killingsoftly | Coffee with Fred

He wasn't accustomed to having coffee later with people he'd so thoroughly seduced, but then, she'd been nice to him before that and after that and didn't seem to be running away, ans she'd offered to let him talk and he'd already apparently told her about Warren, so that made her slightly safer to talk to than the redhead who he barely knew.

He called her and invited her for coffee. He arrived at Starbucks a little early, parking the bike, then fidgeting outside on the step while he waited for her. He lit up one of his clove cigarettes, moving away from the door to the ashtray a bit further down. People might have given him disapproving looks on his own account, but at least no one coughed pointedly at him.

He was still fidgety, but at least the nicotine helped a bit. And there would be coffee. Which might make him fidget more. But it would be good and she was a calming sort and he might not end up talking about Warren at all, really, even as VERY confusing as things were now.

He leaned against the wall and tried to make himself stop fidgeting, which got him looks from the Barbie clones who walked by, flashing him an inviting smile. Bike. Leather jacket. Sunglasses. Cigarette. Too pretty for words. It was what he used to get such creatures in his bed to give him what he needed, but he was too fixated on Warren to do more than just smile back at them with a nod.

Some things were instinctual.

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Fred just blinked. He should do that more often. And if directed all those more oftens in Warren's direction?

Then whoever Warren was, he didn't stand a chance.

"I meant what I said before, but you might not remember? So, I'll say it again. You can call anytime you want, ok? If you'd like to talk."

He blinked and nodded a little bit. "Okay...."

"I mean that," she said firmly.

He tilted his head. "Why?"

"All sorts of why's," Fred admitted quietly.

"First of all I like you, I liked you, even before, in case you hadn't noticed. But talking, and..." She pointed to the table. "Coffee, and whatever else, maybe it makes us friends then. And friends, well, it selfishly helps my head, makes there be a line. But mostly? You helped, a lot. You...saw things, and you didn't treat me any differently the next morning."

Okay, next three mornings, but?

"That makes you nice," Fred used her old word. "And a good person, and I selfishly like to fill my life with those sorts of people."

"Oh..." He smiled a little, touched, and unsure. Vulnerable.

He wasn't used to feeling that way.

He pouted.

"There's a line?"

Fred smiled to his smile, and then laughed quietly at the end. Of all the things to get from that.

"Just a little one."

"Bah to lines," he said, eyes teasing.

"It can be dotted," she offered, playing back. "Maybe dashed."

"I'm much more comfortable with that..."

She just shook her head and laughed.

"I'll remember that."

He gave her his best bad boy smirk.

"You and your faces," she teased. "Do you practice in front of a mirror, with those?"

"Nope. They come natural."

"I have faces too, you know."

She made her best, look-what-I-just-discovered, from the lab.

He grinned.

She though, then stopped.

"Okay, so I don't have many more than that, at least that I can do on command?"

"It's a good one."

"That's years of lab experience, there."

"What sort of science do you do?"

"Physics is what I went to school for. But a little bit of anything I can get my hands on, really."

"What do you like about it?"

"I like breaking everything down into its smallest pieces, just to build it all back up to understand it that much better. And sometimes doing it all over again, but picking a different piece all together. I love that the math never changes, that no matter what, it's there."

He smiled a little. "I like math. You have to understand it to write or play music."

"Music's the same way a lot of the time," Fred agreed. "Even though I've never really been exposed to it enough to understand it. But all the notes, getting smaller and smaller, defining things."

OOC: Header is SOOOOO pretty!