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Janice Fitzpatrick and Franz St. Germaine did not believe in "dates."

That's not to say they didn't go on them. What it meant was that they didn't quite handle them the way young couples were supposed to. Their first "date" was more or less entirely spent ranting to each other about how corrosive to society the modern concept of dating was, how it reinforced oppressive gender roles and how it supported the masculine oligarchy controlling the country. They liked to say they didn't go on dates, but "anti-dates," which sometimes only meant that they were beating the system by allowing Janice to hold open doors and pay for things. Or that sharing Pop Tarts while out on midnight walks through the frozen streets was entirely more romantic than what they saw as otherwise overcommercialized and blandly-packaged ways to express their mutual affection.

Other times they couldn't care less and spent weekend afternoons watching old Communist propaganda films from China and the Soviet Union.

Janice never really felt like she had to do very much to make herself presentable for a date (though, really, before Franz she had been positive she would never be going on any dates at all). The most she ever did was clean her reading glasses, made sure her muddy-plum hair wasn't in an abysmal state, put together an outfit that coordinated well with her piano tie (she always got the sad puppy eyes when she showed up without the piano tie).

The main thing this meant, though, was that there was no anxious waiting for the girlfriend to finish primping herself in the bathroom while he was politely allowed to pace or sit in the living room; Janice was always right there and ready to go, she had the door open before he could knock or ring the bell.

She'd also had an arm hooked around his waist and was pulling him inside before he could say hi. This was normal. Besides, it was kind of difficult to say anything to someone who you'd been yanked into a kiss with.

"Darling, did you go and try the seasonal special at Shufflepuck's without me?" Janice smirked, slyly. "I'm disappointed."

"More plastique?"

Janice grinned -- when was she not grinning around Franz these days -- but this was a slightly different setting from her default grin, a glint to it that generally suggested some sort of mischief but in this specific case suggested that her spritual-war-brother had done something to guess at what mischief she was up to with his question. As if she had something under her sleeve that would make him second-guess the probability of them blowing up government buildings today, humanely or otherwise.

She backed a step or away from their would-be publicly offensive closeness, so she could work her expressive fingers around smoothing out and adjusting Franz's collar for him. This was met with no resistance or protest; really, there was nothing greater than Janice graciously allowing some of her skin cells to rub off on anything he was wearing. "I got a gift for you, you know," she was saying, as she gave the collar another tug, "If you can bear to wait for just a moment, I can go fetch it."

The item Janice brought back was a little... oddly-shaped, to say the least; it wasn't like the smaller box Franz was carrying but something arm-length and vaguely conal, that crinkled audibly whenever she shifted it in her arms. Really, the whole thing looked like someone had thought it a good idea to wrap a bouquet of flowers in festively-colored cellophane, except the package seemed a bit more solid, and heavy.

She had her gift held in clasped hands behind her back (which was more for theatrics than for surprise, the rose-colored wrapping was peeking out from behind her shoulder) as she made her way back to the doorway. "That depends, Sasha," she replied, leaning her thin frame over his own so she was speaking in a low voice just a few inches away from his ear. "Would you also allow me to open mine?"

She really, probably shouldn't have. Underneath all the layers of cellophane was something like a bouquet -- but instead of flowers, it was a bouquet of fireworks. Large, questionably legal fireworks, the kind with enormous safety disclaimers running across them that said things like WARNING: CAN CAUSE SEVERE DAMAGE TO HANDS, FACE AND BODY and WARNING: HAS BEEN KNOWN TO CAUSE DEATH, all artfully arranged and bundled together with a large pink bow.

This was a terrible idea, but then again so was rendering The Beheading of St. John the Baptist in edible media. And Janice was about as offended by her gift as Franz was by his, which was to say not at all. Quite the opposite. She was wearing a pretty clearly euphoric expression as she carefully lifted the whole thing out of the box and placed it on the coffee table.

"Oh, look, it even came packaged with its own platter!" she observed, backing up a few steps and kneeling on the ground to take in the whole sight. "And now I have an excuse to use the fondue pot my father got me for Christmas."

Because the sight of a revered prophet's head melting beyond recognition while people dipped strawberries and pretzels in it would be a complete hit at parties.

"Our fallen confectionary friend isn't the only saint in this room, darling; you spoil me." And she wrapped her arms around his waist and rewarded his efforts with a lavishing kiss on the cheek, before making her way back to the door and pulling it open for him. "We can play with your toys later, but for now, I believe we have streets to prowl. Ready, love?"

