dollymixtures | Open Post

"Tomorrow night?" he offers immediately, wincing slightly at his own enthusiasm. He just didn't want to let this opportunity get away from him, a pretty girl who was interested in him and knew about werewolves? It was like a dream come true, he almost wanted to pinch himself.

"Or the day after? I told you, my social schedule is wide open, and even if it wasn't, I'd cancel for you." oh, hey, ease up on the desperation there Dick.

Lydia can't help the semi-smug, semi-amused smirk that tugs at the corners of her mouth. Apparently he's especially interested and isn't quite as good at hiding it as she happens to be.

Finishing up her salad — or what she had time to eat, anyway — Lydia puts the lid back on it and nods. "Tomorrow's fine." The smirk on her face has a warmer feel to it, now. "I'm looking forward to it," she adds, and then finally, "if you don't want to be late to your next class, we should get going..."

I like hearing you talk, she counters, smiling back at him. Probably a little too much, she thinks but didn't actually mean to add to her previous statement. Her face goes red and her eyes shift quickly back to the computer screen.

Teach me, she says, getting herself back on track. I want to know everything! I want to learn everything. There's so many things I want to understand.

Dick shoves the last of his food in his mouth partly because of the time and partly to stop himself from saying anything stupid (again) before he had chance to engage his brain. It's a bit of a big mouthful, so it ends up being an awkwardly long time before he can swallow it and actually speak again, and he looks a little sheepish when he does.

"I'll pick you up around seven?" he offers, grabbing both his tray and hers to take them over to the bins. "And yea, let's get out of here."

Dick's face was flushing pretty red itself, but he clears his throat and focuses on the screen for a minute to get himself under control. Once he's a little calmer, he nods slightly.

"Ok then, so..." he begins, launching into a fairly lengthy description of the computer and how it worked and what he was asking it to do, a little way into his speech he'd finished the search algorithm so he leaned back in his chair and let the computer start looking, continuing his explanation while it worked. He tried to be as evenly-paced and straightforward as he could, glancing her way regularly to make sure she was following, repeating anything she seemed to have problems with.

Patiently, Lydia waits. She gets the feeling that he's done that on purpose to buy himself a little time and that's fair enough; she isn't going to judge him for it. When he finally does swallow and has a chance to speak, Lydia nods, her own smile returning his.

"Seven sounds perfect, give me your phone," she says. "I'll put my number in it." That way, if he feels so inclined to text her between now and then, well. He could. If he wanted.

Ariel is...mostly listening. She finds herself, belatedly, too busy admiring Dick to actually absorb most of what he's saying. Occasionally, she'll parrot something back at him when asked if she understands so that he doesn't feel inclined to repeat himself too often, but Ariel's actual focus is elsewhere.

On his lips when they're moving as he speaks. On his face, even though his eyes are skewed from her view. On the dark hair which had so attracted her to Eric initially; that contrast against pale skin having caught her eye with him and still now with Dick.

You're so smart... she thinks with a contented sort of sigh, smiling at him as she lifts a hand to rest her chin on, her elbows already against the corner of his desk.

"Sure," he grins, handing over his phone happily, "...ignore the background" he says, realising a split second too late that his current home screen was a terrible selfie with Tim and a scowling Damian, Jason flipping them off in the background.

"Thanks for inviting me to lunch," he adds, trying to distract himself from how dorky a photo it is "I've had a really good time."

"Uh, thanks," he blushes, ducking his head and running his hand through his hair. The computer beeps at him to signal it was done with its search and he looks away from her quickly, a little bit glad of the distraction because there's something about her that makes him feel butterflies in his stomach and she's looking for her true love, butterflies are a bad idea.

"Oh, hey, it looks like it has a possible match," he says with slightly forced enthusiasm, pulling up the portrait that the computer had found "Is this your Eric?"

Rather than following his belated instruction, Lydia finds herself smirking a little at the wallpaper on his phone. "Are those your brothers?" she wonders aloud as she moves into his contacts to input her own information for him. "I don't have any brothers or sisters," she adds as she types in her phone number and saves it down. Lydia exits back out of the contacts app and looks down at the picture again with sort of a sad smile. "I had a friend that felt like my sister for a while, but...she died. I think this is cute," she says honestly, tapping a fingernail gently against the glass of the screen before handing the phone back.

Lydia gathers her remaining food into a bag she'd asked them to put with her tray and she finishes the last of her tea with a nod. "Any time," she says sincerely, "and I have, too." She gets to her feet, then. "Come on, I can get you out of trouble for leaving campus on lunch with me but maybe not for me making you late for your next class," she says with a quiet laugh and a wrinkled up nose.

