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Dean looks down to the bear as she holds it out for him, laughing quietly. "It's okay... I don't need to hug your bear," he says with a smile, but with a sorrowful look in his eye. His hand gently pushes the bear back toward her as he states, "It's been a long time since I really thought about it. I guess it bothers me more than I realized."

He gives a small laugh as she tells him about her brother hating car rides too. "You know, I wouldn't doubt it," he says with a smirk. "I only briefly met him, but he seemed the nervous type... and I should know." He rubs his left eye a moment to clear out any tears that may linger, then turning his head toward the right. He slips his hand under the eye patch to rub his right 'eye' as well, doing his best not to let anything be seen by her or anyone else. Turning his head back toward her, he looks down into her eyes and admits, "It was probably a good thing that I told you that story. I needed to get it off my chest." Dean sighs softly, though more out of relief than sadness.

Dean laughs at himself for not realizing that she just wanted him to hold onto the bear. Of course, it didn't matter much now that he'd wiped away his own tears. Watching Adalia frown at speaking of her brother's fear, Dean decides not to comment on what she'd said. Instead, he turns to his own defenses.

"I wasn't trying to protect you from a scary sight," he admits with a slight frown. "I just don't want to show anybody what it looks like. Save from the doctors, nobody's really seen my eye, or lack of." He goes to shrug his shoulders, noticing at that moment that she's slightly against him and still holding his hand. Dean's head tilts back, actually to hide the smile on his face. He liked the attention, especially coming from a cute girl. Even so, he didn't want to seem to pathetic. "We're a pair of something," he says quietly as a little joke, smirking while gazing to the clouds. His free arm moves around her back, completing the half hug. Dean's body becomes somewhat rigid as he does so, his awkward mannerisms returning.

He looks down to Adalia once more, laughing at himself inside as he realizes, I've never even hugged a girl before. I feel... kind of lame.

Dean laughs as she apologizes, explaining, "No, no. It didn't bother me. Although, what do you mean by a guy like me? I'm not exactly a weakling, you know." He gives her a cheesy grin, though he wasn't joking about not being weak. Though not really a fighter of any type, Dean's body had always been in good shape. His love for walking kept his legs and body healthy and mixing thick dough really wasn't an easy task unless you had strong arm muscles. If he wasn't too timid to hold her closer, she may have come to find out that his arms were, in fact, strong.

His face becomes blank for a moment as she asks about her brother. If Fiach hadn't told her already, perhaps he should maintain silence on the matter as well... Still, the meeting was by chance and innocent enough that he felt no harm in revealing what happened. "Well, I met Fiach and Brad by chance. I don't think Fiach planned on hanging out there with Brad, either. We just all fell into the same place and made the most of it, I suppose." Pausing a moment to think, he adds, "Fiach seemed to be interacting strangely with Brad's computer. Now that I think about it, there must have been a hacker on Brad's computer." He laughs at himself before explaining, "This was actually before I came to the shop, so at the time he just looked really into World of Warcraft."

Deans face scrunches up into a silly look of displeasure as she ruffles his hair. He obviously didn't mind, putting on a bright smile after his face de-scrunches. He admits jokingly, "Well, I am pretty frickin' adorable." Not wanting to laugh at his own joke, he holds it in and just laughs inside.

While listening to Adalia fill in the gaps with information he wasn't aware of, Dean nods his head in understanding. He frowns as she informs him that she plays Guild Wars, saying, "Sorry, but I only play World of Warcraft and various console games. That's actually why Brad and I started talking. We both play." The frown vanishes as he looks to the side at the fountain a moment.

"I need to take a break from video games, though," he says thoughtfully. "I don't get out of the house enough. And, well..." he pauses, looking back to Adalia with a strange longing in his soft green eye. "Sitting at a computer all day is rather lonely."

Dean chuckles as she holds up the panda and gives a faked sigh of defeat. "I can't compete with a damn panda bear. That's not even fair," he says, throwing on a pouting face to enhance just how unfair it is. Why am I acting like a kid? he asks himself as he looks to Adalia. It's the girl before him, of course. While he does find her childish, this attitude rubs off easily onto Dean and he can't help but join in. Acting adult wasn't his choice, though. He was forced to grow up within a couple weeks after high school. Honestly, he wasn't done being a kid and Adalia blew open the prison that held his inner child captive.

With a nod of his head, Dean acknowledges her offer to walk again. "I'd like that," he says with a soft smile. The smile grows into a grin as an invisible light bulb flickers on above his head. "Or," he starts, leaning his head in close to the side of hers. The proximity forces his face to redden, his speech suffering from weakened nerves as he continues, "well, it's only going to get colder... I mean, today was a nice day, but this weather's rare... I..." He pauses, trying to gather his thoughts despite how shy he's suddenly become. "It's nice to be inside on cold days, just not alone and... uhm... Well, you should come to my place sometime. I'll fix you dinner."

Oh crap... I sounded like an idiot... I can't believe I tried to ask her out. That went terribly. The only way she'd come over is if she really has a thing for nut job pirate chef video game nerds.

Oh crap! Stay calm... Dean grows exceedingly nervous as their noses touch. He hadn't intended on getting THAT close. He just didn't want to make an a** out of himself with everybody watching, so he spoke so only she'd hear. Now, she turned it against him. Too nervous to even move, he doesn't freak out and back up. Instead, he just stares into her right eye with his left eye, frozen for a moment. Then, it happened... She forced him to define whether it was a date or not. With a bit of stuttering, he tries to find the right answer, explaining, "W-w-well... Not n-necessarily. I mean... uhm... Y-you can think of it however you like, I guess."

He smiles weakly, finding his own answer to be lame as he left the decision up to her. Dean sighs, trying to fix it quickly by adding, "I thought it'd be a good way to get to know each other. And, uhm... I guess that's what dates are for, so..." His face grows noticeably worried as he pauses, finally just blurting out, "Yes. I'm asking you out." With his left eye widening, it's obvious that he didn't know the answer himself until he spit it out.

Dean takes the chance to fix his hair quickly as she turns toward the fountain. His hands quickly move to his sides as she looks back. His waits for her answer, literally sweating a bit (though more due to the sun beating on him). He smiles faintly as she agrees to it, or rather says it'd be nice. With a nod of his head, he says, "Okay. It's a date." Building up a little nerve, he moves to poke her nose with his index finger playfully and tease, "Don't act like you don't want to come over. My cooking is pretty awesome, if I may say so." Giving her a warm smile, Dean closes his eye a moment and slips his hands into his pockets.

The wind begins to pick up, bringing chilled air along with it. Dean opens his eye to look about, shivering at the cold breeze. "I guess I didn't dress appropriately," he admits with a frown, knowing that he should get indoors to avoid catching any sort of illness. As a chef, he really couldn't be in the kitchen preparing meals with a cold. It'd be just plain unsanitary.