Welcome to Gaia! ::

It had been an interesting few months for Jessie and it all centered around a guy… go figure. She had no illusions when it came to Lucas and just exactly he was looking for but he made her think and wonder and imagine so she just went with the flow. Besides she really wasn’t looking for anything more either, regardless of what her mother wished. It was fun and amusing and he made her feel so wonderful. Not that she really believed everything he told her, Jessie might be an airhead but she was well aware of her own physical charms and Lucas’ flattery was sweet but as far as the brunette was concerned that's all it really was.

It was rather hard to believe it's been nearly four months since the ex-con walked into her store looking for a job, nearly two since they progressed past just ‘coworker’ status, it was all still rather unsettling for her. Jessie was use to the way things were so Lucas shook up her comfortable little world leaving her not quite sure how to handle it. So she fell back on things she did know how to deal with… her store. On this particularly fine July morning Jessie was focusing on the books, her first and only true love.

She was shelving books, an endless chore but one she actually enjoyed immensely since it let her explore her store each and every day. Jessie was able to see what she had, what she needed, and what grabbed her attention. It was like a scavenger hunt, one she never tired of. Absently she hummed along with the instrumental music playing softly over the store’s hidden speakers, it just so happened that she was in the fictional section, tidying up the few rag dolls she had there for the kids to read to when a song she knew well came on.

As Disney's So Close from Enchanted started to play a smile crossed her face as she started to twirl with the doll she had in her hand at the time, ironically a prince doll. Jessie hummed along with the song as she danced around the small space, doing her best to imitate the waltz they did in the movie.

Lucas had taken to his job as best as he could, he mostly focused on the stuff he knew Jessie had a hard time with, like moving heavy boxes of books and the like. Their status off the clock he kept vague… on purpose. He knew he was not healthy for Jessie in the long run, but if he could give her enough of a confidence booster, then maybe she’d go out and find a nice boyfriend and that would be the end of it. Sure, he’d be a bit hard up for a little bit, but he’d find a new bed-buddy soon enough.

Still, Jessie continued to be full of surprises, not that he minded overly much. Her strange… need… to balance things often resulted in him basically ensuring that she’d constantly owe him SOMETHING…. Just by his nature of not wanting to owe anyone anything.

Still, as he turned the corner and caught her dancing with the doll, he had to pause and take in what could only be described as innocence in the seriously messed up world they lived in. It was moments like this, where Lucas allowed himself a moment of “what-if,” and contemplated the potential of more than just a casual relationship with Jessie.

These thoughts were almost always quickly silenced by the darker parts of his mind, who always loved to remind him just how…. Toxic… he was to those around him, and so he would perish the kinder, warmer thoughts and get on with his day.

But right then, for that moment, he stood there, arms crossed over his chest as he raised a brow. Perhaps it was good that they were some of the only people in the store right then, he was sure most of the customers would have asked why she hadn’t been committed already.

The song ended and Jessie sketched out a curtsy before making the doll bow. She chuckled slightly as she turned to put the toy back down her laughter changing to a yelp as she saw out of the corner of her eye someone standing there watching her, her heart feeling like it stopped. She clutched the rag doll to her chest, trying to calm her heart, as Jessie faced Lucas. She swallowed hard and with a hesitant smile, shrugged. “You startled me. I was just…” She trailed off and quickly placed the doll down, straightening the prince’s cape and patting one of the other stuffed creatures on their head. “I was just straightening the toys some. It wouldn't do for them to be disordered.”

The brunette walked back to her stack of books ready to pick them up and head back to work when something occurred to her. She came to a stop and glanced over at Lucas, “was there something you needed to ask me? Is everything ok?” It never occurred to her that he would just stop to watch her being silly. Curious now she watched Lucas, her head tilted slightly, questions swirling in her mind.

Lucas’ lips had curled into a small grin as Jessie had spoken. It was almost refreshing to see actually, that even a woman her age could be innocent to the truly rough nature of the world. Or maybe it wasn’t innocence. Maybe she chose whimsy as her means of coping with the harsh facts that the world they lived in was far from a kind one. In any event, as she turned back to glance at him he took a few steps forward, bowed and offered his hand.

“Nothing is wrong, I was just curious if you only dance with princes?” He said, his lips still curled in a small smirk. “Or if you’d deign to dance with a Beast like myself?”

Lucas would openly admit that most of his memories of Disney films were… hazy… at best. He had viewed most of them through the distortion of being as high as a kite… so a lot of them blended and bleed together and though he could drudge up some childhood memories of some of the earlier films… He’d rather not remember how his sister had so loved some of the films that it had all they had ever really watched.

With a laugh she curtsied, her hands sweeping the imaginary skirt out before standing and taking his offered hand. “You aren't a Beast. A pirate maybe but not a Beast. Besides in the original story by Perrault the Beast was a prince.” As she stepped into his arms her gaze seemed to be a bit distant as she thought about the various stories that were based on the tale of Beauty and the Beast.

