It was the perfect night for sitting on the porch and smoking like a chimney. There was something deeply pleasurable and primal in the act of smoking a cigarette. Inhaling pure, sweet smoke (or so Lelah told herself), feeling the burn, the tingling of nicotine as it reacted with neurons and pathways keyed directly to pleasure centers in the brain. Exhaling after a beat and watching the smoke rise, or playing around a bit and making smoke rings. It was a sensual act.

It was also a lonely act, exiled to porches and designated smoking areas, closed off and shamed like lepers. She knew she could go inside and enjoy a smoke and the added benefit of a scotch, but it had been so deeply ingrained into her that one did not enter public places with a lit cigarette. So she lingered, watching as the sky itself seemed on fire with longing for the sun's presence as it slipped beyond the horizon.

Gideon lay, stretched at length upon the couch, the very picture of insouciance, pomposity. Long legs in jeans stretched out, one foot resting over the other, arms crossed over the chest of his untucked white oxford, pale blue tie crumpled beneath. A cigarette clenched between his teeth, nearly spent, smoke wafting upward.

Quiet night. He sighed and it sent smoke flying. He shifted, drew the cigarette from between his teeth and threw the thing into the hearth as he surged upward in a smooth motion, and rose to his feet. Time to find dinner. Time to hunt. Hunger howled a quiet keening at the back of his mind, not to be ignored. He crossed the inn, floorboards creaking underfoot, and opened the front door, eager to leave.

He drew up, though, at the familiar back sat swinging on the porch, surrounded in her own halo of smoke. He smiled to himself and let the door shut quietly behind him, moved silently the three paces between them and bent to brush a kiss to her cheek. "Boo."

She glanced up at that kiss...and went still, dark eyes wide, pulse pounding at her neck. "Gideon," she breathed. She blinked and exhaled, not realizing that she'd been holding it. "Hello. Hi. How are you?" She gave him a nervous, quick-silver smile and tried to calm her racing heart.

"Hullo chickadee." He gave her a sly, half curling grin and rounded the porch swing to claim the seat beside her. "I'm good, how about yourself?" Again that panic in her eyes, and it wasn't entirely unattractive, though he knew somehow it spelled trouble. She never looked that way and there wasn't trouble far behind.

"Um," she said intelligently. "I'm... I'm fine." She stubbed out her cigarette and tried really hard not to shy away from him as he sat down next to her. "Thank you for the flowers. They were...beautiful." When in doubt, fall back on manners and good breeding, right?

He drew a long , slow breath as that smile faded, fell. "I'm glad you liked them." Tone of voice not really matching the sentiments. "Something wrong, Lelah? Your cold tap is stuck on again." He watched her calculatingly, glacial blues narrowing somewhat. What a change from the last time they'd been together.

She looked away, worrying at her lower lip for a moment before saying softly, "It shouldn't have happened." Memories rushed back - his hands, his teeth, his tongue, red weals on delicate flesh, murmured words spoken in the language of her ancestors...and woven all through it, like some Ouroboros swallowing itself over and over, the high. "What did you do to me?"

He glowered darkly at her before he looked away, rose, giving the swing a shove as he did so. He paced away, turned and lent against the railing, crossed arms over his chest like a portcullis coming down. "You wanted it to happen, Lelah. It was your idea. All I wanted was a kiss, and even that I didn't ask for..." He gave her a brief glance of consternation. "What did I do to you? Lelah, you aren't a virgin. You know damned well what I did to you."

"Oh, don't give me that horsesh*t, Gideon," she barked at him, shedding the fear and replacing it with a good old fashioned rage. "Don't put this on me! You clearly wanted it just as badly as I did. I'm not talking about the...the...sex. I'm talking about what you gave me. Was it smack? Did Alain tell you? Did you find out on your own?"

