tampered | Autumn forgot 'em and painted 'em bright

Autumn forgot 'em and painted 'em bright

When; Backdated to the afternoon of 27th September
Rating; PG-13ish until/unless specified otherwise?
Characters; Lucy and Neil
Summary; It's just the weather for apple-picking! So Neil is giving this how-does-date-girl thing another try.
Log;

Neil arrives at the store in torn jeans and an old t-shirt, but hopefully he can be forgiven, inasmuch as today's activity is outdoorsy and active. He is also wearing a sheepish grin, and carrying a large wicker basket.

He takes a moment to steel himself, whispering words of encouragement to himself, and then pushes through the door.

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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.

"Whoa, that's pretty serious. Maybe we should report it to the CSIS. Or whatever they have here."

He grins and picks up a fallen leaf, holding it up against the light to examine it.

She wrinkles her nose because really she has no idea what the CSIS is but she has cake and really it's not important here in the City. Not to mention, an entirely made up conspiracy. "I'll make a note to the Deities."

She leans into him, arching an eyebrow as she looks at the leaf. "Personally, I think everything ought to change colors at least once a year."

Neil notices that he's just been a little overly Canadian, and he ruffles the back of his hair absentmindedly.

He twirls the leaf in his fingers, but loses his grip on it when a gust of wind sweeps by, and it falls away. "Everything? Even you?"

She considers that, biting her bottom lip and tilting her head to one side. "I could do the red thing. Like dark auburn or maybe a crimson-y red. I'm pretty sure it'd stain my hair though so getting it to wash out would be kind of icky."

He tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear, smiling. "Yeah, maybe. I kinda like you how you are anyway."

He's getting so much better at that taking initiative thing. She grins at him, either because of his words or maybe because of the hair tucking, possibly because of both.

"Oh good. The blonde suits me. No one expects too much of me."

"Yeah, suits you." As for the other part, he can't really answer for that.

He decides to take a more active part in the pre-activity snack now, digging into the cake with the other fork and offering another bite to Lucy.

Lucy takes the bite, makes 'mmmm'ing noises as she eats it before she speaks.

"Have you ever been any other color?" She reaches out and ruffles his hair and then just keeps doing that because he's got good hair to run her fingers through.

He leans his head toward the contact taking a deep breath through his nose as his eyes fall half-way shut. That feels nice.

"When I was a little kid, my hair was so blond it was white. It kinda got darker as I got older."

"Ohmygod, you had to have been the cutest little boy ever." His reaction to her running her fingers through his hair just enables her to do it more. She's a sucker for that appreciative stuff.

"Did it turn green at the public pool? Mine used to turn green every summer."

"Yeah, it did a couple times." He chuckes, his eyes squinting shut briefly against the memory of it. "Lucky my favourite Power Ranger was the green one, so it didn't make me too upset."

He looks at her, trying to imagine her as a little girl with green hair, and the thought makes him crack up a little.

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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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