birthright_rpg | What's in a Name?

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Melody had been refilling some of the shelves in the 'tricks' section at the front, and had seen Daniel at the door. It didn't take a lot of thinking to figure out what he was doing with the door knob and she found herself grinning. She turned her head away as the door opened so it didn't appear as thought she'd been watching him, straightening two jars of dried sage sprays before turning.

As Daniel sent the two candles rolling she laughed and shrugged, collecting the candles before they rolled off the edge and plummeted to the floor, potentially breaking and becoming damaged stock.

"You tell me, were you around in those days?" she returned, putting the candles back where they were. "And we have a very strict policy of 'You break it, you own it'," she added with a grin and wink, a rather different person to the one he had met in the pet store.

Posted by

daniel_stacy

“Who… me?” He pointed at himself. “I was born in 1959. The first time.” Daniel picked up one of the candles to test its weight and then he sniffed it. It smelled like lavender, less magical and more like the toiletries in his grandmother’s bathroom. He gave Melody a double-take. There was something different going on, especially in terms of eye contact, but he didn’t know the cause of it; he put it down to the change in environment. She was on her own turf.

“Lemme guess. 1963?”

Edited on 2014-04-25 03:01 am (UTC)

Posted by

melodymagic

"Hmm, and I wouldn't have put you a day over oh, I don't know, a hundred?" she replied, adding "here, try this one," as she selected another of the candles and held it out to him. It had a scent of sandalwood, and she arched an eyebrow at him.

"You guess well."

Posted by

daniel_stacy

“I do? Hm.” He sniffed it. It was kind of nice, earthy but sweet. “Do you have this in an after-shave?”

He smiled and began to toss the candle in the air like a baseball in a mitt. Unlike some of his sharp-toothed friends, he didn’t light candles all over his apartment and call it a lair, mostly because he’d accidentally catch himself on fire.

Daniel returned it to the table and picked up a prism instead. He peered into one end.

Posted by

melodymagic

"Let me see," she told him, reaching for a small jar of an essential oil. "I think we could do something for you, if you'd like me to make you some? I love the opportunity to practice my potions, so let me see what I can come up with for you!" She picked up another jar and carried it down toward the large wooden counter at the rear of the store, looking over her shoulder for a brief moment to see if he would follow.

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daniel_stacy

"Seriously?"

Daniel had been kidding around, but hell, why not? If he was going to make another impulse purchase, better that than a crystal ball or a broomstick or a magical cat to go with his rabbit.

Lamp light refracting through the prism. He turned it and watched a faint rainbow dance on the wall.

"Can you make potions to counteract other..." What was the word for vampire properties? "Mystical shit? Because I'd kill to have a sun tan. I can see the veins in my pecs, it's weird."

Edited on 2014-04-25 10:13 pm (UTC)

Posted by

melodymagic

"Seriously," she returned and glanced across at the wall with the rainbows dancing, eyes narrowing a little as she looked back at the prism he was holding. "And the 'you break it, you buy it' policy goes for everything," she reminded him before continuing.

"I can't say I've really looked into that, given there are lots of others to work with, which probably have a lot more call, or at least do here," she laughed, pulling a few bottles down from the shelf, including an empty one with a twist cap. Into a bowl she started pouring what looked like a dark rum, and some clear liquid followed. A shake of some white powder and three leaves were plucked from a tiny drawer and crumpled into the mixture. Melody's fingers moved over the mixture, a small whisk moving until she remembered she might have a spectator and she grabbed it and started whisking briefly.

She looked at Daniel and pulled a face. "That would be weird!"

Posted by

daniel_stacy

“What else would they ask for? Working mirrors? Immunity to stakes?”

The vampire ignored the chiding about the prism and hooked a finger into his t-shirt. Daniel stretched it this way and that, inspecting the veins beneath a modest amount of chest hair. He thought about showing her the blue lines but stopped himself. It might look gratuitous. Hey, check out my abs.

