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(no subject)

Character: James "Bucky" Barnes &
Time period: Post-CA: TWS
Warnings: Obsessive Bucky on the loose.

At first, independence had seemed like one of his better ideas, but he had begun to revise his opinion once he had verified certain truths, taken noted of the factions searching for him, and realizing that the world was a wide landscape where a man could get lost. After he had rearmed himself from the bodies of two Hydra agents, a drug dealer, and a gang banger, he had come to realize that slipping away, hiding, being nothing at all was very easy, too easy.

He had been built on the foundation of a command structure for more than seventy years. Even before the blurred vagueness of falling, he knew order and military command. Aside from mashed up images, feelings and impressions, he knew that he had to have some manner of structure in his life. With no more commands down the line, he loitered, slipping through the shadows on Washington for awhile, finding the unsavoury places and people, leaving a few bodies in his wake and not particularly caring that they were found and televised either. A weapon bared he moved through the chaos at first because it was all he knew, listless for anything but the violence he had played a role in for so long. It lost it's purpose without the trigger of structure.

His world stagnated as he avoided those who hunted him, and he cared little for the lives he took when they found him. They came to command him because they thought he would simply bow to old standards, that he would go back to being his code name if they applied even electricity to his brain. They hadn't earned the right to command him. They were weaker than he, hadn't even survived a single encounter when he decided to throw his weight back at them. They were weak men, lost in words and hiding behind guns and dying in the shadows of buildings and trees.

Slowly, resolution began to form from the ashes of his lost command structure. He decided he would allow himself to be commanded again, that he yearned to be commanded by someone with the strength of both character and body to overtake him or at least bow him slightly with respect. Pierce had been like that, he reflected. The man hadn't needed to physically harm him to command his respect, though he remembered well being struck when he required the prompt. A few others had commanded a similar reaction deep in his guts, and his attention snapped over to them. One at a time, he decided. One searched, the other could be found if he looked.

He had been lost for a few months, considering leaving to go to Brooklyn for more pieces of an old puzzle, but he was drawn back into Washington because beating information out of a SHIELD agent had satisfied him that he would get what he wanted. As a ghost story, he knew that the only way to get proper attention was to do something not only obvious but dramatic. His depth of dramatic no doubt would be very different from others that he knew existed, but like a well-trained dog returning to his master, he knew how to get the attention that was needed to invite a recall command.

Hydra agents were not easy to find in large quantities in Washington anymore, most arrested or underground and hiding. It took him two days to find a nest of the vipers, using the old underground tunnels that he knew well. He'd ended them to prove he might not be under command, but it was something worth earning given his skills. Their bodies were left in obvious Hydra uniforms and symbols and piled high in front of the Smithsonian. As if the symbol of his loyalty degradation wasn't enough, none of the corpses had heads, and he had piled them in such a way that he could sit atop the whole mess and lounge there as obvious as the start of a new day.

Media and police were one thing, not that interesting, but he let them think they had command of him for a moment. Let them show his face around for SHIELD and Hydra and them to know he was here. Meaningless orders were ignored, people's reactions only earned a turning of his cheek in dismissal before he knew that the police presence would be a problem to slip away from. Instead he slipped from his lounging perch to ignore warnings and breaking into the Smithsonian because it suited him there. It seemed a fitting place to bow to the command of someone worthy.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He supposed that answered the question that a larger file existed with everything in it that he had done and all that had been done to him. She would know some of his imprinting, his cues, the way that he could bend to the will of others so easily with a squeeze of a hand on his neck or feet. If she didn't already know, he could tell her, let her have that much control even though she might not want it. Someday she might require it. Maybe he could read the rest of the file, not just the abridged version of it.

She wasn't walking away from him; she would stay. Somehow he felt better about it, knowing she would be there, but he shifted slightly when she sat up. Her anger was not impotent on him, but he knew that he was not worth as much as she was in the eyes of the people, in the eyes of her allies and friends. He had nothing but her; if he disappeared, she still technically had so much to live for.

Yet, just like that, she rose and walked away from even after saying that she wouldn't. He shifted, the shudder of metal springs against his arm as he let her go. He had to to mull over what she spoke, to figure out what he would do and how he would do it. His structure system was very shaky after all, and he needed to figure out what to do. Besides, she probably needed a little space.

