say that?

"Jiii~" Andrea said, a sceptical and unblinking gaze fixed on Craig.
"Don't look at me like that, I'll rape you" he said angrily, turning away.
"Jiii~" Andrea repeated, bringing his face closer. Craig could smell the scent of whatever he had used to wash his hair with. It was a pretty nice scent, actually...
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" he snapped, turning further away. And then he felt something moist on his cheek. No he did not just...
"This taste... is the taste of a liar!"
"YOU FUCKING FAG!" Craig turned to push him away, and his forehead ended up banging against Andrea's. Both retreated quickly, holding on to their heads.
"What'd you do that for, jerk?" Andrea asked, feigned greater injury than he had experienced.
"WHY? Why you ask? You LICKED me!"
"So?"
"So? SO? What's wrong with you?"
"Wrong with me? I'm not the one banging heads here!"
"No, you're the one licking your friends! That's not cool!"
"What's the big deal?"
The look on his face made it obvious he had no idea. He really didn't think anything of it. Craig sighed. This wasn't the first time.
"Andy, you remember that talk we had about HxH?"
Andrea tilted his head.
"Sure...?"
"The one about Gon and Killua behaving in a manner inappropriate to friends?" Craig egged him on.
"Ooh... you said they were gay. They're not gay, that's dumb!"
Ah, right. Reasoning with him had failed before.
"Who's not gay?"
This time it was a girl's voice. Craig turned to look, and saw a Cyclops.
"It's rude to eavesdrop, Ellie"
"Hmph, keep your secrets then. Not like I'm into that kind of thing anyway..."
She left the classroom just as quickly as she had come. What was she even doing here?
"What was she even doing here?" Craig wondered out loud, shaking his head.
"Oh, I saw everything. She left a love letter. Stuck it to the bottom of someone's desk with gum. Wanna know why?"
Apparently, he had already moved on, and was itching to tell whatever it was he wanted to tell.
"Fine, why?"
"Because! That way the person can take the gum in his mouth after accepting her feelings, and get an indirect kiss from her!"
"That's really lame"
"Totally lame-o!"
"Hahaha..."
"Ahahahah!"

			***

Craig and Andrea parted as friends, and it seemed that Andrea had forgotten all about the Jinko, for which Craig felt grateful. Raquel probably didn't need someone like that in her life right now. No, she DEFINIETLY didn't need someone like that in her life right now.

Nordwoods was as full of failed attempts as building secret bases and forts as it always had been. A lot of them were really old, though. Kids these days didn't have romance in their hearts...
Craig gathered up as many as he could carry four times and brought his hauls back to his place. He then used a hammer to remove all the nails from them. He'd probably be fine with those, but just in case he grabbed a handful and put them all in his pockets. He had intended to take a toolbox, but then he realized that this kind of work didn't really require anything beyond a hammer and a saw, so those were the only things he took. He stuffed the hammer to the side of his pants, put the saw on his arm and then tried to see just how many planks he could carry now that they weren't nailed together anymore.
It took him three hauls to get it all to Raquel's spot in Slender Woods. Craig tried not to make eye-contact with anyone he passed. They must've thought he was crazy... or maybe a criminal. Or a crazy criminal.

With the materials in place, Craig realized he hadn't they hadn't actually agreed on a TIME, just "tomorrow", that is, today. Tsk.
He walked to and fro for a while, but then he realized something. He didn't need anyone to show up to start working, did he? No. The thingamabob that was in the pit, the, uhh, platform, was there to show him what he needed to do. The pit had been dug to be this shape to be filled with others like that, right? Craig looked at his pile of planks. Now if only he had some measuring tape and a pen to make marks...
He grew depressed at the thought of going back home for those things now. But what if they needed them?
Don't be an idiot, how did Raquel dig this pit so neatly and make those trash bag tarps to be the right size if she didn't have that stuff? Yeah Craig, you're being a retard!
That didn't solve his immediate problem though. The immediate problem made him feel helpless and unmanly.
"Come on Craig, apply yourself!"
Following his own orders, he realized just what to do. He picked a plank and the saw, then jumped in the pit. The solution was simple enough. He put the plank on top of one of the ones part of the platform, then made cuts with the saw to mark where he'd cut it. Then he realized he was being retarded again and moved the plank so he only needed to saw through it once.
"I can't even remember what it was like in grade school..." he mumbled to himself. It had been many a year since he'd handled tools with the intention of using them.