Posted by

melodymagic

"Not vampires, other people. We get requests for all sorts of stuff, mainly the love potions, or 'make me hot' and 'make me strong', or more confident, and even 'make me quieter'," she said, blinking for a moment as something niggled in her memory, but wasn't quite there.

She added in some more liquid, the aroma rising from the bowl now starting to change, the small stringy orange bits she dropped in next clearly citrus in their origin.

Her eyes darted across as she stirred, looking at him tug his t-shirt neck down and study his chest. "Please don't ask me to make you a hair growing potion, because that is just not my favourite one, seriously," she told him, shuddering a little at the memory of making it last time.

Posted by

daniel_stacy

The neckline snapped back into place. “No. I wouldn’t—that’s,” he wrinkled his nose. “Sick.” But it got him thinking about the examples she gave. “Although you do have me thinking there’s a dude walking around Vegas with magically enlarged junk.” He hopped off the table. Its contents rattled but settled into place. He used the tail of his shirt to wipe fingerprints off the prism and put it back where he found it.

He observed the witch for a minute as she added ingredients. The scents made his nostrils flare.

“You ever use any on yourself?”

Posted by

melodymagic

Again her eyes darted across to him, then back down to what she was doing. "I might, sometimes," she replied, head tilting to one side as she thought about something, her eyes on the mixture in the bowl. She lifted it and sniffed a short sniff, putting it back again and looking across all the drawers in the wall in front of her. She found what she was looking for and pulled the drawer open, taking a pinch from the contents and dropping them into the mixture before stirring again.

"Some are just ... no, definitely not what I want, like the hair one," she told him, laughing. "Though Jazz had a small accident when making it. She sneezed and it took weeks for her to get rid of the hair that grew from her palm!"

Posted by

daniel_stacy

Daniel snorted. He coughed to try to cover it up. "You sure that's where it came from?" The urban legend about hairy palms had caused him a temporary panic at ten years old, when he was gullible and about as smart as a sack of rocks.

"Sorry. That's crass."

He was not sorry. He hope she turned red. A good blush smelled great on a woman, all that blood in the cheeks and throat. Under his eyelashes, he tried to sneak a look up and down Melody and figure out what she might have gotten enhanced. Maybe the legs. They were seriously long, like the girls in that Robert Palmer video.

Posted by

melodymagic

"It is!" she told him, as she struggled to combat that familiar old failing. She felt the blush rising, but not as severely as it would have before. Instead it just added a glow to her complexion and some colour in her cheeks, though beneath her shirt she could feel the slight prickle of the heat. She kept her eyes on the bowl as she continued to mix, adding a little more of the darker, powdered leaves she'd started with.

"And I'd dare you to say that to her face, except I'd probably have to clean up the mess of whatever was left of you when she'd finished with you!"

Posted by

daniel_stacy

Well, what did she expect? He was a vampire. Crass wasn’t just in their wheelhouse; it was their wheelhouse.

Daniel cocked his head to the side. No jokes around this one tonight. She seemed really focused, like she was making a last-ditch, life-saving elixir instead of cologne. “Hey, what happened to that cute girl with the giggle?” He poked a finger into his cheek, as if she’d had a dimple. “Don’t you smile? Do I have to bring Socrates next time?”

He stuck his hands in his pockets.

What would she be like drunk? He loved drunk girls, so effusive and affectionate and rubbery. And speaking of intoxication, where the fuck was Holly? Urgh. He pressed the heel of one hand against his temple, trying to dislodge the thought. Jesus, he was like a dog with a bone.

Posted by

melodymagic

Her attention had been completely on the mixture as she didn't want to be caught staring at him, and give herself away when she did.

"I'm sorry, would you prefer I add a little wolfsbane to your aftershave?" she retorted, realising even as she said it that it probably coming out a little less funny than it had sounded in her head, especially given he was a vampire, not a werewolf. "And giggling adds an extra ten percent to the price!" She blinked, a little surprised at herself with that last one. Dammit Melody, pull yourself together! She inhaled a little deeper and braced herself to turn a little and look at him.