"What?" He stared at her in shock, genuine, honest, like she'd hit him in the face with a bucket of ice water. It lasted only a moment before fading into hurt anger. He shook his head slowly, side to side list of that dark countenance. "What the hell are you talking about? I didn't give you anything, Lelah. We f*cked. You were amazing, you were...free, like I've never seen you, like you were your own damned self for a change. You came and I thought you were going to pass out." He cut the air with a hard gesture, flinging hands upward. "Is this some kind of game for you? "

"A game? A f*cking game?" She laughed, a strangled, mirthless sound. "Christ God, that's the most condescending, arrogant thing I've ever heard come from your mouth, and that's saying something. You may think that I'm just another in a never-ending line of your whores, but I'm not. And I will not be treated like one, either. I don't know what you did to me, Gideon, but you bet your lily-white ass I'll find out." She didn't bother threatening him; it would be like water off a duck's back.

How the hell could you want so completely to strangle a person while at the same time want to fling them on the floor and ravage them at the same time? Oh wait. He knew the answer to that question. He drew a slow breath, willingly forcing calm, or some semblance of it at least. He drew the backs of his fingers over her cheek and then released her. "We were good, Lelah. You sabotage everything, you know that? You are your own worst enemy. This wasn't true f*cking love but it would have been something incredible." He took a step back, giving her a look of sheer pity and resignation. "I'm sorry you can't just be happy. I won't make the mistake of trying to offer you anything close to that again."

She snorted and retreated a couple of steps, ignoring the sudden heated flare of the need that the soft touch of his hand caused. "Good? You wouldn't know good if it bit you in the ass. I know your type, Gideon. Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn't grow up because he was too afraid. If anything's deserving of pity, it's you." Her eyes narrowed sharply and she stared at him, defiant now that she wasn't being held.

He offered her a sad half smile. "You don't know the first thing about me, Lelah. You just keep making presumptions based on what is convenient for you to believe. I'm the devil, or a demon. I'm some kind of roofie-poping psycho date rapist, and now I'm peter pan. I'm haughty, I'm arrogant, I'm this, I'm that..." He breathed a laugh of desperation and raked fingers roughly back through his hair. Lost Boy indeed. "Have you ever learned anything about me that you hadn't already made your mind up about an hour beforehand? Or am I just always a foregone conclusion to you?"

"Why would I want to discover anything about you when you'll just shove it back in my face and use it like a f*cking knife and slash at me with it?" She was weary of this, weary of the stares they were drawing, weary of the pressing need she felt being near him again. She sighed, glanced towards the door, then back at his face. "This is pointless and stupid. You're an ass and I'm apparently too pitiful to waste your time with."

Oh that call, blood to blood, that devil in the dark that felt its wellspring and wanted it near. Proximity made it bad, touch made it worse... and the unrelenting gaze of eyes the color and weight of the underside of an iceberg made it unbearable.

"Last time I checked, luv? You were the one cutting me. I've been nothing but civil towards you. It's like you are looking for someone to hate and I drew the short straw." He closed the gap between them again, reached out and drew a finger along the line of her jaw, his brows drawn together, handsome features pinched with the hard mix of biting hunger and the empty, howling waste anger left behind when it ebbed. "Was there ever a time you thought of me kindly? Ever a time you didn't mistrust every single thing I did?" He caught her chin gently between thumb and forefinger, tilting her face up an inch. "I don't think you are pitiful, Lelah."

"When I first met you," she said and drew back from his touch, clamping down hard on the need burning inside her. "That all changed when I saw the parade of blondes."

Parade of blondes was one generous euphemism. Mack was the only blonde Gideon had known, Clover was a red head, Erin's hair was constantly changing...and well, yes. She had a point, but he was not stuck on blondes. He sighed resignedly and let his hand fall. "Tit for tat, luv. I've never seen you without another man chatting you up or vice versa, but at least I reserve judgment."

He shrugged and half turned. "It was fun while it lasted, chickadee. But I'd hate to keep disappointing you so. I'm through running myself up against your barbed wire fence." He turned and headed for the door, let it swing shut behind him and strode down the steps, shoving hands deep into pockets as he made his way out into the city streets, footsteps quiet on cobblestones as he hurried toward shadows that beckoned with open arms and the hissed sibilance of whispers.

She took a deep breath, blinked rapidly against the sudden prickling of tears, and left the Inn, seeking a shadowed sanctuary of her own in the dark of her living room. There was a dog there who no doubt needed a cuddle, and take-out Chinese food with her name on it.


((Many thanks to Gideon's player for this scene.))