“I believe that most of the time the Beast turns out to be a prince or some other royalty. Or at least some kind of hero. I think there was some tv show of the same name that had him as a mutated-science experiment military guy.” She focused back on Lucas and shrugged, “I think he was still a good guy. Besides I'm no Beauty.” As far as Jessie was concerned, of the two of them Lucas was by far the better looking one. She was average whereas he had people stop to watch him pass. Jessie didn't mind blending into the background since it meant she could watch everything, trying to understand it all.

A pirate huh? That wouldn’t have been Lucas’ first thought, but she was the expert on these things so who was he to argue? Her statement earned her a small clicking tsk of his tongue.

“What is it they say? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder? I find you full of beauty. As far as I am concerned that is enough for me.” He said with a grin.

“You’ll have to lead… I skipped the dancing section of gym.”

Jessie just smiled and shook her head lightly. He is welcome to believe what he wanted but she would continue to look in the mirror and see the bald truth; common. Rather than continuing along that vein of decision she focused on the dancing part.

She slipped closer and nodded. “It wasn't part of my school either but my parents loved to dance and my mom showed me the basic steps. Granted I don't really remember much, nor have I ever really danced with anyone other than my father.” As she worried her bottom lip with her teeth Jessie did her best to remember what she was told. “I think my left hand goes on your shoulder while your right is on my hip,” she followed her own directions, placing his hand on her hip and hers on his shoulder. “Then my right and you're left are like this,” she took his hand and held it out like she remembered. “One, two, three, one, two, three… That's the beat.”

She didn't really remember the steps but as a she focused on the song currently playing Jessie did her best to lead him into a sketchy waltz. “I don't really remember…” She trailed off when she looked up and realized just how close they were. Her cheeks turned rosy as a blush crossed her face and she backed up a bit so there was more space between them. The brunette chuckled nervously, “can't see our feet if we are too close.”

“You know you don’t need to leave room for Jesus,” Lucas said with a small smirk. “And I think you’re doing just fine not watching our feet…” his hand moved slightly from her hip to her lower back, pushing her slowly back toward him so she was where they had begun, before moving his own hand to her hip once more. Sure, it was mean, she was obviously flustered but still… It wasn’t like this was the first time they had been this close… Actually, he could think of several times they had been a LOT closer than this.

All the same…

He smiled and let her lead the steps. The dance itself didn’t seem all that difficult once you got the timing down. It was a lot like boxing footwork, actually, when he broke it down in his mind. He supposed that explained why some of his boxing buddies had taking dance classes… For the fancy footwork.

Ah well, not much he could do with that knowledge now. Still… He was enjoying himself, even if he wasn’t sure the music really matched the dance.

“This is actually more fun than it looks,” He said to her gently, grinning. “Maybe I should take you out dancing sometime.”

Jessie was about to argue the benefits of the extra space but when none came to mind she closed her mouth and did her best to keep track of their footwork. Doing her best to ignore the blush she felt raging across her face. “Never really got that saying. Why would Jesus need that much space and danceing with three people this way just really wouldn't work. Would he have been facing you or me?” She was rambling and trying to distract herself from how close Lucas was. Danceing like this wasn't such a good idea apparently.

“Hum?” She had gotten a bit lost in their movement and her own thoughts. It took a bit for her to process what Lucas had just said. “Dancing?” Her dark brown eyes flew up to his, “most clubs don't have danceing like this. Besides the last time I went I spent most of my time at the table.” She shrugged slightly, “I had a rather interesting discussion on terminal velocity and the location of heaven depending on one's religious belief with a very nice man. He had to leave shortly after but I'm sure he learned something interesting.” The poor fellow who had the unfortunate luck to use the tired ‘are you hurt because you must have fallen from heaven’ pick up line on Jessie had left, confused and wishing for something stronger than the beer he had downed before approaching the brunnette.

“But if you want to go someday we can.” She mentally winced and made a note to read up on dancing, styles, locations in the city. She had no clue where they could even go for typical dancing let alone ballroom.

Lucas laughed softly as she spoke, and leaned his head down to kiss the top of her head. “You’re not only beautiful you’re adorable… That’s dangerous.” He said with a sly smirk. He had to smirk, because she was dangerous. Dangerous to him. He could feel the hooks of attraction starting to sink in, no matter how much he tried to dodge them. Every time Jessie opened her mouth, something new and endearing popped out. It was infuriating because he just wanted to keep this as casual as possible. But he should have known better. Nothing stayed casual forever.

“Let me guess; he asked if it hurt when you fell from heaven?” Lucas said with a small laugh. “Jessie, sweetie... “ Aw ********… no… don’t use pet names… “He was trying to flirt with you. It amazes me sometimes how wonderfully oblivious you are to certain things. I suppose that’s not a bad thing though. That is a super weak line.”