"How is Socrates?" she asked, allowing herself to give him a smile, no giggle in sight, but perhaps a little less defiant than she had been so far. "Has he settled in alright?"

Posted by

daniel_stacy

“He’s fine. He chews everything. I guess I can’t hold that against him.” He gestured haphazardly at his own canines and let his arm fall slack again. “He whittled down a chair leg until it broke. Must’ve tasted like a carrot.” Daniel wandered a little farther away to pick up a paperback book on crystals. He set it aside and ran his fingers over a bunch of sticks coming from a jar of oil.

Then, feeling like an idiot, he said as casually as he could muster, “What’s uh… what’s wolfsbane?”

Posted by

melodymagic

"I hope you've given him something else to chew on then!" Melody said, her concern for Socrates showing through. "They need to keep doing that because their front teeth grow all the time, never stop, so they have to keep wearing them down." She stopped, realising she might have sounded a little like she was giving him a lecture, and while it was something he needed to know if he was going to care for Socrates properly, she probably could tell him a differently.

She sighed, and apologised, and gave him a small smile when he asked his question. "Something I promise I won't put in. It's a poison, and particularly bad for werewolves," she explained, hiding her surprise that he didn't know it. "Have you been a vampire for long?"

Posted by

daniel_stacy

Daniel had flinched a little when she fussed at him, not out of genuine worry so much as surprise. He had really read her wrong last time. Not that she was bad now, just a lot more forward. Less, ‘oh no!’ and more ‘how dare you!’ Somehow he resisted the urge to say, ‘Yeah, I gave him my fist!’ and tried to keep a serious face.

“Ahhh… almost two years?” He scratched his cheek. He didn’t remember the exact date; and why should he? It wasn’t like a birthday. Nobody gave you a cake and you didn’t get any older. “Not long. I meant it when I said I was born in 1959. So I was twenty-five when she turned me.”

Posted by

melodymagic

Melody nodded, head to one side as she lay a cloth over another clean bowl and poured the mixture into it, straining out the lumps and pieces of leaves.

"Only two years ago," she said, for some reason that seeming to make her a little less wary of him. He wasn't older than her grandfather, as she had first thought of him as, given the whole 'no more aging' thing. "And a woman turned you?" she commented, not wanting to think too hard on what they might have been doing.

"How did it happen?" Why did you ask that?! Idiot! She gave him a quick smile, a little embarrassed, and added, "you don't have to say if you don't want to."

Posted by

daniel_stacy

“Nothing really.”

Daniel knew that needed clarifying. He smiled a trifle crookedly and leaned against the counter, arms folded over his chest, ankles crossed.

“Alright, alright. I met her at a bar. She was older than me, in her forties or so I thought. Really hot, though. Red hair, freckles, classy. She caught me staring and she walked right up to me and ordered me to buy her a drink. So I do it. And I start talking too much, making a complete ass of myself, and she’s trying not to look bored. The thing is, I know that. On some level I know she's out of my league and I'm wasting time on a pipe dream. But then all the sudden she cuts me off.” He swiped a hand through the air with the dramatic flare of a man talking to his buddies. “Invites me upstairs.”

Daniel picked one of the reeds and continued. “So I fall for it. And I’ve got this cocky grin on my face all the way to the tenth floor. We get to her hotel room, we go inside…”

He raised his eyebrows. “You sure you want to hear this?”

Daniel surged forward without waiting for an answer. “She takes her shirt off. I try to touch her and she slaps me. I’m just standing there staring, mouth y’know… wide open, drool running down my chin because I think we’re about to play a sexy game. The next thing I know, I’m on my back, she’s straddling me—”

The vampire ignored any halting motions or noises Melody might have made and forged ahead.

“—and her teeth are in my neck. It turns out she’s into chicks. Anyway, the next night I wake up dead in her shoe closet, and she’s out getting a manicure.”