Ariel just assumes that the weird bubbly-sort-of-tingly feeling in her stomach she'd gotten on the beach when he'd lifted her chin to look her in the eye is just a human thing, because she'd never felt it before that. It doesn't occur to her at all that there's any significance to it.

She's pulled out of her thoughts — and her staring; she can't help it — at his announcement and Ariel sits up straighter, looking at the screen. She looks surprised and her eyes widen a little.

That's him!

And yet...she doesn't feel as excited as she thinks she should...

You found him, that's amazing. You're amazing!

"Uh, yea..." his expression turns sheepish "I have too many. You can borrow them, if you like, please, feel free. Any time." he jokes, though his expression turns serious when she mentions her friend "I'm sorry to hear that," he tells her softly, taking his phone back and tucking it in his pocket.

"Yea we better get going," he agrees, heading for the door "I don't think dad'll be too impressed if I get in trouble so soon after starting school."

With a little laugh, Lydia shakes her head. "I'm sure they're great, but if I'm going to be in the business of choosing siblings, I'm more in the market for a sister," she says. To his comment in reply to Allison, she gives a little shrug. Every day, she feels a little stronger. She still feels like it's her fault — because it is; she wasn't a good enough friend. She wasn't a good enough banshee — but she's moving on. She's finally been able to become closer with Malia and Kira rather than intentionally keeping them at an arm's length in an attempt to keep from accidentally overwriting her friendship with Allison. She's grieved and accepted; she's feeling better now. It doesn't hurt so much to talk about her. "Crazy things happen on the full moon," she mutters with another little shrug, this time paired with a sad smile. It isn't a literal reference, but in general, she means that it was something supernatural. She misses Allison, still, but she honors the sacrifice her best friend made for her by continuing on. Like now: cute boy requires a new friend.

She follows him to the door and then out of it, unlocking her car with a little click of her keys and she laughs a little, shaking her head. "Not even if it got you a hot girl's phone number on your first day at a new school?" she asks playfully as she slides into the driver's seat and starts the car, waiting for him to get into his seat and buckled in before she makes any attempt to get the vehicle on the move.

"Hey, I'm just trying to help, I- oh." his enthusiasm, however forced, deflates immediately as he looks up the details "Ariel...I..."

How did he explain this to her? That Ursula had plonked her not just half a world away from her apparently Danish prince, but also a good twenty years after the portrait had been painted and a few years after another unfortunate storm had hit a ship he was sailing on, this time without a handy mermaid around to save him.

"There's something wrong..."

The way that his expression and, really, his entire body — oohhh, so that's what body language means... — sort of deflates a moment later has her stomach twisting itself into uncomfortable knots.

...what's wrong...? she asks telepathetically and the second the thought crops up, she almost regrets it, because it requires an answer she's pretty certain she isn't going to want to hear.

"Unfortunately I don't have any of those going spare... though, with my dad, it's probably only a matter of time," he laughs slightly "I'll let you know if one pops up." There had been Steph, and Cass, back in Gotham, but they hadn't really been part of the pack the way the boys had, they'd never quite become family. And Babs... but she'd had a family of her own, and as much as Dick had grown up with a massive crush on her, it had never really got anywhere and eventually they were just better off as friends, though he hopes one day she'll come visit, he has a feeling she would get on very well with Lydia.

He nods seriously at the comment about the full moon, understanding that it was probably wolf-related - he'd been through his own share of tragedies regarding that, after all.

"As impressed as my brothers will be," he says with a smile as he climbs into the car "I don't think dad would see it that way. Schooling comes before girls and all that."

"I don't know how to tell you this..." he says softly, and even though he knows he has to he's terribly reluctant, he doesn't want to give her the news that she's made a terrible mistake, that she's been tricked by the sea witch and there's no hope of her finding her true love, but he can't keep it from her, he can't give her a false hope.

"The witch... she's sent you... forward in time, it looks like, Eric is...he's.. not around any more... " he gives her a few seconds for that to sink in before pressing on quickly "But we can still figure this out, Kaldur will find out what he can about the sea witch and there'll be a way to get you out of that contract, she cheated, it isn't fair, we'll fix this I promise."

Not knowing anything, really, about Dick or his family, Lydia laughs that response off, because it must be a joke she just doesn't really get the significance of, she thinks, but that's fine.

