Drawing Parallels

[Saiketsu]

((OOC: Continued from here ))

He had climbed those stairs with the hope that every step he took would not only put distance between himself and the girl but also between himself and the actualization of what had just happened.

What he had just done.

He took the stairs at more than a human pace out of habit rather than anything else and didn’t stop until his bedroom door had slammed shut behind him. There he paced the length of his room, biting onto his hooked finger to keep all of the things in his head from leaking out into a string of unimaginable French – words that he never thought could have fixed themselves to reveal such a message about his thoughts about what had happened. Instead there was a dizzying bombardment of confliction in his head, something that pushed that human feeling he had experienced only seconds ago, down into the pit of his stomach until he grew nauseous from the thought of kissing her.

Kissing her.

Something about doing it was more wrong than he had ever imagined. His ears kept ringing in shame, in embarrassment and the vampire could do nothing but pace his usual pattern in the floor. Desperately he searched for a satisfying reason why he would have possibly done something of that nature, yet nothing that he could come up with was a satisfying, logical reason as to why he would have abandoned his own sanity for the feeling of Rachel’s  --Storm’s -- tender kiss on his mouth.

Nothing made sense to him, not his own actions, his own feelings, not even the fact that he could have sworn she had kissed him back before she pulled away. He wanted to vomit, to shower or to scream and shout out of confusion. It was a feeling similar to the day he had lost Lucretia, though in a different intensity and a different reason. Hatred, of himself and his ridiculous, unfathomable actions, gathered in the pit of his stomach and forced him to swallow the knot in his throat. His insides were dry, as if he had been lacking blood for a few weeks rather than a few days. He even tried to convince himself that this was the reason he had leaned in so close to Storm in the first place, but it only partially soothed the vampire for moments.

She had kissed him back, he was sure of it. She had moved her lips against the friction of his, almost welcoming him. The thought brought more comfort than any poor excuse for needing to feed, but he hated himself for being so soothed.

And thus his thoughts had continued throughout the night he spent purposefully locked away from his own ward. Every time he found comfort in some aspect of the situation he had overlooked, he shook himself out of his own comfort, forcing himself into a state of discomfort – he would never, never, allow himself to be ok with what he had done to her, to himself and to the memory of his Sire. And even though there wasn’t any significant amount of guilt in the latter area, he found himself forcing his own punishment for not feeling ashamed of himself down his throat. Yet it didn’t create any real, heart-felt guilt for having done what he had chosen to do.

But the worst part, the one thing he couldn’t rid himself of, even as the night slowly and painfully passed into day, was how he couldn’t remove the thought of himself acting as Laurent had, kissing her like that. Every time he pushed the thought away, of how much he must have resembled the one man he hated and wanted to have nothing in common with, there’d be that one strand of thought in the back of his mind drawing that parallel to the man who had raped and abused her. And it made the vampire even more nauseous to think that he could have kissed that girl and triggered some kind of memory about what had happened only three years ago. What kind of man was he that he thought he could press any part of his body up to a woman like that? What she must have thought of him.

About an hour or so till dawn, Damien had abandoned his pacing and had seated himself wearily on his bed. He found himself most of the night wishing he had never done such a thing as to lose control of his senses and lean into that girl and kiss her. Now, however, he simply wished that he could have called up his son and let loose that string of French words that he couldn’t even himself understand the meaning up. Yet Damien found himself afraid. He was afraid of Pierre’s reaction and what he would say and what it would all mean. He didn’t want it to mean anything but a stupid loss of control on Damien’s part. He didn’t want there to be any diagnosis of love, or lust, or compulsion. Damien wanted nothing more than to be told again that he was just being weird and that it would pass if he just kept moving forward, ignoring it all.

But he simply couldn’t bring himself to ignore it all. It didn’t feel that easy, and for that reason he didn’t dare reach for his phone, but suffered in silence.

He didn’t sleep – he couldn’t sleep. Halfway through the morning he had sat and listened to the noises of the house to pick up a judgment of her reaction for the umpteenth time that day. It was then that he noticed her breathing had evened out and his blood no longer raced. She was making those small noises in her sleep like she always did. She was sleeping and the idea helped draw him out of his own cloud of misery.