She knew that it was going to be hard to deal with him, she had known and Sam had tried to prepare her for it, letting her know that she was going to have more than a handful with dealing with Bucky, considering all the damage, once or if they ever found him but reality was harder than expectation and she wasn’t surprised, it made her wonder if she was the right person he needed at the moment and if she was enough for this, while she wasn’t as broken as him there were some aspects of her life that she still needed to work on and yes, maybe she wasn’t what Bucky needed right now.

After a quick drop by in her room, leaving the file, the phone and the gun a different place –not that she didn’t thought Bucky couldn’t find them, and after standing in her room for a few moments, she once again walked out and closed the door behind her, she needed to step out for a bit, she couldn’t stay inside anymore, she was feeling so trapped in here and she was just a wreck, and she was thankful this place had a fenced backyard and she could go there for the time being.

It was also on her luck that the door for the backyard was quiet enough and she could pry it open without much of a fuss, shivering just a bit since the temperature was dropping, but she didn’t cared at the moment and just sat in one of the new chairs Stark had provided for this place, bending her legs against her chest and resting her forehead against her knees, her shoulders might be shaking a bit or not, it was only natural to get some sort of relief and if hers came in just some barely there tears so be it, she will have it out of her system and then she will be back to what and how she needed to be.

He knew the moment when she left, knew the moment when she walked away from him, and he lifted the bed up from where he was wedged underneath. A moment of panic swelled in his break, like his world was returning to that cold darkness where he would sink into depression and never claw his way out. He shuffled out from under the bed, setting it down on the floor and rising to peer out the window for signs of her departure.

He saw her moving to a chair and sitting, not actually leaving the yard and walking away. He watched what he could of her as he controlled himself and finally convinced himself away from the window and slowly over to the closet. He pulled it open and stared at all the clothing inside, making a conscious choice that if he were to follow her, he would have to look the part and not make her decide his clothes for him. It was a small step for her, only for her.

He changed into a new pair of jeans that hugged his hips but didn't cling tightly to him. He found a black tight-fitting shirt and then overlaid a red button-down long sleeve shirt over it. He walked to the bathroom and actually brushed his hair and put it back up into a ponytail that was neater and peered at his reflection again. Maybe someday he'd feel like this 'Bucky' fellow. Until then, she was everything.

Barefoot, he walked out into the backyard, breathing in the freshness and allowed the door closing to announce him. He walked over to her slowly, uncertain and out of place before he slowly lowered himself into a chair nearby. "I won't let you down."

Not a lot of people appreciated the kind of therapeutic effect certain simple things had, in this case crying was doing that just for her, she was crying for everything, what he had gone through, for those good times they had in the past and that will never return, the seeming hopeless of the situation, it was better to mourn and let those go, fully accept the person that he was now and that whatever new thing that could come from this, with who they were now and not who they have been, even if that was so damn hard she will feel so frustrated sometimes, they could get there slowly but she supposed they could.

It did made her feel better, not at her best, but better than how she had felt all day and taking another deep shuddering breath, she finally moved to rest her chin against her knees and stared at the backyard, from a distance she could heard the sound of warm laughter and she was glad to know that there were some people in the world that were still happy and joyful, she hoped that no one took that away from them. She lightly tilted her head and maybe it was a bit amusing when she suddenly thought that the backyard could use some work, the grass was too high and the few flowers needed some tending, but what would be the point if she was going to be leaving soon?

She heard the door and knew he was there, but she didn’t reacted and stayed where she was, not turning to look at him and waiting to see what he said to her, they had done and said a lot to each other today as it was. “I know you won’t, James.” She finally broke the silence that had settled over them. “But try to change not only for me, but also for yourself. I am not going to be around forever and I don’t want you to lose whatever you might gain while we are together just because I’m not there.”

He could tell easily that she had been crying, but he made no mention of it. Clearly having him around was a difficult time for her, but he didn't regret forcing himself on her either. She was all he had and if she didn't want him, he knew that Hydra would eventually come looking to reprogram him. If she wasn't a steady presence in his life, he might not see the worth of resisting in some regards.

Still, he found himself looking around the yard, listening to the sounds beyond it before glancing at her. He didn't know what she meant that she wasn't going to be around forever, which seemed silly because if she was dead, so was he. They'd be taken out together if it was going to go that way, but he also didn't dare mention that. He found it odd that she called him James instead of the nickname though. "Are you going to call me that now?"

He knew he'd have to adapt and cope, but it had been a long few months. There was no way to change so quickly. "I don't expect to be around if you aren't."

