tampered | (no subject)

(no subject)

When; December 19th, evening/night
Rating; PG to start? It's Anita, so warnings for her mouth?
Characters;

beast_unbound
Summary; Anita goes visiting a friend.
Log;

It'd been a long time since Anita had seen Nagarov, so she was more than happy to head Underground to the Warehouse for a visit. While she was more than able to take care of anything harrassing her Underground, she was glad she didn't need to. The prior few days had worn on her, even if her talk with Reeve had given her a pleasant surprise.

Once there, she rapped on the door, trying to keep from just walking right in.

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The door swung open on its own, a product of Nagarov's carefully laid subsystems. Although he had been careful to keep most of himself contained in an area where he could keep a literal eye on it, and everyone else out, a few tendrils snaked out into the main area of the Warehouse. The door he could sense, its vibrations like those on a fingertip.

"Come on up," called a distant voice from the third floor, drifting down the thick stairwell near the door.

Fighting back nosiness, she followed the voice, looking around as she went. One near the location she heard his voice, she peered around a corner.

"Heeeey?"

"Hey." He was up on the third floor, perched on a wheeled stool and hovering over a circuit board of some kind. Kicking off the wall, he rolled across the floor and scooted off to land deftly before her. The stool kept going and bonked into a corner with a metallic thud. "You don't have to stay here in the shop. Let's go somewhere comfier." Dropping an arm around her shoulders, he gave her a playful tug toward a small corridor that opened into a second, more livable-looking room.

Once there, he plunked down on the arm of a couch -- all about humor, today was -- and motioned vaguely around the room. "Sit, sit, somewhere. Preferably nearby, so I don't have to yell." His hand drifted back toward the couch as he grinned at her. The lighter he could make this, hopefully, the more jovial she would be when he inquired. Making the moment tense would simply turn her away. He made sure not to stare at her, but kept his eyes on her a little more than usual, glances, snatches of attention. She was probably used to this, so he would have to play his own knowledge against her experience.

A most intriguing game.

Well, he seemed to be in a chipper mood. Anita smiled a bit wider as she let herself be led. After dropping off her coat and making herself comfy on the couch, she leaned back a bit to peer up at him, dark eyes creased to match her smile.

"I could hear you pretty much anywhere in here without you having to yell, but comfy really is better. How've you been?"

"Mm, good, putting up with the shop, trying to figure out how to expand some rooms without the whole thing falling in on me." He chuckled and propped his elbows on his knees. Look relaxed, look casual, look unassuming. Tilt the chin up for a bit of a confident air, but not too much. Humans are all about nonverbal. "You seem to be in a much better way lately. I'm glad."

"You keep doing what you've been doing and it'll crash in."

Her voice was light and teasing as she settled in a little deeper, slowly letting her muscles relax a bit. She really had missed talking to him, after all.

"Yeah, I know I was a pain for a while. I'm doing better than I was, which is a huge plus."

"You weren't a pain." He slid down off the arm and into the plush padding, moving a little closer. "I was concerned. And don't worry; I know how to build labs. I won't make it fall in anytime soon." He kept his tone steady, a little more serious, now keeping his eyes mostly on her. "I hope things are working out. They seem to be."

She caught his eyes and flushed a little under his gaze. With a soft chuckle, she shifted a bit and absently smoothed her hand along one of her legs.

"Getting over everything was hard for me and I didn't want to admit just how bad a time I was having, but I'm really alright now."

He bloomed a tiny bit of color into his cheeks and glanced away, looking out at the room. "Like what I've done with the place? I'm not much for aesthetics, but it seems that people might come over more if I had somewhere for them to sit and have a drink or something." Now he half-smiled, a little crook of the lips, a drawing up of the brows that suggested something rueful. "Maybe you would."

"I like it. I'm sure all your friends would."

She smiled back at him, face full of warmth.

"Like it enough to stay around sometimes," he stared down at the floor a moment, then slowly looked up at her, "with me, here?" A little bit of fluster was always a safe option.

She leaned in a bit closer, head tilted.

"I'll be sure to come around more often, yeah.

"I guess I'm not so sure what I trying to ask." He looked up, leaning towards her in a mirror of her own position. Imitation leads to trust... "I know you don't mind being with multiple people, and it's not much of an inhibition to me..."

Anita blinked for a moment, blushing even more this time, before she cocked an eyebrow.

"... you're asking me to be with you, Nagarov?"

"Perhaps." He grinned at her, leaning down a little, a faint sheepish look to his usual confidence.

"Just perhaps?"

She smiled up at him, her hand moving to rest on his arm.

"You could just ask me, you know."

He looked at her hand for a moment, then chuckled and drew himself up, eyes glittering, all the fluster gone as if it were never there. "Well then, Anita, would you be interested in a relationship with me?" He pulled back his arm so that their hands met, and he curled his fingers around hers.

"... I wouldn't mind seeing you at all, as long as you won't get upset or jealous. I'm really not the one man kind of woman."

Her fingers tightened for a moment before she chuckles under her breath.

His eyes narrowed pleasantly as he shook his head; their blue look intensified as a thousand subtle calculations changed him from hopeful and human to calm, strong, and less emotional. Just enough of himself to seem not entirely normal. "Not at all. I knew that ahead of time. And you're all right with me not being human, I assume?" He shifted his hand forward to curl around her upper arm, moving closer to her now.

"I'm not really human, either. Not anymore, and I date people that can't really be called human..."

She was staring up at him, face suddenly serious.

"It leaves room for creativity. Though I've always been a more logical type." His voice softened as he noticed her expression, and his free hand moved to her shoulder. "Is there something wrong?"

She kept her gaze even and locked on his.

"No. I guess I'm just wondering why."

"Why not?" His face lost expression, eyes widening and searching hers. "You're not human, and yet you are. It's an intriguing combination. You're willing to accept me as I am, and I enjoy your company. And I've always wanted to see what it's like."

"Well, I'm not exactly the person to learn relationship things from. I have a habit of mucking them up."

She cleared her throat and glanced down.

"Then relax. I have no standard to work from, so you have nothing that you may think you have to live up to." He brushed the side of her jaw with a finger, nudging her head up to look at him again. "I watched from a distance what happened with you and Lestat and Cloud. It doesn't matter what you've done, haven't done, have mucked up or not. One benefit of not being human, is that I don't have some of the more unfortunate oddities that humans do."

"... oddities. First time I've heard it put that way."

She found herself looking back up at him.

"There's a first time for everything." He smiled at her, bringing the hand to her chin and gently holding it steady. "And it is, isn't it? Jealousy, irrational anger, these are unnecessary. Life is simpler, sometimes, than many make it."

Her lips curled up into a wry smile.

"Life isn't so simple, though. Not to me, and you forget. I'm someone that lives with jealousy and anger like that. It's part of me and it's helped me to survive."

Edited 2008-12-21 23:19 (UTC)

"I deal with people very well." His fingers shift from her chin to wrap in her hair a little, running a lock between them.

She's letting him so close, so quickly. This would prove easier than he expected. Humans were so trusting, which made them seem like they shouldn't be existing to this day. If they accepted others so soon, why hadn't they gone extinct? The first reasonably intelligent, hostile race would simply annihilate them.

"You could say I've been around a while. I'm used to others' emotions, even the more unfortunate ones."

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