She hated sleeping. It was almost nightly that she woke up screaming, gasping for air or crying and at first, when Damien had first let her sleep in his presence it was terrifying. Now he was used to her reaction. Prior to tonight, he had gotten himself into the habit of sitting by her while she slept for a few hours, to be there for her when she woke from her nightmares, begging not to be hurt again. He had gotten into the rhythm of letting her hold onto his shirt as she cried with his arms around her as she calmed herself down, like he had done to all of his children upon waking from their deaths. It was the only thing he could ever think of doing for her. She always came around after a few minutes, but it took her a long time to realize that he wasn’t that demon Laurent, or another one of his clients, but someone who legitimately cared for the girl and hoped she would get better. And when she had awoken and realized that that life was years behind her, she would calm herself, and the moment would forever go vocally unrecognized. That was how he wanted it.

Now, however, with her breathing steady and her heart beating lowly from the couch, after everything that had happened mere hours ago, what would she react like if he had offered the same thing to her again? Damien simply wasn’t sure. He didn’t want to go near her again, didn’t want to see her or let her see him. He wanted to walk by her in his own house as if she were just his ward again, not the girl that he had come to hold every other night and had just kissed for the first time.

Somehow, things didn’t feel that simple anymore.

[The Cedar Witch]

There was nothing she could do when Damien went upstairs, nothing she could say.  To say that the entire ordeal was frustrating would have been an understatement.  Not only did she feel as though she could not take refuge in her own room, he had effectively shut off any opportunity for reconciliation (or explanation).   And after an hour of silence had passed, Rachel still didn’t have the slightest fucking idea about what had just happened.  Much less how she actually felt about the situation.  

The thing that she was absolutely sure of was the fact that he had actually kissed her.  The reasons why escaped her.

Rachel refused to believe that anything besides thirst had influenced his actions.  Somehow, that thought made is slightly easier to swallow.  She could be okay with that, it made much more sense.  Any thought of him possibly wanting and planning to kiss her made her feel almost dizzy.  The entire time that she had spent living with him never gave any sort of indication that any of this could have happened.  She had no hints that he wanted to do this out of his own conscious desires.  That only left room for the unconscious desires.

And how dare he fucking run and go hide in his room!  Without saying a word to her!  She felt like he had intentionally left her hanging, to make her feel infinitely uncomfortable in her own skin.  It wasn\'t fair.  If things weren\'t so fucking awkward she would have gone up to his door and knocked and told him exactly how rude it was to leave her hanging like that.  Well, like not explaining why he had done that, not leaving her hanging like leaving in the middle of kissing her.  Because she was sure that she didn\'t want to continue.  Not when it made them both so obviously uncomfortable and he most certainly didn\'t mean to do it.

And why the fuck did she kiss him back?  

And enjoy it?

But who didn’t enjoy kissing someone, right?  As long as they weren’t dirty or mean about it.  It didn’t mean anything, right?  What else was she supposed to do when he came at her like that?  Freeze up?  Wouldn\'t that have made things more awkward?  Of course, being awkward was the last thing she was worried about when he was that close to her face.  Mostly she was worried about the way her breath might have smelled to the vampire or if she was kissing him too forwardly.  Wait - never mind.

She tried her best to ignore the butterflies in her stomach.  But as the night progressed, she found herself unable to pull away from the memory of his lips against hers and the warmth that persisted at the thought of it.  This was Damien.  Not some potential love-interest.  Not even Pierre.  Damien was the farthest from…

Ugh.  Fuck it.

She was way too tired for this shit.

The book somehow found its way into her hands again and Rachel tried making sense of the words on the page.  Reading was her usual distraction, and on most nights she welcomed it eagerly.  Even nights when she and Damien had found themselves into somewhat of a small tiff.  But not tonight.  She must have reread the same page a hundred times, no part of it actually sinking in.  The night seemed absolutely endless and all she had wanted was to forget about everything and resume life as usual.

Whatever that meant.

--

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Rachel knew that she had fallen asleep again and that this sense of déjà-vu was for a reason.

She was running again.

Smeared, cheap makeup and freezing bare legs.  The loudest sound besides feet on the pavement was a thundering heartbeat in her skull.  There was breath in front of her, smoky white puffs against the thick blackness of the night.  The cold from the winter air seeped into her lungs from her throat, but she kept running.  The streets seemed endless and she was going nowhere, the pattering sound of heavy boots echoing against the filthy buildings behind her.  

The air was getting colder.  

The first time she ran down this street it wasn’t this dark.  Or cold.  The first time she couldn’t feel the predator’s hot, liquor breath at the back of her neck like she did now.  Feeling like it did when she had her face in dirty pillows and her back to the ceiling.  Hot breath on her neck.