Somehow being outside with him was better than being stuck inside, it made her feel a bit more comfortable and it was soothing in a way, her fingers drummed against her legs and while she pondered once again if she should go ahead and try to tend to the backyard while they were still here since they might be here for awhile after all, she was also thankful he didn’t brought up the fact that she had been crying, she could feel the wind chilling her cheeks and particularly the spots where the tears had found their way against her skin.

She took a deep breath and shrugged just a bit. “I figure that might be the best right now, it’s a more neutral and safe way to refer to you I suppose.” After all, didn’t part of him in a way still didn’t felt identified with that name and still didn’t believed that had been him once upon a time, it was probably going to work better if she stopped calling him like that for the time being and return to it when he actually requested it.

Another bout of silence and she finally turned to look at him. “You don’t know what’s going to happen, things happen and you can’t do nothing to stop them, if such a thing happens and I’m gone but you remain, you need to try to remain as you are and accept it, alright?”

He had to wonder about her motivation to suddenly stop calling him that nickname that she valued so much. Was it to distance him from her or to give him the space he needed in order to cope with the new situation? He would accept James though because it was the name he had been given at his birth, one he was going to have to get used to. Also, her calling for James looked far less suspicious than an animal. It would at least work for blending in.

"I suppose so. It's what I was probably called most of the time when I was young anyway," he murmured, though it seemed odd that it came from her lips. He was a bit more used to hearing her yelling 'Bucky' at him. "You'll... call me the other name sometimes too, right?"

No, he didn't know what was going to happen, but he thought he had the strength to protect her for the most part. "I don't... want to remain if you're gone. I want to go with you," he muttered softly, his eyes downcast. "To the end of the line."

“The only ones that called you James were the nuns and some teachers, the rest called you…you know.” It had actually been his mother who had started to call him Bucky and it had stuck, everyone had started to call him that and she actually didn’t figured out his real name till like three days after she met him, when a teacher called him James, for three days she had only known him as Bucky since that’s how he had introduced himself with that name as well.

She kept a rather composed face when he asked her that of her, though she was rather surprised he was actually requesting that and she nodded just a little bit. “If you want me to do it, then I will.”

A small frown appeared on her face and she shook her head, one of her hands had moved to rest against his arm but she stopped and rested it against the armrest of the chair. “I know we promised that, and I am not saying it’s going to happen, I just want you to be prepared for it in case it happens.”

The nuns and some teachers, huh? Clearly his nickname had been more of his name than the one he had been born with. He found that an interesting idea that he identified more with a nickname rather than the name he was given, though... he had been named after a US president apparently, or so he had been told. While he wouldn't fuss over her calling him 'James', he found himself more determined to earn her trust enough to refer to him as 'Bucky'. A new task, something to adapt to soothed him more than he would have liked to admit.

He shook his head a little bit at her words, peering over towards the fence. "I'll earn it," he murmured softly. "For now, James until I've earned the right to the nickname." He understood that she personally needed some barrier of distance between them.

His eyes flicked over when he saw movement, watching her hand move over to him but fail to meet. He slowly turned his head to regard her, his expression neutral even if he looked like he was relaxing in the chair he was seated in. "If you die, I die. It's as simple as that. You are my everything."

She really didn’t felt comfortable calling him James, she had only called him that when she had been angry with him and had wanted to let him know she was, which had been kind of rare since they rarely had fights, some spats here and there, but nothing out of the extraordinary when it came to their interactions, so it was really going to take her awhile and a conscious effort to call him by his given name and not the nickname that everyone had knew him with, it was a bit hard right now and it had only been a few minutes, but it was something they both needed right now, plus addressing him like that might make it easier for them to move around.

There was a miniscule smile in response to his murmur about earning it back, it at least assured her that he was going to make an effort and try to move on from what he had been reduced to be by Hydra, she knew some aspects were going to remain and she could, no, she was going to deal and accept them. “Alright then, it’s settled then.”

She decided not to question on how he was going to address her, she was going to let him decide that on his own and she was going to willingly accept it as he had, though she hoped he didn’t used captain or something similar. There was a light tensing up at his words and her fingers tightened against the armrest, before she allowed herself to relax again. “Then I guess we will need to be very careful and to avoid something like that happening to either of us, right?”