Edited on 2014-04-26 05:35 am (UTC)

Posted by

melodymagic

The expressions on Melody's face went from curious, to an eye roll then quickly to one that said there really was more detail than she'd expected. Right up until he said the vampire was not into men, and out getting a manicure.

"She's a lesbian?" she squeaked, a little surprised, but then covering that up with a quick, "so how do you wake up dead? Because that? ... I don't know, do you sleep at all? Or are you just awake all the time?" She knew she didn't know that much about them, having spent much more of her time reading about potions and spells, rather than the other things in their 'world'.

Posted by

daniel_stacy

Daniel’s shoulders hitched in a quick shrug. He drummed a muted beat on the flat surface.

“It’s more like anesthesia. One minute you’re awake, and then you’re not, and then suddenly you are again. The middle part’s lost time. Except this time when you wake up, you have these weird half-thoughts. They’re like dreams you can’t really remember, and the harder you try to focus in, the blurrier they get. But you know certain things. Like you just know going out in the sun’s a bad idea. And you know what you are and why you’re starving. It’s the demon that knows. Even an underachiever like mine.”

“By the way, some people say the human’s gone and all that’s left is the demon. It’s a load of crap. You’re more like a hybrid. How could you not be at least part of who you were, when you’ve got your old memories?”

Posted by

melodymagic

She'd put a cover on as the liquid seeped through the straining cloth and into the glass bowl beneath. As she listened she leaned against the workbench, arms lightly folded as she listened. There was something about learning from someone telling their experiences she'd always found easier to absorb, rather than just reading it in the books, and was why she always practiced making her potions, and doing her magic, rather than just reading about it.

"So you have your own original consciousness, and there's all your memories, but other things change," she said, summarising what she thought he'd said. "What about your senses? I mean I know you have really good hearing and smell, but what about taste, and touch? And sight? Can you see better? And is it still in colour, or different to what you could see before?" Slowly her curiosity was getting the better of her caution and she studied him openly now, her eyes looking at his jawline, wondering if he had to shave.

Posted by

daniel_stacy

"Mmm," he considered, "the same but better. Like Spider-man or something, heh, except taste. Other than blood and skin, everything's bland." Daniel inspected the wood grain in the reed and then put it in the jar. "My hearing is ridiculous. I can hear an ant on the counter. You've got a moth in the back, I can hear the wings hitting a light bulb. I can hear your pulse."

Daniel didn't look up, but his mouth got a mischievous curl to it.

"Sex."

Posted by

melodymagic

Melody's eyes widened and the colour rose again, her hand flying to her throat to cover it. It was so unexpected and given she had just been wondering about how that really worked for a vampire she felt almost like he'd read her mind. She did manage to stop herself from blurting out that question, almost.

"What? I mean, what do you do... " she cleared her throat during the capture. "... what do you do with all the noise?" She was very pleased with herself that she had managed to make it through without stammering, and continued, arms folded, one hand rising and indicating toward the back room. "If you can hear that moth, it must be really bad for you in say like a bar, or somewhere really noisy?"

The colour in her cheeks was still a telltale and she tried to ignore it, exhaling as if she could breath out the heat in her neck and face. It had been a lame attempt to divert attention from the elephant he'd just released in the room, but she persevered.

Posted by

daniel_stacy

Daniel’s smirk said it all, but he was gentleman enough not to harp on the thud-thud-thud in her ribcage and a fairly entertaining throat-closing noise. She embarrassed easily; or maybe it was topic-specific. He couldn’t fathom being uncomfortable about sex. When he was a kid, he would’ve killed for the adults in his life to stop casually bringing it up. Even his grandmother, Agnes, who plied the landscaper with mimosas before getting it on.

He turned away to peruse a shelf of tiny canisters and jars. “Nah, it gets to be white noise,” he said, leaning closer to read a label. “You tune into what you want to hear.”

Curiosity got the better of him. “Do you do spells, too? Worship goddesses?”