The ally.  She knew by now that she shouldn’t have taken that last turn, that if she had only moved one street over it wouldn’t have been a dead end.

Hot breath on her neck.

The world swirled in slow-motion as she turned to look the predator straight in the mouth, hot breath grinning with a mouth full of jagged teeth.  Dirty lips.  Like the dirty lips on her flesh, goose bumps and unwanted touching.

If it wasn’t a dead end, she could have escaped.  If her legs weren’t on fire she might have gotten away.

Hot-breath was laughing, saying something, undoing his belt.  This time they were going to take her back.  By the panic seizing her entire torso, she was absolutely sure of it.

When Rachel awoke she was short of breath with one thought on her mind.

Where was Damien?

[Saiketsu]

By the time she had opened her eyes, he was next to her, having fought off his own discomfort for her sake. This was Rachel and something in him explained that despite his actions that night, despite their lips touching, she was going to need him like she always had when she woke up from the horrible nightmares that gripped her, the ones he had always wished that he could take her away from as easily as he had stolen her from out of Laurent\'s grasp that night while she ran. To hold her gave him some comfort, that one day she would be a normal human girl again, void of nightmares that were so fresh and raw on her body and in her mind.

The sun was high in the sky when her eyes finally flashed open in terror, a look that always pulled silently at him. The dog sat staring at the couple from the other couch, and her cat slept purring. He had been sitting next to her for more than a couple of hours by the time she awoke, knowing that she could have woken up at any time and when she did, he would need to be there ready.

He reached out and grasped her face like he always had, directing her eyes and her head gently towards him while she grasped onto his shirt like a dying human who wanted nothing more than to live. Like always, he shushed her and pressed their heads breifly together and wrapped his arms around her small frame until she let her warm neck lay against his shoulder like a small child. Gently, he reached out to her mind with as much control as he could manage and tried to calm her with his own mental touch, trying to avoid the sticky thoughts of her dreams. She was breathing hard again, the air pulling laborously into her lungs and her eyes flicking around to absorb her surroundings, making sure she was safe. He was accustomed to it all.

For a long moment, he whispered her name, trying to pull her out of it like he always did. He put his lips to her ear and said her name sternly with a natural accent, putting distance between himself and any thought of Laurent\'s tricks. Only Damien knew her real name. Only Damien called her by it with such a strong accent that usually made her blush. No one knew that he did this for her. No one knew that she woke up every night like this and this was part of their life together, her holding onto his shirt and scarred skin and he squeezing the memories from her head. He purposely had never told anyone. The reason why, though, had escaped him at that very moment.

"It\'s ok, Rachel. It was a dream. You\'re safe. It\'s me, Rachel. You\'re safe, see? You\'re safe now. It was just a dream," the vampire cooed, rocking her gently in his arms. "You\'re in my house, see? Lestat\'s on the floor and Delilah\'s in her bed. Breathe, Rachel. Just breathe."

[The Cedar Witch]

That dirty ally.  

If she thought long enough about it, she could feel the pavement under her feet, that hot breath at her neck and filthy lips on her skin crawling like insects devouring her flesh.  If she let the feelings roll over her like waves, she could almost slip back into that dream.  Hallucination.  Night terror.  She could almost hear their heavy breathing - all of them - their grunting, shuffling of movement in sheets and it was making her sick.  As if her body thought that the feelings were a sickness that needed to be expelled from her gut.  The image of belts unbuckled by filthy, cracked fingers burned brightly in her mind.  She was breathing heavily like she was still running and shivering from the lingering memory of that freezing ally.

Everything was so vivid.  These dreams were always so fucking vivid.

Like an animal she scrambled for him, for that comfort of something solid, strong, and protective.  The desire for comfort and reassurance were the only things on her mind as she came slowly out of her dream.  Ever since she came under the protection of the vampire, he had always offered that to her when she woke from her terrors.  She never asked for it, but he provided it nonetheless.  

It always felt like she left a part of herself inside of her head for a long time, still suffering with the memory of what had happened to her.  It was like the only thing that kept her from sinking back into her memory, into that dream, was his crumpled shirt in her balled fists and his arms around her trembling body.  She wasn\'t in an ally and there was no one chasing her.  She was sitting on the couch in a warm home under the protection of someone very close to her.

Someone safe.

It always seemed like an eternity before she could breathe normally, the time it actually took her to actually calm down and for her eyes to focus only took a few minutes.  His steady words in her ears brought a sense of stability to her mind, giving her something to focus on besides the beating of her heart and the lingering feeling of filth creeping across her skin.  Even when she pushed through the fog of her dream, she was still left with a feeling of insecurity as though at any moment she would be brought back to that same place.

