tampered | Autumn forgot 'em and painted 'em bright

Lucy has been nervous, snappy, moody girl all day because of anxiety. She may understand how boys work but that doesn't mean she understands how dating works. Or maybe the problem is that she thinks she understands how dating works and in general, it doesn't turn out well for her.

A good deal of her nerves kind of disappear when she sees Neil though and that's a sign she's probably going to choose to ignore at the moment because it'll turn into a vicious cycle of anxiety and freaking out. She's dressed casually (http://www.polyvore.com/lucy-apple_picking/set?id=37578288), for Lucy and she gives him a big grin, bouncing up on the balls of her feet a moment. She doesn't much care how he's dressed for something like apple picking. Maybe if they were going to a ball, she'd be more picky.

"Hey, just let me grab some lip gloss and I'm ready." She opens a drawer and rummages in it for a second then pulls her lip gloss out and shoves it in one of her pockets.

Neil ruffles the hair at the back of his head hs posture shifting uncertainly-- he wants to look happy, but not too happy; casual, but not too casual.

"You look uhmm, really great." He hopes that isn't overdoing it. This whole matter of being social (especially with girls,) is like a big equation to him that just keeps changing, and he never was very good at math. The way she's smiling clues him in that he's at least got it right so far, though.

He takes a good appreciative look around the store again, only having been in once before, and then tentatively offers his hand.

She notices the appreciative look at the store and it's nice because the store is a big part of her. A lot of her went into it.

"Thank you. I like the holey jean thing you've got going on." She takes his hand, glances back at the store to make sure everything is in order then looks back to Neil. "I figured apple picking was a jeans sort of affair. Less looking up my skirt, more staring at my butt. Speaking of..." she makes a show of leaning back to look at his butt then looks back at him with a mischievousness smile. "Yeah. Good jeans."

She can't actually go five minutes without attempting to make him blush.

Her attempts do not go unrewarded, and this is no exception. Neil's face goes so red that ducking his head and pretending to itch his nose do very little to disguise it. "Th-thanks."

Since he can't think of much more to say, still being in brain-fluster recovery mode, he opts to lead her off by the hand anyway. As they walk, he mostly stares at the ground like it's the most interesting thing he's ever seen, but his gaze does flick up to Lucy's face when he thinks she's not looking.

She's pretty gleeful getting such a good blush out of him. She walks along beside him, swinging their hands between them. Occasionally she catches him looking at her but mostly because she's casting glances at him.

"So why apple picking? Have you done it before?"

"Yeah, my family used to go every year. I kinda didn't like it back then, 'cause I thought it was boring and sometimes Steph and I ended up fighting. But now I kinda miss it." He gives her a sideways smile. "I have a feeling this is gonna be more fun, anyway."

He leads her to a small clearing just on the edge of the City. It isn't a proper full0sized orchard, but there are a few apple trees around. One of them already has a ladder propped up against it, and in between the trees, a wool blanket has been laid out.

Lucy listens to him with a smile. "Steph is your sister? Is she older or younger?" And then she notices the ladder and the blanket. Okay so maybe the ladder was already there but the blanket lets her know that Neil planned this ahead of time, which makes it about a 100 times more awesome. She looks over at him with a big grin then throws her arms around him in a hug. "Thank you."

"Yeah, my big sister. 'S weird I might not ever see her again." He gets a strange look on his face for a moment, but then shrugs it off and smiles again.

When Lucy hugs him he's a little too stunned to react for just a split second, but then he pulls her in and hugs her back and it's almost like none of the Bad Stuff every happened. When the hug breaks, he spreads out his arms in a gesture to the blanket. "I was thinking we could have a snack first. Y'know, for energy." And he lifts the basket slightly in emphasis. "Besides, we can't put apples in here if there's already cake. It'd get smushed."

That grin just keeps getting bigger. Her jaw is going to hurt at this rate. "You brought cake? That officially makes you awesome."

She moves over to the blanket and sits down, waiting for him to join her before she speaks again, appropriately sober now.

"You could still go home, Neil. All of this would just be a memory and you wouldn't miss anything."

Neil sits down and lifts the blanket off of the basket, drawing out two plates, two forks, and a pink paper box. When he opens it, two beautiful cake slices (http://thumbs.ifood.tv/files/images/food/mocha-cake-04.jpg) are revealed. "They're leftovers from work. If one of the employees doesn't take them, they just throw 'em out because you can't serve not-fresh cake the next day-- can you believe they'd throw this out?"

As he plates the cake, he listens attentively to Lucy, and nods. "I know it could happen, but I'm really hoping not. Y'know? If people from home wanna see me, they should just come here instead."

