Mar 11 09:01:48 106 PA

From Chronicles

The current game time is: Fri Mar 11 09:01:48 106 PA.

The furnishings were obtained with comfort and luxury in mind, and are now put to that test with the most stringent effort since their acquisition. Ironically, much of it is lost on Leonard as he lounges upon the sofa, half-emptied glass of wine in one hand. No music plays and the pricey vidscreen is currently dark.

Vixen ends up lingering in the entryway of Leo's building for a few minutes after she arrives, working on her cig. Thinking. But the cig doesn't last too much longer and once it's done, dropped and ground out, she has to do something. So she does what she came here to do. She goes up to his door and knocks. Simple and firm. Much like the expression she wears, hands sinking into the pockets of her jacket

The knock comes as somewhat of a surprise by virtue of both its rarity and the related likelihood of whom is doing so. Leonard returns the glass to the table, then lingers in position a moment before rising to open the door. Were he one to smoke, she could easily find herself waiting much longer. All this does not prevent a reflexive brightening of his eyes as the door is opened wide. "Hello, Vixen."

"Hey, Leo." Vixen's tone kept on the low key. She considers for a moment, then wonders, a hand lifted up in a vague gesture. "You gunna let me in or shall I just stand out here while we talk? Cause that's what I'm here to do.. talk. Seems like we gotta and maybe it would be better to do it before too long, yeah?"

"Of course. Please, come in." Leonard steps back from the doorway and motions her inside. "I will try and listen better ... speak better... Would you like a drink?" When all else fails, attempt to play the host.

Vixen steps in and shakes her head slightly. "No drinks.. I'm stoned enough as it is," she murmurs, shrugging off her coat as she moves towards the couch. "It ain't how you talk, Leo.. you talk fine.. we just gotta figure out what you want." THe coat gets laid carefully over the back of the couch before she turns around, her arms lifted to cross over her chest. "You want me to be happy, I can accept that. And I want you to be too. I figure that's a good place to start, you know?"

Leonard closes the door and moves to return to the couch, himself. "I do want you to be happy, Vix. Are you?" He then stops suddenly as she turns, arms already up. "If casual, flighty ...fun is what you want, then that's what I'll be. We can have wild times, dance the night away, travel the worlds..." There is some exagerration, given his very ignorant ideas of 'wild times', of course. His hand motions vaguely with his words as he continues, "then we can empty our glasses, make little score marks somewhere, and bounce on to the next good time. I may be a bit behind, but with your excellent tutelage, I'm sure I'll manage."

Vixen smiles just a bit at his attempt, moving towards him slowly. "We're not talking about what I want. What I want isn't the problem here.. its what you want." She pauses near, her arms remaining loosely crossed. "What I really, really want right now is to know what got you so upset before.. I'm not sure I understand it still. is it just.. what I say? Or something else? Don't hold back, cause lying and hiding right now is worse than what's true."

"I want you, Vix." That much comes easily enough for Leo, and the rest seems to bubble out after the cork is loosed. "Without the holding back, or hiding, or whatever concrete walls got thrown up somewhere. Is it going to be simple? Nothing with you ever is. I don't know if things will be better or worse, but I'd rather find out, myself." After much rhetoric and rambling, he pauses for breath. "If you're doing it for me, don't. If it's for you... I can understand." It would explain why she is not the one running out of breath or brooding. Crush, indeed.

It is, perhaps, not quite what Vixen expected to hear, since it seems to get her back up just a bit, her shoulders tensing just slightly just after. And silent for a few moments as she keeps her eyes on him. She then breathes out lowly and turns her head to the side slightly. "Leo.. so what happens when we get all close and you get to feeling that certain way? I ain't the settling sort.. I wanted to keep it nice and relaxed so that wouldn't be a problem." She looks back to him. "I'm thinking ahead.. maybe you don't think that matters right now and you're right.. but it will."

Leonard rolls his shoulders. "I don't know. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. Maybe I'm about to catch a right uppercut in the stomach and you'll storm out and it won't matter, anyway." He begins to run out of steam from all that may be and sighs. "Or maybe that 'what happens' is what I need, even if it's so horrid it even has you running from it."

Vixen's lips purse faintly. "I ain't running from it. I just don't want you to get all built up and have to bring all that down cause I ain't the settling type," she puts in, a finger prodded in his direction, though without the reach to do it physically. "You will.. I can feel it cause if you weren't, all this wouldn't matter. It would just be what it is." She shakes her head slightly. "You want more.. and you'll want even more later. And I don't want to hurt you cause of that."