This.  This is why she refused to sleep.

Coming out of the dreams always made her feel vulnerable and ashamed.  She hated it.

[Saiketsu]

It was difficult to dodge all of the images that cycled into the forefront of her mind. The hardest thing for him was not getting lost in her past, not succumbing to her own references of hands pulling at things he didn\'t need to see, her naked flesh and the things that had occured for nearly a year before he had stumbled upon the girl. More than once he had landed in her thoughts as Rachel herself, seeing the things she had seen briefly before focusing on putting his thoughts near the front of her mind, a mental projection of what was real around them. Neither Damien nor Pierre had ever inquired about the things she had gone through, but let her be. There was no sense in reliving the past when she needed to move on to heal.

He lulled her back to reality with the quietness of his voice and the rhythm of words he had developed from the very beginning of this process more than two years ago. Keeping his sturdy connection to her thoughts as long as he could, Damien kept his arms around her and rocked her body with a tenderness he practiced at least twice a week -- everytime she awoke. Damien could feel the deep well of agony starting to overflow in her and he slowly started to repeal his mind from hers as she came to terms with what had just happened. Her grip slackened a bit and her heart began to readjust itself. Adrenaline was thick in his nose and her skin was hot on his with the rushing blood in her veins which eventually began to calm. It would be a long time, he knew, before her human rhythms would return to normal.

The process of her return was laborous for the both of them. For hours he would have to walk on eggshells around her, careful not to do, say, or remind her of anything that she may or may not have experienced in her dreams. He would have to remain close, force an awkward smile and laugh to get her to loosen up, to lead her away from her own thoughts. Depending upon the severity of the dream he would have to shut off his senses or walk outside while she became sick in her bathroom. She would stay shut within herself, her small frame a tense shell of her former self. It would go on for hours, sometimes days and the tension of her reality would hit her at strange moments during the day or night, tears leaking from the inner corners of her brown eyes.

But it would pass like it always did. It took time, painful amounts of seconds, minutes, and hours mushed together until they were intelligible, but it would pass. Everything always did. Soon she would be smiling, reading, calling him strange, old, or some other selection of words he knew too well and heard too often.

But that wasn\'t now and the wait for her return would be as slow as it has always been. The vampire rocked her slowly and only pulled himself away if she made any indication to be released.

[The Cedar Witch]

It took her great effort to stop the swirling vertigo, or at least to slow it.  She went through several seconds of noticing she was hyperventilating and trying unsuccessfully to stop it.  Usually by now the gulping of air would have slowed, but if it wasn't for the vulnerable state-of-mind that she fell asleep in, the effects wouldn't have been quite as dramatic.  Foolish.  She always felt so foolish.  She wasn't some six-year-old child who had trouble seeing the difference between dreams and reality.  There wasn't any reason for this recovery time to take so long.  At least it felt like a long time.  The spinning in her mind made everything behave in slow-motion, even the vampire rocking her back and fourth and speaking softly to her. 

Some time had passed before the girl forced her mind to focus on breathing.  The steady in and out of air in her lungs moving in time to the rocking back and fourth.  That's all she needed to do right now.  Inhale and exhale.  She could handle that.  It was easier to do when there wasn't any frantic running going on.  Much easier to do safe in someone's arms where his only intention was to comfort.

[Saiketsu]

The more she pulled herself out with his mental hand-up, the easier he could help her. His mind was reeling from all of her images and pain that he wanted nothing more than just to let go completely. The only reason he didn't was due to the fact that it would hvae been just as shocking to her to be suddenly left sinking along in memory as it would be refreshing for him. He was there for her sake and wouldn't leave until he knew she'd be ok with it.

Tonight took longer than usual, however, and it was a while before he felt comfortable to slowly release her mind from his and hug her close to him, rocking her the while. Her grip on his shirt was loosening, as if she felt bad for it, and her tears had stopped now, leaving her sniffiling when she breathed. Had it been any other situation, he would have almost thought it was cute to see her like this, hugging him.

After she relaxed a bit under her own weight, Damien pulled slowly away to look at her. As he looked her in the eyes, something in the back of his mind clicked selfishly, and he remembered that he had kissed her only hours ago. That awkward feeling of being human tried to fill his neck and face again, only to find that the blood wouldn't move so easily without a heartbeat. Damien moved his slips as if to say something, but stopped. There was a moment where he needlessly cleared his throat and tried again.