Posted by

melodymagic

She used his distraction with the contents of the containers to adjust her stance and consciously relax. She felt that he tension in her body was putting out a huge neon light flashing VIRGIN into the atmosphere and she again felt the colour rising as she remembered his claims of acute senses, including smell. Could he smell that? She almost believed he could, given what he'd said, and she again had to try and stop herself from blushing. All this happened in a few milliseconds, but she felt like she hadn't answered him for nearly a full year!

"Spells, and potions are my chosen focus," she told him, deciding to leave out the part that she was still learning. "And what's wrong with worshiping goddesses?" she asked, almost a little defensively. It had been the thing her friends had teased her about when she had told a few of them, and they had all started dancing around in some moronic imitation of a really bad movie on witches.

Posted by

daniel_stacy

He shrugged. "Nothing. I was just asking." Daniel gave up looking over the merchandise -- he had no clue what any of it was -- and neared Melody. If he'd known what she was thinking, he would've chuckled because he could smell her, but it was a mixture of beauty products like lotion and essential oils that heated up with her embarrassment, plus her own unique body chemistry, even the scent of her house. Nothing to be paranoid about.

"I'm not spiritual or anything. I probably should be, knowing what I know but I think... I think it might be too late for that. I'm screwed."

Daniel wanted to sit again, but there wasn't anyplace to do it, so he stood with his hands in his jean pockets again.

Posted by

melodymagic

"A spiritual vampire?" She let out a small laugh as she responded. "Isn't that some sort of antithesis?" she asked, noticing him moving closer but not moving away. Her eyes darted to the spot on his neck where he'd placed her fingers when he had told her, or shown her, who and what he was.

"Aren't you supposed to be all disbelieving in anything and everything?" She did pause for a moment when she remembered meeting Theresa in the coffee shop just next door, and had to wonder for a very brief moment how she'd managed to meet two vampires in as many weeks. Though she had met Theresa on New Year's Eve, but just hadn't known what she was, despite Maddy's craziness, but then Maddy was pretty crazy and fun most of the time so Melody hadn't taken much notice, thinking it was just the booze, or a high from whatever Brian had been smoking that night. And then she realised she had been staring at Daniel's neck.

Her eyes darted back up to his face, and she shifted a little, giving him an embarrassed smile. "Sorry, was just thinking about how your skin felt that other time," she tried to explain, and realised even as she was saying it how it might sound. "I mean, how you felt, or didn't, with no pulse, ... " Her voice trailed off as she decided it was best to quit while she was sinking, instead of drowning completely.

Posted by

daniel_stacy

“It’s okay,” he said, touching his neck like there might be something on it, but he knew what she was looking at. A pulse was one of those things you didn’t see or feel until it was missing. Breath, too. A motionless body was strange, wrong without people immediately understanding why.

“Vampires believe in God,” he said. “They just don’t like Him. It’s the demon part of them. They feel rejected. Cast out. So they flaunt their evil in front of him.” He smiled. “Kind of like a pissed off teenager.”

Daniel rubbed the back of his neck.

Posted by

melodymagic

"They do? I mean, I get the whole pissed off teenager thing," she said, a little hurriedly as she hadn't ever really been one of those. Her upbringing and respect for her family, and her parents, had precluded her from ever feeling that way towards them. She knew how hard they worked to support her and their own parents, and she'd never begrudged them their rules. She may have felt frustrated at times, especially when her mother refused to talk about things in the past, but never pissed off with them. Unlike some of her friends, who'd done nothing but complain about everything their parents said and did.

She gave him a small smile as she added, "but that makes it sound like they're all pretty immature."

Posted by

daniel_stacy

He lifted one shoulder. “We are. What is vampirism if not a metaphor for never growing up? Think about it.” He lifted a hand and began to count off the fingers. “We don’t age. We’re narcissists. We’re selfish… I mean, we actually suck the lifeblood out of other people! That’s,” he snorted, “Yeah. We’re in a constant state of rebellion.” He ran out of similarities when he got to his thumb. “Uh… oh! We hate waking up in the morning.”

He smiled like a pleased little boy over that last one.