"I'm not exactly the sultan of sedentary, Vix." Leonard deflects the pointing with a wave towards the room that could hardly be called 'lived-in.' He then takes a step closer after the virtual parry. "What settling sort aren't you? You seem to know more of what I want than I do. I'm not trying to pin you down, tack you to my wall, or whatever you're expecting..." After another pause for inhalation, he mutters, "You just make me feel like you're hedging your bet. Killing time waiting for the next big thing. Saving me from yourself when you get ...bored."

"Like getting hitched settling," Vixen states, arms crossed again over her chest. "Like that kinda thing.. or even a diluted thing like it. Or something." She rolls her shoulders, shrugging aside the particulars. She frowns faintly at the last part. "Or maybe when you do. Not like it hasn't happened before. Don't matter so much if it ain't serious, right?" She frowns faintly and turns, taking a few steps away. "I dunno.."

Leonard begins again, almost. As she turns away, his hand raises for her shoulder with a sudden lack of ire or frustration. "You're doing this out of...experience, aren't you?" She has been the tutor in all of this, and if every other bit of wisdom is due to her travels around the block, this would likley be the same. "What happened, Vix?" Concern and curiosity have replaced whatever argument he might have had, and his tone softens substantially.

The shoulder is tense to the touch, but Vixen lets him touch her without reprisal. "You're a bright boy, I'm sure you can figure it out," she tells him, tone flat. "Sure I'm fun, but I ain't someone you stay with. And as long as it's just fun, it don't matter. Just a matter of knowing where you stand and I know where I do." Straight and simple facts laid out without any emotional attachment to them.

He is not all that bright, considering the time it took to connect the dots, or to brave the comment. "You DO matter, Vix. To me." Leonard's hand remains, though it is light given her tone. "For all that 'fun,' it sounds rather lonely to me. Setting out all the facts sounds like something I would've done, Vix. Not you." The irony and attempt at mild mirth rekindles a slim smile on his lips.

"Easy to say, Leo.. easy to say, but time does things." Vixen shrugs her shoulders faintly, though not to dislodge him. "Everyone has to have some kinda order in their life. Me, I like to make sure when it comes to guys, that they know what's what. Better for everyone that way. Just.. doing whatever got messy back in the day and the right way of things is learning from your mistakes."

Leonard nods, hand sliding from her shoulder in no particular hurry. "I suppose I'll have to make more of them to get your plated skin... and get used to bruising myself on it in the mean time. Still feels ...odd." Especially with his vast breath of knowledge on the topic. "I guess it didn't take us long to find something to argue about, did it?"

Vixen takes a step when the hand moves from her shoulder, turning around again to face him. "What feels odd?" Despite his attempts at humor, her expression is flat. An uncommon sort of thing for her. "I don't get you.. I.. I dunno what you're after. What you expect get or.. do or.." she frowns faintly.

"I don't know." Leonard rolls his shoulders and finally exhales a long sigh, no longer certain of an answer to her pointed question. Not in some form that he can articulate enough for her to follow. "Maybe I don't want anything, at least not in how you mean. Sometimes it just seems that... I'm trying to hug a hedgehog." After that articulate metaphor, he tosses his hands up. "You're the expert, right?"

Vixen snorts faintly. "Expert, right." Then she laughs, the short bark of a sound mirthless. "You don't fucking know, I don't fucking know.. how fucked is this?" She turns away again, stepping across the room, hands lifed in motion as she speaks. "I mean, hell if I'm so bad why do you keep trying? Usually people learn the first time, don't they? If I am the expert, you don't listen to me anyway."

"You want me to spell out what I want, and I can't. I don't have some list in my pocket of every little thing I might want to do with you or for you." His eyes follow her as she moves, though Leonard remains in place, leaning against the sofa for support. "I keep trying because you're worth it. You're not just 'fun' to me... maybe because I didn't listen."

"Well, damn it maybe I take enough risks doing what I do," Vixen returns, turning back to him again. Walking back towards him as she speaks. "Maybe I just.. I don't want to take a chance that things get a bit too real and then it all just.. goes bad and then I gotta deal with all that stuff and feel like shit cause oh look it happened again. Maybe you're.." She might have her back up, she might be feeling combative, but she's not stupid. The thought gets arrested even before she can get it out, her lips sealing up tight.