"I'm going to make you some tea, yes?" He said and tried to give her a smile, though it turned out to be a weak turning of the corner of his mouth instead. As he made to get up, the temptation to kiss the top of her head, as if she were waking up from death and needing reassurance of physical touch, filled him. Silently he scolded himself and only rose if she allowed him to.

[The Cedar Witch]

Relief slowly filled her as breathing finally became easier.  Usually when she could regain control of that, everything went along with it.  The crying sniffled to a stop and she took in a big lungful of air, letting it all out at once in a sigh.  Hopefully this would leave her so exhausted that she could actually sleep later - deeply enough to skip over the nightmares.

Tea did sound amazing right now, and the idea of enjoying a cup almost lifted her spirits on its own. 

"Okay."  She replied softly, fighting the persistent butterflies in her gut when they made eye contact.  Oh, that's right.  The whole 'shit, why did we kiss' feeling again.  Well, this was awkward.  His hesitation to get up from the couch at first went unnoticed by the human as she released him completely.  She was okay now.  No need for clinging to him any more than she absolutely had to.  Even if it was comforting. There was still a part of her that didn't want to be left alone that made her feel uneasy when he left the room.

She watched him go into the kitchen and listen as he filled the tea kettle with water from the sink.  It was almost a routine of theirs by now whenever she did have a nightmare.  A routine that made her feel a little more normal when they were together.  As he filled the kettle, she got up from the couch and walked to the kitchen as quietly as she could.  Not that it would have mattered much anyway.

"I think I'm going to get something to eat too."  Of course it was more an excuse to not be alone, but she wasn't going to just walk into the kitchen for that.  She watched him for a minute as he put the kettle on the stove before she moved to the cupboards for some crackers and peanut butter.  Something small.  Thankfully this time she wasn't feeling nauseous.  Butterflies aside.

[Saiketsu]

After he put the tea on the stove and turned on the heat, Damien turned to look at her. She rustled through the cupboards for something to eat, and Damien became painfully aware of how empty the cabinets were. He watched her pull down a jar of sticky brown cream that Pierre had dared him to try once, something known as peanut butter. Whatever it was, Damien had spent nearly ten minutes trying to rid himself of the slimy, salty cream off the insides of his mouth, hissing angrily when he discovered how persistant it was. Damien frowned unknowingly at the peanut butter in front of him as the girl made herself a snack. Not even blood washed away the texture. He said nothing of this to Storm as she snacked.

"How do you feel," he asked her quietly, as if his tone would cause her more pain. His silver eyes followed her closely out of habit.

[The Cedar Witch]

"I'm fine."  the same automatic response that she always gave him.  Really she felt awkward, but put a cracker in her mouth to distract from any facial expressions she might accidentally make.  Especially since he always watched her so closely.

With food still in her mouth, she walked the peanut butter and box of crackers over to the island in the middle of the kitchen and perched on one of the stools.  It wasn't the healthiest of meals since they needed to go grocery shopping soon.  But it would do for dinner.  Or was it breakfast?  All of this excitement messed with her sense of time.  Especially when the house was always dark.

"How did you sleep?"  she asked mainly to change the subject, without making eye contact.  And as soon as she said it, she became painfully reminded of the fact that he had stormed upstairs after kissing her - not necessarily to go to sleep.  She popped another cracker into her mouth before he responded.

[Saiketsu]

Another awkward moment passed between them before he could answer. "Good," he lied briefly as he turned to check the stove to make sure that it was on after all, despite knowing that he was the one who set it. It never even dawned on him that he might have offended the girl by inferring that the kiss was nowhere near his mind. All he wanted was a different subject, something other than what happened last night. He was more or less looking to erase last night from his memory forever. Damien was hoping that Storm would too.

With his back facing her and his hands rummaging through the cupboards for a bit of a distraction, the vampire felt slightly more comfortable changing the subject, even if it did hang like a dead animal stinking up the room between them. "We'll have to go out to the store when the sun sets." He looked at the watch on his wrist and added, "there's still another two hours or so until it's safe to go outside." He meant to only mention himself - Storm could go outside when she liked - but he didn't quite feel it was nessecary, not when there was still the lingering shadow of thought about her lips touching his.

