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She wasn't waiting.

This was important. How exactly she couldn't say, but it had been several years since Nadja had waited on someone and she wasn't about to start now. Especially now. That sort of behavior change would be.. worrying. Despite its benefits, the current situation was already enough to worry about, for some reasons she would admit to herself and some she wouldn't.

So she had occupied herself with a project. Not that project, but an innocuous one she didn't mind being interrupted because it had no end, was relaxing in and of itself, and gave her time to think - brushing Moloch. Despite being in the desert for six months now, he was still turning up the occasional burr, and there were always the little knots and tangles of daily life that that desert runs and carpet rolling would turn into matted snarls without early attention.

Nadja pulled a wire slicker brush through thick striped fur, focusing on the warm, sturdy presence of the Arcanine in front of her. The task was uncomplicated and so was he.

There was an answering "Bwurf!" from the other side, heavy paws on the carpet, and vigorous snuffling at the base of the door. In truth, Nadja didn't bother to curb such guard dog behavior in her quarters or office because it tended to make people think twice about whose territory it was, but there were exceptions to its general usefulness.

"Sit," she told Moloch, who gave her a confused look but did as told while she retrieved the slicker brush from his fur. His sensitive nose had caught enough scent to tell him it was That Man - the loud one that made his person angry-but-not-angry and that he, for inexplicable reasons, wasn't allowed to bite. "Aurrh," he complained, ears at half mast. Things smelled like a confusing mix of courtship and fighting. Moloch was not a fan of confusing, and his feathery tail waved back and forth uncertainly.

When the door opened, there wasn't much to see other than Nadja on account of the massive furry presence peering over her shoulder with alert blue eyes. The redhead smiled wryly at Seth over the cowl-neck of her long sweater, by all accounts a very comfortable thing.

Still very nice.

Her hair fluttered with the Arcanine's effort to sniff out bad intentions.

"A moment," Nadja told him and went to put the brush away. That left Seth and the dog, who stared after her.

"Rhu." Moloch was answered with a distracted "Be good." The Arcanine turned his gaze back to the man in the doorway and remained where he was, a fuzzy barrier to his trainer's territory. Tail waving imperceptibly, he craned his neck forward and inhaled a whiff of cologne.

There was a loud sneeze, accompanied by a pale fireball that floated a few feet toward Seth before evaporating. The Arcanine wrinkled his nose with an unhappy "Bwurh."

Nadja had a fondly amused smile for the dog as she returned, doing up the front of a high-collared mid-length coat. These preparations were a sign, because the Pokemon was suddenly shuffling his paws and making little noises of excitement, tail waving as he danced in place. "Ball," the redhead told him, producing the named object in one hand. A giant nose eagerly bumped the release catch and the wall of fuzz cleared, revealing a brief view of an orderly, cozy-looking set of quarters in blues, browns and creamy gold.

Nadja slipped the Pokeball in her pocket and reached for Seth's arm, giving a little nod down the corridor.

Nadja had a way of closing doors at times as if she meant to keep things from escaping, and it was only a quick glimpse. It was enough, though, to see the tidy swath of the kitchen counter. There was a vase on it, and it was full of roses and hyacinths.

His words were so formal, as if they were back in the restaurant again.

"Well, you're new," the redhead pointed out. Off-hours now, the crisp edge to her voice that kept people at arm's length had been put to rest. "Ophion rarely takes kindly to strangers, especially men." The corridor was pleasantly empty; while there were times Nadja wished the base housed more elites than she could count on one hand, now wasn't one of them. It was quiet enough to hear the faint rumble of the elevator as the cables pulled it upwards. "And Moloch doesn't know what you're after or whether he should bite you or not." She sounded amused by the whole business.

"In any case, I imagine yours would be much the same." Typhlosion excluded, probably, but that Tyranitar didn't look like it liked anyone.

"He won't," she reassured him with a half-laugh, and then the conversational ball was dropped.

It was hard not to remember the last date, given that it had ended in flying molluscs and spectacular failure. Nadja was doing her best not to, but Seth was calling up visions of stilted attempts at conversation dwindling into silence with his awkwardne-

Awkardness?

Nadja gave him a look - one of those arch cants of her head, this time with a quizzical quirk of her lips. It was gone in an instant, but the feeling behind it remained. This was unlike him - the him whose habit it was to stomp around and make things awkward for others, not himself. Putting people off-balance usually made her smug, but not this time.

There was a simple way to fix this.

The redhead slipped her hand from the crook of his arm and put both on his shoulders, facing him matter-of-factly. "Seth." Stop that.

As the elevator doors closed, she snaked a hand around his neck and pulled him into a kiss.

After a moment a pleased hum rose in Nadja's throat. When she pulled away, her lips were parted in a contented smile, which twisted at Seth's comment into a wry smirk and a laugh.

"I'm sure there's some solution," she murmured, adding, "I can think of quite a few.. but none of them are comfortable to perform in an elevator with coats on."

The rumble of the elevator doors punctuated that completely innocuous statement as they reached their destination floor.

"H'm. Good," Nadja murmured as he pulled her in. All things considered, the small space was getting rather warm. It would be uncomfortably stuffy in a few minutes, prompting a loosening of jackets, but for the moment the good of the situation outweighed the bad.

The doors didn't go unnoticed, but by the time the thought registered they were closing again, and she found she didn't much care.

"It's not much of an outing if we don't go out," she laughed. But grinding cables meant someone else was calling the car, and at the implied presence of an outsider the redhead's behavior cooled a degree, some of her professional candor returning. Nadja's hands moved from Seth's shoulders, sliding over the smooth upper sleeves of his jacket before she stepped back, putting a space between them.

The grunt was regarded with a cool eye and a faint "Mm" of acknowledgment, then subsequently ignored. The elite's heels struck briskly against the tiled floor as if she were headed to a meeting as they exited the elevator. After a short distance they quieted, and her cool expression faded.

They were on one of the lower floors, in an almost remarkably unremarkable hallway. One of the fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered overhead as they passed.