If he keeps doing things like this, she's totally going to keep falling head over heels for him. She's also going to have to find someway to reciprocate.

"I would eat cake all the time."

She watches him, biting her bottom lip as she does. Sometimes she listens to him and looks at him and it's a bit hard to believe there's not a catch. "You really do like it here better than you do home."

Neil dishes out the cake carefully. There are delicate little fancy dessert forks, too, which maybe he shouldn't have "borrowed" from work, but he plans to take them back so he figures there's no harm done.

He combs his fingers through his hair and gives a wistful little smile, not quite meeting Lucy's eyes. "Here's way better." Neil feels almost guilty about being so adamant about this sometimes; he knows there were people who had it way worse before coming to the City. "I mean, it's not like home was really horrible, but... still, y'know. Here is better." And now he does look her straight in the eyes, completely transparent.

The fancy dessert forks are appreciated. Lucy's from the South. Dishes and forks and things like that mean something. Sort of a 'it's the thought that counts' kind of deal. He ~~stole~~ borrowed dessert forks because he thought of it ahead of time and wanted things to be nice. It's a good gesture that makes her smile. Also, definitely no harm done in Lucy's opinion.

She pulls her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on her knees as she listens to Neil. When he meets her eyes, she holds his gaze for a moment then looks down to her feet. He's part of what's made the City better for her and that's still a very scary thing. She bites her bottom lip and leans forward, kissing him on the cheek.

Neil smiles against a silent, contented little sigh-- he loves the feeling he gets sometimes with her that he's actually doing something right, instead of being completely out of his depths like he's so used to being. A light breeze rustles the leaves around them, and Neil cups a hand against Lucy's cheek to keep her face close for a moment.

"Definitely better."

She rests her forehead against his temple, eyes closed for a moment, absolutely aware of the falling feeling she's come to associate with him. He makes her feel like she's something-someone-awesome, amazing and a little unreal in a very good way. It's overwhelming and while it's a good thing, it's also a scary thing: something that Lucy is still struggling with.

All of this means, she's going to have to do something to break the moment before it scares her into taking twelve steps back. If Neil is looking at her, she gets this little mischievous grin half a second before she licks all the way up his face from jaw to cheekbone. There's a lot of giggling involved.

Neil jolts upright at the unexpected wetness, flushing from neck to cheeks to the tips of his ears. He gives her a playful nudge to the shoulder with his palm, chuckling.

"You're weird." Clearly he doesn't exactly see this as a bad thing.

His reaction makes Lucy laugh, tilting her head back and leaning into him.

"At least I'm not boring. Or that's my motto anyway."

She reaches up to wipe his face with the edge of her sleeve.

He taps her on the nose, and then lets his hand fall to her shoulder.

"Definitely not boring. Not boring's good."

"I think so too." She snuggles up closer to him, leaning against him. She picks up a plate, cuts the point of the cake off and holds it up to him. "Bite."

Neil closes his mouth over the cake and takes a moment to savour it, his expression thoughtful.

"No poison. Also, delicious." He flashes a thumbs up.

"Now I just need a tiara and a throne since I've already got the personal taste tester." She grins at him and takes her own bite of the cake, closing her eyes as she does and making approval noises.

"Incredibly yum. The Evil Stepmother should have poisoned cake instead of an apple. Not that the apple didn't get the job done."

"Well, I guess we'll see what we can do about that." He smiles as he watched her enjoy the cake, leaning in slightly and stretching his shoulders back for a moment before relaxing.

"Cake woulda been a better bet, yeah. She just got lucky ending up after a girl who liked fruit."

"Neil Nordegraf, show up with a tiara and it's possible you'll be stuck with me for the rest of ever. Proceed with caution."

She'll share another bite with him. Clearly two pieces of cake means that both should be shared and eaten one slice at a time.

"I have a theory. Snow White was diabetic so no one ever told her about chocolate or cake. Fruit was the bomb as far as she was concerned."

Neil suspects that's partially a joke, but he still files it away for future reference. No one makes him Pay Attention quite as much or as often as Lucy does.

"Diabetes would suck." Especially when there is cake this good to be had. He's more than okay with the way Lucy's decided to administer it. "Did they have diabetes back then?"

Paying Attention is a good thing. Its one of her favorite things about him. He listens and he acts on what he hears. It's kind of a rare quality in her personal experience.

"IDK. It can't be like a new disease though, can it? Or maybe it is, and it's a conspiracy. The fruit farmers got together with the artificial sweetener companies and created this whole disease that would make them money." She takes another bite of cake.

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ACK, I thought I replied to this forever ago but it must not have gone through D:

Hee! no problem

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