A long moment passed that was filled only with the gentle snapping of crackers and the roiling boil of water in metal. He wanted to break it, to talk about something that was normal for them, to chat about the Oligarchy, or her assumptions about the cat's latest fit of jealousy over the dog. He didn't want to talk about the things that had just transpired and didn't mean anything except a mistake that shouldn't have been made. And the more he thought about it, the less he wanted to admit that he was so far wrong he felt as though he needed to be away from her.

But if he could just keep calm, or just diffuse the situation when Storm first brought it up, then everything would be fine. He took the water off and poured it over a tea bag in a cup and watched it sit between him and his ward for a few minutes. "Storm," he said quietly and didn't look at her, even though he could feel her eyes on him, wondering. "I owe you an appology... about... last night."

[The Cedar Witch]

"Thanks."  she too stared into the hot cup of water, turning darker as it sat.  The only sound between them for a moment was her crunching and occasional rustling through the wrapper for another cracker.  She was typically used to the silences that went on between them, but this time was painfully different.  She assumed that like all other uncomfortable topics of conversation, he would make another off-handed comment about things that they needed to do that night or ask her if she fed the animals or anything that would take his - and her mind off of the situation.

This time, he surprised her entirely.

Her face filled immediately with color and she leaned away from him as if trying to keep her sudden warmth a secret.  The cracker in her mouth felt suddenly desert-like as she stopped mid-chew. 

"Uh - apologize?"  she stammered stupidly.  "No, it's fine.  It's fine."  She sighed through her nose, leaning forward to take the hot mug of tea into her hands and leaning back into the chair again - away from him.  What was she saying?  It wasn't fine.  He kissed her and ran away without any explanation.  The last thing she wanted him to do was apologize dismissively for it and change the subject like everything was going to go back to normal.  She cleared her throat and tried sipping from her tea, half turning away from him because it was far too awkward to face him even if they were separated by the island.

[Saiketsu]

He would have given anything to just drop it and be done, to just move on. But her voice wavered nervously and she wasn't convincing him of anything. It wasn't ok with him; there was something more that needed to be done, and despite his lack of desire to keep talking about it, his mouth moved the conversation forward.

"No, it's not," he fought himself to say. "I'm... I'm not sure what happened last night. Why.. that... happened..." Damien stumbled over himself, "and I know... you're probably really weary right now... And I know this is the last thing you need..." He kept getting frustrated in what he said, his lips and tongue twisting together now more than they ever had in his entire life. He sighed lowly to himself, starting over. "I know that you're probably not feeling the best after waking up. I wanted to let you know that... it was a mistake. One that won't happen again. And that I really don't know what happened." He was unwillingly looking at her now, trying not to show her exactly what he felt, but trying to communicate his appology.

He already felt horrible for the other part of his feelings and Storm didn't need to know that he rather enjoyed the kiss, despite his knowledge of her, what happened to her, and how he must have seemed to her. Without meaning to, he sighed under his breath and hung his head over the island, and said, "I never wanted you to think he and I were alike."

[The Cedar Witch]

"What?"  She shot up suddenly in her seat and looked at him.  "What makes you think that I'd think that?"  She looked directly at him, face flushed.

The two men were nothing alike - especially not in that aspect - to her at all.  The thought never crossed her mind.  No, Damien was different.  Worlds different.  A kiss wasn't suddenly going to change that.  Not a kiss like that.  One that made her want to kiss him back.  Did he miss that part?

"And how the fuck is something like that a mistake?"  Shit, I said that out loud.  She sounded angry, but was clearly just frustrated. 

[Saiketsu]

Her burst of energy caught him so off guard that his eyes widened and his lips almost pulled back from his teeth in a growl. It was a few seconds before he realized that she had asked him a question and that his grip on the counter top was a bit too tight for anyone's liking.

"I don't know!" He answered quickly, reflecting her energy back at her defensively. "You're living in my house, I wanted to make sure you didn't feel like I kissed you because I wanted something from you!" At any other moment in his career with her, he would have never even hinted at something intimate or sexual with her, but the reality of his own words weren't hitting him the right way to make him feel self-conscious about that. Instead he was too focused on how surprised and angry she looked and how much energy she had just put into the room between them. He was, in turn, surprised that so much energy could come from a human her size.

But when she seeimingly ignored his rebuttal and added another stinging question, he found himself yet again at a loss of words. It was a mistake and an accident. He hadn't meant to kiss her, it's not like he planned it out. It just... happened. And he was devoted to not letting it happen again. Yet he was getting the feeling somewhere in the back of his mind like that wasn't what she was asking.

"I just... I hadn't meant to... is what I meant."