“There you go.” Daniel waggled his fingers at her. “I also think a lot of us are phonies. I’ve been advised to act more evil than I actually am, just to blend in. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve killed people and I don’t feel bad.” He spread his hands. “I just don’t do it lately.”

Posted by

melodymagic

She wasn't sure how she felt about his revelation that he'd killed people, but she reserved judgement, as she had always appreciated honesty and that's what he'd given her.

Again.

"Do you intend on every doing it again?" she asked, wondering if there was going to be honesty in this answer. After all, she was just as likely to be a target for his kind as anyone, and it was going to make a bit of a difference if there was the slightest chance he might.

Posted by

daniel_stacy

Daniel’s mouth puckered in thought. He sighed. “I mean, I’d say no, but forever’s a long time. Who knows? If I was starving, if somebody pulled a stake on me…” He shook his head in mild exasperation. “I don’t intend to.”

It was the best he could do. He had never been much for yanking out entire throats or doing a celebratory dance in someone’s intestines, but he had only made a concentrated effort to stop killing because of Holly, because he’d fallen for a girl who happened to be human. He hadn’t heard from her in three months, but Daniel was still on the wagon, still trying hard not to drink too much, just so he could look her in the eye and say he was clean, if she knocked on his door again. She probably wouldn't. He could take a hint. But he had kept on behaving himself, and a big chunk of the reason why was because humans were more decent to him than his own kind. If you wanted to hang with humans, you couldn't be a threat.

He pointed in the direction of Melody’s stomach. “I wouldn’t kill you.”

Posted by

melodymagic

Automatically her arms lowered till they were crossed over her stomach, and she frowned briefly. "Well, that's good to know," she replied, her frown fading as she let her arms fall all the way down to her sides when she realised what she'd done.

"Have you ever had anyone do that? Pull a stake on you?" she asked, head tilted a little again.

Posted by

daniel_stacy

Daniel had to admit, “No. Well…” He reconsidered with a wince and the sound of air sucking between his teeth. “Yeah, my sire. Deanna. Other than that, not really. I’m a quiet guy. I keep to myself.” He smiled as he recited the trope from many a newscast. “And! By the way, I’m not bragging. I think this is the opposite of bragging. Vampires pride themselves on how many people want them dusted. I can’t think of anybody who’d bother.”

The laugh was self-deprecating.

He replayed in his head how Melody had covered her stomach, a defensive posture. He couldn’t blame her. It was actually smart. Holly should have done that; she was just too hell-bent on fucking up to care if he was a danger or not.

“Why uh… why do you talk to me?” he said, shaking his head ruefully.

Posted by

melodymagic

"Why not?" she returned immediately, then ducked her head a little before looking at him again. "Is there some reason I shouldn't? I mean, other than because you're a vampire?"

She wasn't sure what he meant, and was wondering if there was some taboo, regarding witches talking with vampires, but she was fairly certain that wasn't the case.

Posted by

daniel_stacy

“That’s pretty much it.”

He met her look straight on.

“C’mon… There’s got to be something in it for you. Other than sales commission. The last girl I knew who talked to me this much, I mean she liked me, she liked me a lot,” he laughed and touched his jaw, and something in the movement suggested a physical relationship, “But sometimes I got the feeling it was because I was a vampire. She was playing Russian roulette, just being around me.”

Posted by

melodymagic

It was about then that Melody decided the next potion she would be studying up on was one to stop her from the lifetime scourge of the blush that was again threatening to rise up.

"I'm getting to learn things first hand, and there's no better way than straight from the horse's mouth, or in your case, the vampire's, because you're not a horse..." she told him, turning back to the counter and taking the cover off the bowl, averting her eyes from his so he couldn't see the evidence of her embarrassment, even though she knew he could probably sense it in other ways. She quickly found a funnel to use to pour the contents into the jar she'd already located, and lifted the cloth containing the remnants of the ingredients, placing it out of the way. The distraction helped her to quell the rising heat before it became visually evident but she wasn't so sure he hadn't noticed by then anway, so held the bowl out to him.

