She wasn’t all that naïve. After all, he had never had a girlfriend before that incinerated demons on sight or sprouted wings right in front of him before. The confused, almost devastated look in her eye, though – that was a familiar enough image and yet another tickler in the back of his mind to remind him that, perhaps he had lived past his expiration date. The curse that escaped him as a whistle between his lips was supposed to be a silent one, so he was surprised when it popped from his mouth harshly – in line with the jab of the pen through his jeans and into his thigh. His leg jerked with the reaction, his hand tightening around her own as he still held it against his sluggishly beating heart.<br/><br/>The dots still danced in front of his eyes even as the epidural rushed through his bloodstream, sending his heart into a frenzy instead. The initial buzz had him lifting his head up from where it had fallen to rest on the head rest behind him with a gasp pulled from his lungs. She would feel it, too, the sudden kick start to his heart like she had just shocked him like a car battery in order to get his engines running again. He yanked hard, pulling her forward almost to the point that she would topple against him before he released her to wrap his own arms around her waist. He was careful not to drip blood on her, since it still oozed from his nose, though quickly clotting. The taste of copper was still strong on his tongue as well, reminding him that his heart hadn’t been the only thing acting up.<br/><br/><i>I’m falling apart</i>, he thought. Then chuckled out loud, the sound rasping harshly in his throat. His hands drifted from around her waist to cover hers that rested on his cheeks, his own warm. The dark forest of his eyes had lost a lot of their luster, but they still danced right into her own. “You’re going to be mine, you know that?”<br/><br/>Call it coming down from a high. Or maybe even still floating on cloud nine, now that he had adrenaline working its own kind of magic in rejuvenating him. He rode the burst of energy like riding a roller coaster, then slowly rocked himself forward and pulled her hands from his face, but kept them cradled in his palms. Here was where he tried to stand, wobbling like a drunk, his head nodding. “The noodles are going to turn to mush.”<br/><br/>He had a stubborn look about him as he steadied himself against the table's edge. Jaw set and eyes hardening, he pushed away and stumbled away from her, across the living room, and through the adjacent door to his bathroom. He left the door open, whether intentionally or because he had practically fallen against the sink. Palms pressed against the edges after he turned the knob to run the water. His head bowed down for a few seconds while he got his bearings, then he bent at the shoulders and scooped up handfuls of water to splash against his face before going on to guzzle a mouthful of mouthwash to get rid of the bitter taste in his mouth. When he finally turned again, emerged from the bathroom, he had two twists of toilet paper shoved up his face and droplets of water glistened on the bristles growing on his cheeks.<br/><br/>“I'm going to fall in love with you,” he said blatantly, without remorse, and with the kind of brutal logic that comes with honesty. Spoken after he had wandered back to where he had left her to tend to the mess left between the kitchen and the niche of a dining area.<br/><br/>That seemed to be his choice reply to her murmured encouragements earlier. Tempered with the dark burn in his stare as he regarded her, it was as much a confession she was getting from him tonight. Still stubborn, he insisted on standing in the open space between the table and kitchen, as if unsure where to go at this point.<br/><br/>“Sorry about that little – hiccup in our science experiment this evening. I'm fine now,” he insisted. But he wasn't. And she probably knew it, too. “You are still staying for dinner, right?”