Leonard does not shift to defense nor offense at her active approach. Given that he's still leaning on the furniture, he may have fun out of fuel. Vixen's words do draw a wince and, as she quiets, a nod. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to push, and should have listened in the first place." His eyes lower towards the fine designs in the wooden end table for a long moment before they rise back to her. "cut your losses now, then, Vix. The only thing I DO know that I want is not making you feel like shit." Leonard takes a step or two around the couch to drop into a seat upon it. "My mistake to learn from."

Vixen is anything but pleased with the results of that little slip, only just able to keep from wincing slightly. She sighs lowly, following him around a few moments after. She doesn't ask, as per her usual when it comes to moving astride his lap, assuming he will allow it after that restrained barb, arms lifting to wrap around his head. "I'm sorry, Leo.. I didn't mean that, not really. I just.. it hurts, you know? When something like that happens. I didn't want you to feel it, but I fucked up.. I'm sorry."

"No, I don't know, remember?" Leonard shakes his head, "I'm sure it will sink in, though." The sudden lapful of Vixen must take some of the edge off, as his grin makes another comeback. "Better me then you, anyways.. and it wasn't you're fault, Vix."

"Yeah it was.. I should have known better." Vixen looks him in the eyes. "Maybe it wasn't so intense as it can be.. but when I was about to say.. that.. that's the feel of it. Makes you feel like shit.. like you're worth nothing. I'm scared of that.. I admit it. I guess.. maybe I shouldn't put all that on you like that.. but its hard. I wanna trust you.. but I don't wanna make you feel like your obligated to make me happy." She shakes her head a little. "You're more pure in this than me, Leo.. I got hang ups.. things li ek that. What do you think we should do?"

Leonard only now lifts his hands to drape about her waist in the reflex that was suppressed. "I'm the naive one. You got me to 'go for it,' and so I went... and kept going. Doesn't mean it's right, but I think I'm hooked. I WANT you to be happy, Vix. If I have to take my lumps to do it, oh well." Only now do her words remind him of her ealier cut-off sentence, and his thoughts run off on a tangent as he asks, "What were you about to say?"

"I don't wanna say it, Leo," Vixen tells him. Despite herself, his first words seem to soften her just a bit. "It was something that came outta anger. Something nasty that I've heard before and I don't want you to hear. Cause it ain't true." She pauses, then murmurs, "I wanna believe you.. its hard, but I do. Maybe we can try."

"Try is all we can do, right?" The softening of her mood prompts more smile from Leonard. "You ARE allowed to yell at me, you know. Since we already know we can fight well enough..." Yet again a tangential question comes to mind. "Are all relationships this... complicated?" Even for a novice, much of this all seems rather surreal in hindsight.

Vixen snorts faintly. "Nah.. just look at Cali and her boy.. some people just get it easy." She breathes out lowly and lets her hand slip down, pressing lightly against his chest. "Sorry m an, you don't get the red hot , stacked girl whose just bright as sunshine most of the time. Short end of the stick for you." Leonard's arms tighten around her as he looses a short but merry laugh. "I'll take my short end. Nothing worthwhile is easy."

Vixen lifts her hands to cup his cheeks, showing she wants his face lifted to her, leaning in to kiss him gently. "I'm sorry I made you feel bad.. but I can make it up to you," she murmurs lowly. "If you let me stay for the night." She smiles lightly and lifts a hand, lightly toying with the shaped zipper pull that dangles just below her neck. "Though if you're feeling too tired.. I could just go."

Whatever complaints Leonard might have had about anything were vented long before the kiss that brings a pleasant murmur. There is a flipside to spats that he has yet to learn and, judging by the lifting brows and interested smile, he is still the eager student. "Tired? I think you'll need to kick me out, first." He then proceeds to display his lack of weariness by tightening his grip and stuggling to his feet while lifting her with him.

And Vix, being light that she is, is a manageable armful. She grins broadly as he shows his lack of tiredness. "I'll fix that," she taunts playfully, tugging down just a little on the zip as her legs shift, wrapping about his waist firmly, other hand gripping his shoulder. Indeed, the moments before seem to be forgotten.. or at least laid to the side for the moment, the feel of her tone, her touch genuine. Contrasted with his prior experience.