Right now, he had nothing but her and so all of his efforts were focused on keeping her and making certain that she had no reason to leave him behind. He might be able to follow her, stalk her, even kill her, that wouldn't suit his purpose to gaining some level of the power structure back in his life. He couldn't wander around in a daze the rest of the time he was alive, and he had no intention of going back to Hydra or even the Soviets.

He did stand by what he said, that he was better off dead than without her. His abilities, his training, his conditioning made him dangerous at the best of times, but when he had something to focus on, he was better. He wouldn't allow himself to survive outside of her; she was going to become his kill switch. "Yeah, you be more careful. People know you far more than they will ever know me."

She snorted just a bit at that comment and rolled her eyes at him. “Yeah, yeah I will try to be.” But then she had always been careful, even when she went out in public she had managed to keep her presence low key and not a lot of people had realized they had been walking or near Captain America, it was quite amazing how easily she had been able to hide herself in the middle of a crowd, and maybe that might come in handy for them later. “Don’t you think being close to me is going to make people also know more about you?

That if people didn’t knew him already as a killer, considering his image at the very least was all over the news and maybe if they were lucky his face wouldn’t exactly be visible enough for people to recognize him right away, the arm could be easily concealed if they needed it. She looked away again and became aware of the sound of music from the distance, probably from the same place she had heard the laugher coming from, and she couldn’t help but smile and trying to see if she could identify the song. “Oh I think that’s the look of love.”

He was of the opinion that if he kept his arm hidden away and was more adamant about personal cleaniness and hygiene that he wouldn't have a problem avoiding much attention. It wasn't as if facial recognition actually worked on him, since he had been stripped from the system to allow him to move in and out of borders and the like without a problem. Hydra wouldn't blow that if they wanted him back. "No, I can claim I'm just a fan or a friend or something," he said simply. "I can blend in."

He tilted his head a bit at the sound of music, though aside from the tune and a few words, he wasn't about to identify it. He actually didn't know any songs anymore, probably not even the National Anthem it had been so long. "The what?"

“You do realize I have some very dedicated fans out there and they might recognize your face as that of my…best friend right?” She knew that there were other fans like Coulson out there, people that apparently loved the idea of Captain America and all the things she apparently represented for all of them, she had met some of them outside of Coulson sometimes and they could be quite eager in their zealous and happiness of meeting her, she wasn’t really sure how he was going to react if any of them decided to question him about his resemblance to Bucky Barnes. “We will just work on blending in; I don’t like drawing much attention to myself anyway.”

She followed the rhythm and tune from the song in her mind, being able to put the necessary words when it was necessary to complete the song, she could even hear Dusty’s voice in the back of her mind now. “The Look of Love, it’s a love song and apparently a rather favored one to dance with.” And it reminded her a bit of the quick dance lesson Sam had given her, claiming it was needed when she finally went and had that dance with Peggy. “I was never a good dancer."

"Which best friend? The dead one from seventy years ago? Those sorts of things are impossible," he said simply and tilted his head back on his neck to look up at the sky. It was quite blue now, better than the sky he often looked up in the big cities that was crowded with metal and wires. This was much better. "I can grow a beard if you want."

He frowned at the idea of dancing, but something about the whole idea was somehow... appealing. He didn't know why or how, but he listened a little more closely to the sound, picking out the rhythm before he slowly pushed himself out of his seat and rolled his red sleeves up to his elbows. He extended his metal hand to her. "Show me."

“Oh yes impossible and crazy, like that crazy thing with Captain America being back after seventy years and turning out that she wasn’t dead, oh yes what I was thinking.” She was technically not supposed to be here either, but here she was, sitting with a man that had been her best friend once upon a lifetime ago, so anyone could think something like that had happened with him. “No, you tried it once when you wanted to appear older; it didn’t look that good on you.”

She was aware of his motions out of the corner of her eye, registering it and wondering what he was going to do now, she hadn’t expected the offer and she stared at the offered hand for a few seconds, processing what she was going to do now and it was then that she also noticed he had finally changed, looking rather well put and now she felt a bit sloppy considering she was only wearing a pair of sweatpants and a tank top, but whatever is not as if he had ever judged her for what she decided to wear.

Finally she decided to risk it and accepted his extended hand, and moved to stand up. “I told you that I couldn’t dance.”

It was rather impossible, wasn't it? Two people so displaced in time for completely different reasons and somehow coming back together. Someone was having a good laugh about that somewhere, though he supposed that as long as he had heard that he couldn't mind all that much. "I am older now, and it will be for hiding my face this time." He wasn't enthusiastic about a beard though. They itched and were hard to manage.