Finally he stopped dancing with her for a moment, slowly letting go of her hand and her hip and giving a slight bow. “It was a wonderful dance, but I suppose we both need to get back to work, hm?”

Distance yourself now… Don’t give into temptation… You are a monster and you will only destroy her… Something so pure does not deserve the likes of you…

“How did?” She gaped at him before her blush came back in full force. “He was flirting? But why!” It hadn't even occurred to her that the fellow had been hitting on her. Granted she didn't even pick up when Lucas was doing it, even now. It just never crossed her mind that anyone was interested in her. Just how many signals had she missed. “I guess I need to research that too,” Jessie muttered quietly. Dating books were pretty popular so there had to be enough material out there for her to figure it out.

By the time she wrapped her head around being hit on, Lucas brought the dance to an end. “Oh yeah, yeah of course.” She once more sketched a curtsy and smiled brightly. “It was a good dance. I enjoyed it… Even with being compared to a bear, cute but deadly.” She poked fun at his comparison, he really had no idea how dangerous she really was. With a sigh Jessie nodded, it was time to get back to work… Both of them. “I really do need to get everything back in order and I think your shift is almost up. Your working the construction job today right?”

“Yeah, an evening shift, they said they were moving most of the hours later because of how hot the summer’s been lately.” Lucas said with a small nod. Rising back up to his full height, he gave her a small smile. “Generally I’m the one being compared to a bear I think….” he added before thinking for a long moment.

“Hey… If you have any free time this weekend… I have the weekend off from construction and I was wondering if you’d like to maybe go out? Do whatever, I’m not picky…” Lucas said, his arm coming up to rub the back of his head.

Don’t do it… You’re only going to hurt her… Don’t get attached.

“I mean if you’re busy or whatever it’s cool I just figured it might be fun…”

Jessie snickered, “a rust red bear maybe… I guess that would make you a red panda? And the weather has definitely been getting hotter so that's good.” She knew he worked hard at both jobs, at least in here the air was on and wasn't quite as physically taxing as construction… Normally. Some of the boxes of books could be quite heavy. Lucas definitely helped with those.

“Sure. Quinn is back and I don't think he will mind some more hours and I can always ask if Mercy wants to help out. I've got to remember to tell her about the new Mercedes Lackey book that just came out.” Gathering up her abandoned stack of books, she smiled over at Lucas. “A night or two off would be nice since I really haven't taken one in a while.” Not really since she had stopped patrolling the city in the middle of the night.

With the stack of books in her arms Jessie walked up to Lucas, stood on her tippy toes, and placed a quick kiss on his lips being careful of the half dozen books in her arms. “Going out would be fun but for now, work.” The store phone started to ring prompting a chuckle from Jessie. “Speaking of work.”

The kiss was… admittedly unexpected but not unwelcomed, which sent a shiver of fear down his spine. He was getting too close to Jessie and he knew it. That dark part of his mind was demanding he break things off now, but a part of him kept surging forward.

His therapist would be proud.

Still, baby steps he told himself. They were still casual, they weren’t a “thing” yet. So what if she kissed him. He’d asked her out that was normal.

“Awesome, yeah… Go grab the phone and I’ll see about moving some more books up from downstairs.” He said, giving her a nod. “I’ll text you when I get home tonight so we can hash out a time this weekend.”

“That works.” She nodded as well, as if her agreement wasn’t enough to express how much she was actually looking forward to going out with Lucas. Maybe it was because it would be her first, completely free, day off in a while. Maybe it was because she would be spending the day doing something new, although that was rather unlikely since she didn’t actively do new stuff… she didn’t normally enjoy it since she normally got stuck in her head too much. Maybe it was because she would be spending the day with Lucas. Jessie mentally shrugged, figuring it was a mix of it all. Lucas seemed to have a way to pull her out of her head which meant she would be able to enjoy her day off. Either way it should be an interesting day.

With one last smile Jessie left Lucas to his thoughts, the phone was still ringing and she had quite a few things to look into. And lists of new books to share with Mercy. And calling Quinn to see about adding him to the schedule in general and this weekend in specific. Lots of things to do, she really did need to write all this down so she didn’t forget.

Lucas shook his head and let her go, turning to head off to where he had been heading to begin with. What am I even doing… He questioned himself. But the deed was done, and so he was going to go through with it. In the first time in a very long time, he’d actually set up a continuous stream of dates with a single girl. Granted, it wasn’t like he hadn’t had girlfriends before… But they’d all been open relationships and they’d usually just drifted apart to different partners, no harm no foul.

What was he even doing?!

Shaking his head he reached the stack of books that needed sorting, and started to sort them out, trying to lose himself in the last little bit of work before he had to go to his next gig that evening.