"Do you like this?" she asked, managing to look him in the face again as she did.

Posted by

daniel_stacy

Learning. It was as good a reason as any, but it didn’t explain why the witch had turned a nice shade of rose. It struck him that Melody might be attracted to him. Even though he was a vampire, even though he was dead. She wasn’t foolish enough to do anything about it, maybe, but that had to be it. He had gotten a lot of favors in life because he was a good looking guy. It was the whole reason Deanna turned him.

He found himself wondering if she’d have kicked him out of the store if he looked like a toad.

Daniel took the container and smelled its contents. It was more masculine than the original scent, muskier like other colognes. “Smells great,” he said. Daniel stuck his fingertip in the liquid and dabbed it on his throat. “Like this?”

Posted by

melodymagic

"Yep, that's about it," she replied, watching as he applied it and indicating the other side as well. "Not sure how well it'll work, with the whole lack of pulse points and body heat," she pointed out, "but there's as good as any place."

She turned and started decanting the mixture into the bottle, pouring it into the small funnel to make it easier.

Posted by

daniel_stacy

“Then I’ll just have to lean close.”

Daniel pressed his palms flat on the counter while Melody worked. He looked over at the door to the shop, at the people out on the sidewalk. He heard snatches of their conversation, something about a revue they’d gone to the night before and how Mallory threw up in her hair. He wrinkled his nose. Whatever he’d been thinking about drunk girls earlier, he took it back.

“What’s the damage?” The vampire took out his wallet.

Posted by

melodymagic

She told him, removing the funnel and capping the bottle before writing on a small label she affixed to the front of it. She popped the bottle into a small brown paper bag and held it out to him.

"You should keep it in the fridge it'll keep longer that way, up to a month. And that way when you put it on it will at least have some warmth to help it work," she added, giving him a small smile as she held the bag.

Posted by

daniel_stacy

Daniel set cash on the counter and took the paper bag. “Ha.” He looked inside and then folded the crinkling paper until it would fit in his pocket. “You know… we’re not made of ice. We’re room temperature.” He stuffed the bottle deep into the pocket of his pants and added, because he couldn’t resist, “Enough friction and we get downright warm.”

He winked and then backed towards the exit.

“See you around?”

Posted by

melodymagic

She rolled her eyes as he backed away, then giggled a little, smiling and shaking her head at him as she managed to keep the colour from rising into her face yet again. She would have kicked herself if she could, and nodded, giving him a little wave.

"You know where I work," she told him, indicating his pocket, "and not like you can get that just anywhere!" It didn't help that she was then imagining him with a girl, and the girl liking the scent, and she had to quickly push that thought out of her head. "Hope it works for you," she added, "helps you get all warm!" The last bit came out before she realised it and she covered up her embarrassment by returning the wink and telling him, "give her my regards," with a whole lot of cockiness she suddenly found come over her.

Posted by

daniel_stacy

He paused with his back touching the door.

“I’m single,” he said.

The noise of the street whooshed past his ears. Daniel backed into the chaos of the evening.

Posted by

melodymagic

She waited until he was gone, then folded her arms, lay them on the workbench, closed her eyes as her forehead hit her forearms and she groaned.

"Could you have made any more of an idiot of yourself?!" she though, chastising herself as she remembered his hearing ability and managed to keep her thoughts internalised this time. She thought he was hot, but that in itself made her laugh at herself, given his actual body temp. "Seriously? What is it with you?" she chided mentally. "If they're taken, or dead? That's the type you like?" She shook her head at herself as she straightened up and started cleaning away the things she'd used to make the aftershave mixture. Checking her watch she saw it was getting late, and she needed to start closing up and putting things away. She hummed to herself to try and get her mind to think of someone, or something else, but was having trouble getting the dark-haired dead guy to disappear. The door opened and she looked up, hoping to see him come back, but instead it was two regulars who'd come to collect their regular order of ingredients. "Welcome!" she called out, and smile as she started to talk with them.

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