He knew very well that she could very easily deny him a dance with her, the opportunity to do something that he suspected he hadn't done in a very long time. His hand waited, no pressuring but available until she took it, and he pulled her up from her seat with an ease that he didn't even think about. "And you think I remember how?"

He still grasped her hand and set his other on her waist like he was supposed to, pulling her along almost naturally into a slow rhythm that followed the music. He stared at her, his blue eyes meeting hers as he took the lead as a gentleman should. If he didn't think about it, he moved like old times but with far more fluid deadly grace. "Hmm, not so bad, I guess."

It was more like something that shouldn’t have happened outside of fiction, but Fate was certainly having quite a good laugh at their situation, probably finding it amusing that people that had been so close in the first stages of their lives, could be in such different places at the moment, close but at the same time so far away from each that really that first life they shared could have not happened at all. “You’re not exactly that old, or at least not technically.” They were probably around the same age if they counted the seventy years that have passed; Bucky was just a year older than her after all. “…No beard.”

There was a small shrug in answer to his question. “I don’t know, maybe you will due to muscle memory.” Which might account to the fact of her being able to fight her way out of SHIELD that first time not long after she had woken up and still feeling a bit dazed, not to mention confused at the sheer lie they had tried to feed her with and to apparently ease her into this century, they had clearly failed with that.

Remembering whatever dance knowledge she had and certainly made easier when he seemed to react more naturally than her, her hand came to rest on his shoulder and she took a bit of steadier hold of his hand, also out of habit she looked down to make sure she wasn’t stepping on him and was just a bit surprised she seemed to fall rather naturally into pace with him, easily letting him lead her in this. When she looked up, she wasn’t surprised when she noticed that he was staring at her and she looked back at him steadily, trying not to feel so weird that they were having their first slow dance under these kinds of circumstances. “I guess not, at least I don’t seem to have two left feet as I did before.”

No, he was not that much older than she was, though he wondered if she had surpassed him technically given he wasn't awake for that long whereas she had had a few years to get a grasp of things apparently. There was no point considering the math much. "Still older than you, I suppose," he murmured as he remembered looked at the dates listed in the Smithsonian. "Against it, hmm? No beard."

His muscle memory was used for far more important things than dancing, but he said nothing about that. Instead, he enjoyed the easy way that they seemed to dance on the deck as the music played from another part of the neighbourhood. He didn't feel her feet on his, and he wouldn't have minded if it did either despite being barefoot. It just wouldn't have bothered him. This was... different, not bad but different.

It was probably the first dance he had had with her, wasn't it? He didn't remember any of the others, but he wanted to hold onto this memory. It prevented him from saying or doing anything she might consider weird to preserve the moment. "Must be all that boxing you've been doing. Gives you good steps for dancing."

“Only by a year not much of a significant difference,” But now she wasn’t sure if that was right, she had been out at least a year before he was considered active again, maybe they were probable in the same age range or not, but then he had been in and out of activity in all the time she had been frozen, which means he could have spent less time in the ice compared to her through the years and just thinking about that was enough to give her a bit of a headache and she decided to ignore it for the time being. “Yes, I am.”

And she really had no shame admitting that, the one time he had let it grow (not only to look older but also due to a girl that had said in passing it could be a good look for him) hadn’t lasted more than two days before she had kind of forced him to get rid of it, in a way strangely showing her opinion was a bit more valued than the one of a possible girlfriend, no wonder so many people had wondered about their relationship. And she was sure that right now, if anyone were to see them swaying slowly and almost gently to the music in the distance, even bigger and more important questions will be raised –mostly about her sanity.

She laughed just a bit and shook her head. “You said kind of the same thing when you started to coach me into it back then, that it was not only going to make me a bit stronger but might improve my dancing as well.” And she decided not to mention the other reason why Bucky had started to train her and introduce her to boxing, he might remember eventually. She tilted her head a bit to the side, pondering if she should also mention that Sam had helped her as well, in the end she decided it was better not to do so. “I am not wholly sure if that helped, I might still stumble.”

There was no point debating their ages because in his mind it didn't matter anyway. They were what physical age that they appeared to be, and he knew from experience and much testing that his cells didn't age as they should anyway. He was too healthy, too in his prime, too good at regenerating, so he didn't age appropriately. He had a date of birth that he knew about, so he supposed that despite everything, he could be into his nineties for accuracy sake. "Fine, I will remain clean-shaven."