She's relieved when he acknowledges her remark about Allison but that he leaves it at that. She's not really in the mood to discuss it and it's not a very good topic for first meeting conversation. Honestly, she probably wouldn't have brought it up at all except that she's been trying to prove to herself lately that she can without falling apart.

"What a bummer," she said playfully and she pauses before actually starting the car, pulling out her own phone. "Come here. If your brothers are anything like the ones in the movies, they'll never believe you without proof," she says, moving into her camera app and holding the phone up to take a selfie with him. "When you text me so I have your number, I'll send it to you."

Her heart is racing, it feels like it's going to pound right out of her chest, she thinks, at Dick's preface and Ariel's breath hitches with worry. Brow creased with concern, she looks back at him, waiting for whatever this bad news is and hoping he's overreacting.

It takes her brain a moment to truly process the statement when Dick gives it. That could mean a lot of things, after all, but when coupled with his tone and that look on his face...Ariel's naive, but she knows. She knows.

Even as he barrels on in an attempt to smooth over the awful news, Ariel's not really listening. Her heartbeat is thumping loudly in her ears and her stomach turns over with nausea. Tears are driving her eyes. Sebastian was right, just like he always is, and now she's been duped into belonging to the sea witch...without, ironically, a leg to stand on. She hadn't actually read the contract before she signed it. All of this could be in there and she'd never know it because she'd taken Ursula's word for it like a stupid child.

His voice is a dull buzz and she's already crying silent tears, wracked with silent, heaving sobs because she's doomed. There's nothing she can do and she's got no one to blame but herself.

"Tim would believe me, but Jay definitely wouldn't," he agrees, happily leaning in closer to her for the picture, and it was nothing at all to do with the fact that he wanted to lean in closer to her.

"You smell nice," he comments quietly, immediately blushing "Oh my God, sorry, that... that probably sounded really creepy, didn't it? I mean your perfume smells good." It wasn't the total truth, this close to her? This close to the full moon? He could smell her scent underneath the perfume and it smelled good .

He knows there's nothing else he could have done, that the kindest course of action was telling her, but he still feels awful for making her cry.

He drags his chair closer to her and hesitantly wraps his arm around her shoulders. It doesn't seem enough, and he wraps his other arm around her as well, drawing her into a hug.

"We'll figure it out, I promise,"

She just smiled as she leaned closer in turn, just a little, "Nope. I've seen your hand-eye coordination, I know what you can do." She was almost flirting back, but that was because it was usually 'almost' when it came to Patty, still testing the waters even after this long, "You want to impress me you're going to have to show me something I haven't seen before."

That list was rapidly dwindling now that she was a ghostbuster, and there were plenty of things she never thought she'd see that were now old hat, the kind of thing she could deal with without even interrupting her morning routine.

"Well, then this should help," she replies with a grin, leaning a little closer to him and tilting her head a little to try to find her own best angle.

Lydia's eyebrows lift with amusement as she looks over at him. The smirk on her face is smug and whether he realizes it or not, he's just given himself away as a werewolf when he'd been vague enough before to have just been in the family with one or several of them while still being human.

Checking the screen of her phone again and moving her finger to hover over the button to take several quick shots, Lydia turns her face to his. "I'm not wearing any perfume," she whispers before kissing his cheek while still coyly looking at the phone, and taking the pictures. She'd stopped wearing it when it had started irritating Aiden's nose so badly during clandestine makeout sessions in broom closets at school and just hadn't started wearing it again after he'd died. He'd always said she still smelled sweet, especially on the day and night of the full moon.

Edited 2016-09-03 17:09 (UTC)

Sniffing and trembling with her upset, Ariel immediately accepts Dick's comfort, wrapping her arms around him, too, and burying her face against his chest. How could she let this happen? How could she be so stupid?

Dick is saying that they'll figure it out and Ariel's shaking her head against his chest, because what is there to figure out? Eric is dead. She's never going to find true love's kiss in what's left of her three days, and that means she turns back into a mermaid on the third sunset and belongs to the sea witch forever. There's nothing they can do, she's sure of it. She doesn't realize that she's thought all of that "aloud" for the rest of the team to hear as she drowns in the misery of those thoughts.

"Oh," he blushes, if possible, even deeper, and maybe he won't show any of these pictures to his brothers because he's going to look super embarrassed in all of them "sorry, I- that's even creepier, isn't it?" Although seriously, if that smell was all her ...wow.

"It's just.. you smell so good, I just assumed it had to be perfume, but, it's... I'm going to stop talking now before you start deciding you're going to ignore my texts"

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