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"Ah, no, Heidi." Maebe patted her shoulder softly. "That's the wrong question."

She poked the table with her fork some more. "The real question is what will he do for me if I don't tell you."

Heidi looked disappointed when Tuck released her hand, reaching for it again with a little pout and lacing her fingers through his as they had been. "I would've stopped asking if you'd made a good offer," she told him quietly, squeezing his hand.

Tuck's eye twitched slightly as he watched Maebe, and he turned his full attention back to Heidi.

"Wouldn'ta stopped you from listenin' if she decided to say anything," he grunted as he turned in his chair to face Kostya, Mimsy and Lucky once more.

"Let me know, Maebe." His voice was louder so that she could hear him over the din in the room.

There was a small nod, followed by a quick look to his cousin. "Yeeahhh, just pretty recently found out. As far as I know he's the only once I really need to be um.. concerned about. Here at least." He hoped as much. Then again, for all he knew his dad had a secret double life on top of what he'd found out from Ian. Why was life complicated?

Then Cass went and told him how he was better looking and once more, he calmed.

The waiter returned with their drinks, and Kostya set the screwdriver in front of Mimsy, just outside where she was scribbling fantastical formulas that made his head spin. Or perhaps it was the panic stewing in his gut that didn't want to be quelled.

Kostya picked up a napkin, and covered her writing hand with it, pulling it to her lap, and holding it there. It was easier to do it with the cloth barrier, especially because she seemed less like Mimsy and more like an empty Mimsy shell that was in sore need of a reboot because she had crashed out.

But there was no crash report for people, and debugging them was significantly harder to do to them in comparison to machines. Kostya settled on murmuring in a low, sing song voice, a nursery rhyme he used to know. "Вышел зайчик пагулять, вдруг охотник выбегает..."

He scooted his chair closer. "Прямо в зайчика стреляет, Пиф Паф Ой ой ой, Умирает зайчик мой..."

It probably wasn't going to work, but there wasn't really much that Kostya had to give, except reminders that reality was on this plane, not in her head. "Прмвезли его домой, оказался он живой..."

"Jude," he said mostly for Tuck's benefit and then pretty much proceeded to ignore the whole stupidityfest over speedoes. He really didn't care what the other male wore to cover his crotchity bits so long as they were covered. He didn't care to see another male's schlong. No matter how thinly veiled it might be, thank you.

For the most part he was quiet and pensive, his expression completely blank of any sort of emotion.

It wasn't that he didn't know how to have fun or have goofy moments of his own. He just ... suddenly detached after his little episode with Maebe earlier.

"Вы мало-" he snapped.

< Leave the two lovebirds alone, dear. >

Lucky certainly looked back at the both of them like they had murdered his pet, and ground his teeth in a complete inability to find the kind of words he could aim at Kostya without hitting Mimsy as well.

His ears were ringing, and when he reached up to loosen his collar and tie he felt hot and flushed. The chair scraped the carpet a little louder than he would have expected. Everything seemed a little louder and closer, and the hundred eyes and laughing voices became a blur. In one moment he had gotten to his feet, and in the next-

He felt himself fall heavily into a chair on the other side of the table, beside a couple of blondes he didn't recognize as being from his division.

"Cześć," he began, turning first to Maebe. She looked familiar, as did the girl beside her. He was doing the mental equivalent of slamming his foot down on the gas. He was going fast, and the only way he was going to stop was to crash into something. "I do not believe I catch your name before...?"

Heidi was telling her to breathe, but she decided stabbing the table was more fun instead. So she breathed, and stabbed the table, and remained silent until someone made a weird sound by her ear.

"Bless you." She hadn't even turned to look at whoever had just sneezed on her, but when she did, the first thing that assaulted her eyes was the brightness of color. The second thing she realized was that someone had specifically come to sit by her and talk to her - which was a first, really. And the last thing that her warped little mind settled on was that he looked like he was running from something, too.

Which meant they had something in common. So she forgave him for sneezing on her and gave him a half of a smile. "Maebe." She offered. "What's yours?"

Did it even matter? She was probably going to call him Lite Brite and forget anything he said - after all, nobody had a name as memorable as hers.