Craig enjoyed clarity, and with a correctly measured piece of wood in his hands, he set out to make more. The platform had five of them on the top, so he thought he'd make, like... 20? At first?
Looking at the pile of planks he had available to him and the size of the pit, he realized he didn't have nearly enough. Was it really necessary to build them this thick? Couldn't the spaces between the planks be bigger? Like, three per piece?
Of course not. Even footing was probably important, and these were important for supporting the weight of stuff like that couch, and stuff. And Raquel herself.
Catching  himself over thinking unnecessarily, Craig returned to his work. These planks were needed, and he would make them. That would suffice for now.
He wasn't a skilful craftsman, but sawing through simple planks and keeping them at a fixed length was easy enough for him. He only hoped he wouldn't need to do anything that required too much skill. Even in shop class he had enjoyed the act of working on whatever pieces of wood or metal his teacher had thrown at him, but when schedules and comparisons to other's progress had started to rear their ugly heads, he'd lost his drive. Sure, he wasn't skilful, and he most certainly wasn't good at planning things, but goddamn he wasn't OPPOSED to working with his hands.
So he made more planks the correct length. He soon lost himself in the process. Sure, he had to think about the correct measures while taking the measures, but apart from that, he could just let his mind wonder. Sawing through a couple of centimetres of wood didn't take more than seconds, so he got along at a good pace. Maybe he should just go back to get more stuff from Nordwoods... and maybe pick up some more tools from home?
Why was it that his mind always started to wonder?
He stood up. That's... 21 of them already. Better just even that out...
Right! 25. That means five more platforms, which means...
He tried to look at the pit and figure it out. Meh, he wasn't good at this kind of thing. In any case, the piles of wood he had brought were clearly insufficient. Back to hauling! And to get stuff like that measuring tape, a pen, and... hmm? A knife, maybe? Yeah, a knife seemed appropriate.

			***

Craig turned lazy and only made two more hauls from Nordwoods to his house, an as it turned out, he unable to get the stuff to Slender Woods from his house in any fewer trips.
When he arrived the second time, Raquel was there, smoking.
"Yo", she said, looking all tough. It might've been a comical thing, if a human had done so. Raquel's size made her look pretty formidable though.
"Hey" Craig responded, surprised he hadn't stuttered. He wasn't very good with formidable people. Male or female.
"Didn't actually expect you to show up" she said, eyeing him up. From a distance, her heterochromatic eyes weren't really noticeable.
"Eh?" Craig uttered, actually surprised.
The Tiger woman shrugged.
"Hmm, you just didn't seem the type to go out of his way to do something like this... " she gestured at the as of yet unripened fruit of his labour, "...without a girl pulling you by the ear".
Craig felt a twinge of guilt. Her words were not untrue.
"Oh well, I'm not judging you Greg. That Fanny is a pretty girl, you have to show her your good side. Knight in shining armour, compassionate and kind, yup, yup..."
She grinned while talking and clearly meant it as a joke, but on some level she meant what she said, and on that level, they hit Craig.
"The names are Craig and Farai, by the way" he added, since there was nothing he could really say.
"What?"
Damn, the deaf ear?
"I SAID..."
"KYAHAHAHA!"
Oh. What a kidder.
Craig looked at the pit.
"So I was wondering..." he started, and Raquel nodded to show him she heard him loud and clear, "...that how many of these wooden platforms we need?"
Raquel moved the cigarette in her mouth from one corner of to the next. After puffing out some smoke, she said "That'd be nine. Three by three seems okay to me, you know?"
Craig tried to add it up in his head. He had 25 planks ready, which was enough for five. He needed three more platforms, so that meant he needed... uhh, 15 more planks of that measurement. Yeah. That he could do. And that he did.

While he was doing that, Raquel finished her cigarette.
"Hmm? You wouldn't happen to have brought an axe, would you?" she asked him after stomping down the butt.
"No..." he answered, trying to remember if there even was an axe in the inventory of his house's tools.
"Bummer. That saw is the only thing you've got that can cut trees, then?"
"Uh, yeah?"
"That's slow us down some. I could just use force to break some, but that's just not, you know, neat or civilized. Shit!"
Did she mean that, or was she making excuses for not working?
"Well, we're not getting very far without finishing that crawlspace, and I wasn't really expecting to get that done today... but I gotta admit, all this stuff is really going to make things work a lot quicker than I had planned on! Until yesterday I thought I'd have to just find eight more of those things, hahaha! You're a hero Craigie, don't ever let anyone tell you any different!"
Was she drunk?
"Yo-hoo!"
Craig looked up and saw Farai, dressed even more warmly than ever. The damn winter clothes hid her curves...
She was carrying a wicker basked in one hand, and a big, bulky quilt in the other.
"What's all that then?" Raquel asked.
"Oh, this? Nothing much... except for everything we need for a little picnic!"
"A... picnic?" Raquel seemed puzzled.
"Yeah! I've got lots tea in two thermos cans and some sandwiches and these deeeliiicoouuusss~ little cakes, and..."
Never change Farai. Never change.