He danced with her for the length of the song, which seemed much too short by his measure. He was certain that old songs were longer, but then again, turning and stepping was not a complicated procedure. It wasn't a difficult song to dance to, and even as it came to an end, he was still swaying with her until his head tilted with the start of the next song. It was faster, picking up a beat that was clearly not any real love song.

He drew her tighter against his chest, and then he pulled her into a new dance, one that required a bit more foot work and skill. If he didn't think about it, if he just watching her and felt the slide of her body against his own, he could easily move with it. As soon as he started to think, his steps found a very different rhythm and moved in very different steps. "Keep pace, Rogers. I'm testing your dexterity."

The matter of age was irrelevant for both of them, after all they had been through, it was clear that aging was one of the many things that didn’t happened normally for them, hell, they had even managed to survive things that would have easily killed a normal person, but that was the thing was it? They were not exactly normal anymore, even Schmidt had mention that to her, hadn’t he? But those had been words she had never dwelled much upon. “Hmm, thank you, I really appreciate it.”

She knew this moment wasn’t going to last forever and the best she could do was enjoy it for as long as she could, it was probably going to be awhile before something like this could happen again and they were back to what had been their default interactions and atmosphere since she found him. It was a bit of a shame when the song ended but she will make do with what they have done already, it was better than nothing, when he didn’t immediately let her go and instead drew her tighter, she felt a small brief second of panic.

Which was quickly smothered when he easily transitioned to a new set of steps, to go in pace with the new song she could hear in the distance, and well she was a bit startled and so not prepared for the new change, she had never been a smooth or graceful dancer after all, but she was stubborn and could now learn more easily than before. She felt the slide of his body against her, felt his motions and a quick look downwards to check the footwork, and she found herself following his lead and steps before she looked up at him with a rather pleased smile. “And how is my performance in this test going, Barnes?”

He sensed her surprise when he simply pulled her into the next dance, drawing her with him even if neither of them could actually do it perfectly. Either long out of practice and having never particularly practiced at all, they moved still, bumping knees, brushing feet, and he was pretty sure that was her foot he stepped on once when he tried to avoid a chair. It was almost a moment of care-free attempts at being normal people, though he doubted many people just spontaneously started to dance in the backyard of a house they were borrowing.

Still, when the song ended and no new one took its place, he reluctantly released the hold that he had on Stephanie and stepped away. He reached up instead to smooth at his bangs which had come loose and draped around his face again. "I think we both need practice."

She wasn’t surprised when he wasn’t as graceful, at least dancing wise, as he had been in the past, back then he had been the best dancer and every dame wanted his attention when he dragged her to clubs, where she will just sit and watch before slinking away, much to his annoyance when he got back to their dingy little apartment to find her there. Yes, they were not graceful, at least not as much as when they were in battle, and there was some bumping and he was the one that stepped on her, but it was good and nice, spontaneous and happy enough that she couldn’t the smile on her face, in this moment she could easily make herself believe they were just like they were before and get lost in the moment.

And a moment that eventually came to an end when the song did, for a few seconds she had just looked at him and a small voice in her mind had expecting him to…of course not, when he released her, well, she didn’t complained and maybe even took a step back, trying to keep whatever composure she had left and not think on what could have happened. “Yes, maybe we do.” Once again she could hear laughter in the distance and she couldn’t help the small pang of longing. “I…am going to look for something to ear. Are you hungry?”

She turned around and slowly slid the door open, this was the best way she had to kind of try to put things into normalcy and not let it fall into anything awkward or make her dwell on other thoughts.

He realized belatedly that he had an opportunity to seal her to him with a kiss, and he hadn't taken it. The old him probably would have, would have never missed an opportunity for a kiss from anyone. Kisses were innocent after all, a way to show affection and keep it to himself while never pushing too far. Dames loved to be kissed, and he had always been very good at it. Clearly, he needed practice reading the signs again; too much killing had dulled his fangs in that area. No, not just the killing... it was everything else as well.

He knew better than to try to recover the situation, and he knew that the kitchen was probably a safe place for him. It wasn't particularly safe for her given the pointy objects in there, but it was safe for him. "No, not really hungry, but maybe if they have some milk," he uttered softly. Why had he said that? What was it about milk that made him reflect far too deeply on old jobs that he didn't really remember?

He followed, abandoning the deck and the music and the dance steps they had made there.