Janice had pretended not to notice Franz stashing away bits of his gifts in his socks and up his sleeves, but the thought of trying to stop him had never crossed her mind.

He was just so cute when he got like that.

She had a pair of chopsticks in her own hand, and another carryout box stationed next to her ankle: when she leaned over to accept her tidbit of food she blindly, expertly fished out a shrimp and held it out exchange. At the last second, though, she kept pulling her hand a few inches back so Franz's teeth would click over nothing, and this went on until he was made to clamber over closer to her side of the boat and rest his head on her lap. As she gave her response, she was rewarding his efforts by methodically picking more bites out of her box and dropping them into his mouth.

"Sounds like it could be a ruse created to develop more tourism during the slow time of the year," Janice pondered. "Or it could just be that giant inflatable Godzilla from the car dealership that tanked last month." She fluffed his hair, only somewhat thoughtfully. "Do you have any thoughts on how to find this would-be monster, that don't involve wasting the rest of our food as bait?"

"So."

That was the only thing Janice said for a few moments. She had stopped feeding Franz, and had put her chopsticks aside, letting them stick out lonely and neglected from her takeout box. This was not a bad thing, though, since that meant both of her hands were free to settle over his shoulders, fluff his hair and stroke his face. This was horrifically lovey-dovey. Janice was petting him like a cat.

"In other words," she slowly continued, rolling her gaze away from the still surface of the lake and back towards her beau, "you want us to sit out here for a few hours and see if we can't get the attention of a lake monster that probably doesn't exist? That sounds like a lot of waiting, love. Besides, as you just now brought up, the lake as it is is unlikely to be in the right condition to accommodate a monster."

Her hands weren't ceasing, she was pretty much undoing all the meticulous work he had done on his hair that morning. Franz didn't mind; he set up his hair so she could knock it down. The ribbon from his gift he'd tied around his head had become all undone.

"If nothing turns up, we'll have to compensate for the disappointment by sharing one of those tragically overpriced, ice cream-covered, hot fudge slathered brownies they serve at that sweet shop next to the bookstore."

They were fooling themselves completely. They were going to do this anyway, and somewhere miles away Ursula Johnson was feeling a sudden, inexplicable pang of jealousy.

"You're the only one I would ever talk about sealing wax with, sunshine," she replied, her tone reassuringly affectionate. As if anyone in their age group would like to have an extended conversation about sealing wax -- well, apparently, Janice did if it was a conversation she was having with Franz about it. "In other words, no hour spent with you is a boring one."

They probably could have just made the monster gag to death with their horrifying PDA.

In spite of the cold, it was pretty relaxing and tranquil out here -- at least to a point. Janice perked up suddenly, shifting from her leisurely position in the boat, eyes narrowing and neck craning outward. On the lake's surface, things were still and blissfully silent as they had been when they came out here. There was nothing of interest to see unless you wanted to count the plastic trash bags tangled up in the reeds a ways away. But Janice was acting very much like she had seen something.

Power signature.

She'd felt this energy plenty of times before, the weak smoldering haze that clung to the air around a corrupted, spent star seed.

"Darling," she muttered, pressing a hand firmly onto his shoulder, "stay down."

She reached for one of the oars.

There were a number of questions Janice had at that moment, most of which routed back to the basic idea of why the ******** did someone dispatch a youma all the way out here in the first place, but this was not the time or place to get them answered. In retrospect she would figure that the lake monster rumor had been created to bring humans out there in the first place, but for now she was more concerned with the fact that said lake monster was about to ruin her Valentine's Day.

She stood in their boat, they were brandishing their oars, both of which were ultimately about as useful as a pair of toothpicks. This was annoying.

For a long moment nothing happened but Janice staring the youma down as if she were some sort of snake charmer, the creature continuing to sway as if charmed. The air was abuzz with the light haze of dark energy; normally this was something intriguing and exciting, right now it was carrying with it a potent feeling of unease.

This wasn't something Janice was prepared for, a hand had reached out to dig out into Franz's sleeve in some attempt to silently urge him back down. Her gaze was still locked with the monster in some kind of bewildering staring contest. Her jaw worked to speak -- but then one of her boyfriend's stashed fireworks clattered to the floor of the boat, and rolled until it was stopped by a takeout box.