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[eloquencejones]

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[utilitybelted]

Oh great, and now she was laughing at him, good job Dick, really impressing people on your first day. Dick Grayson you are a god damn creature of the night, act like it. And what? Bite her? Yea that'd make a great impression. Clearly his brain had abandoned him to humiliation.

Only.. then she seemed to actually be wanting him to take her out on a date and did that really happen? Did cute redheads really just whisk you away to taco bell and heavily imply (ok, outright say) that they wanted you to ask them out? Man he loved Beacon Hills.

He stammers out his order in a rush, trying not to blush, and turns back to Lydia with what he hopes is a charming smile "I'd like to take you out to dinner."

[sanguinescry]

Lydia doesn't really mind having to take charge to get what she wants. It's something she's been doing for the larger part of her life and she doesn't really s any reason to pump the brakes on it now. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, as the saying goes.

And, predictably, it works like a charm. Lydia smiles back at him. "Then you probably should, don't you think?" she asks as they call her number and she picks up her tray — a power bowl with chicken and a cup for her to get herself some iced tea from the fountain machine. "I'm free tonight," she adds offhandedly.

ack sorry for the html fail

[utilitybelted]

Dick grabs his own food and smiles, feeling a little more comfortable now she'd actually agreed to it (even if it was clearly her idea in the first place, and hey, isn't that a bit of an ego boost, that she wanted him to ask her out), "Well, as you can imagine my social calendar is absolutely packed being the new kid in town, so I'm free as a bird."

Heading over to a table, he can't quite keep the grin from his face "You'll have to tell me where the best place in town is though, I'd hate to take you somewhere not very goo-" he froze mid-step. Tonight. Full Moon. Well. Damn.

"...I can't. Not tonight."

[sanguinescry]

Lydia grins, taking her tray to a seat after filling her cup with raspberry iced tea. "It'll fill up, just give it a minute," she says confidently. Lydia pulls her drink closer, pushing the straw into it and taking a sip as he goes on.

When he stops short and says that he can't tonight even though he seemed pretty enthusiastic about it a second ago, her brow creases with confusion. "...why not? You got another hot date that beat me to the punch?"

[utilitybelted]

"Uh, not exactly," he grins awkwardly, he feels pretty terrible having to change his mind right away and he really hopes that what he's about to say doesn't just sound like a terrible excuse. "It's actually..uh... it's kind of a family thing? I mean we've just moved here and everybody's been so busy and it's kind of a big family, I have three brothers, and it's this family bonding thing we do every month we kind of have to..." and yea he's telling her way too much information now and probably overselling it, but he really wants her to understand.

[sanguinescry]

Lydia gives a little nod. She hasn't had a "family thing" in a long time and she kind of misses those, really, but she can't help being a little bit relieved that they aren't as much of a thing because she'd probably have to explain her way out of them more often than not the way things seem to go around here lately.

She's totally bought into the family thing until he continues and her eyebrows lift both knowingly and with interest. Then, she gives a facial shrug. "Mmm, yeah I get you. You know, I should probably actually make myself available to my friends tonight, come to think of it. Sometimes crazy things happen on the full moon," she answers casually, but the look in her eye says she's testing him with that comment.

She's curious whether it's a coincidence the way the monthly thing happens to fall on the full moon and if he'll laugh and think her superstitious or if he just babbled a little too much and didn't realize it until it had already been said and the day actually does hold some significance. If it's the latter, he'll know that she knows, because he'll have smelled it on Scott and Malia or at least Scott.

Lydia takes another sip and then pops the top off her salad. "Another night, then?"

[utilitybelted]

Dick's expression turns startled at her comment, and he frowns slightly, suspicious. He'd definitely picked up the scent back at the school and it had definitely come from her friends, and while Bruce was obsessed with secrecy the same couldn't be said for all werewolves. Could it be that she...

"Oh yea?" He asks slowly, "Do these crazy things tend to happen to your friends?" He really wants to ask her outright, but he knows that if he's got the wrong end of the stick it's going to go particularly badly for him, having the only person who's been nice to him so far thinking he was insane was not the impression he wanted to make, so he has to dance around it, try and figure her out without saying anything that would sound too weird.

"Another night would be great."

[sanguinescry]

Ah, okay, now we're on the same wavelength, Lydia thinks to herself. "They used to," she says loftily, raising a sporkful of taco salad up. "Not so much these days. Practice makes perfect, after all," she adds before bringing the food to her mouth to start eating.

Of course he's a werewolf, no wonder she was drawn to him. She's like a damn magnet for supernatural creatures, she thinks. Even Jackson had taken the bite.

"So what about you? Do crazy things happen to you on the full moon?" Lydia keeps her voice light because she doesn't want to give him the impression that she's afraid or intimidated when she isn't.

[utilitybelted]

Dick tucks into his own food as she speaks, a little more relaxed than he might otherwise have been with a new person and eating with just a pinch more enthusiasm than was probably polite, though he's at least sensible enough to swallow before he speaks again.

"Not so much, I don't think my dad would let anything crazy happen, and we all kind of grew up with.. family, of one sort or another," he explains delicately, though it's increasingly obvious that they're definitely talking about the same thing, and it's sort of nice to know that if this lunch or their date turns into something more, he isn't going to have to lie to her. "We're all used to it."

[sanguinescry]

"Mmm," Lydia hums her understanding as she nods. At least she won't have to keep secrets from him if anything actually comes out of their lunch and subsequent dinner date. That's a relief. Lydia's actually more certain, now that she's thinking about it, that him not understanding the realm of the supernatural would've been more of a deal breaker than anything else. God, her life is weird…

She takes another sip of her tea. "So, if not tonight, then when?" she asks, looking back at him with earnest interest.

[utilitybelted]

"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.

[sanguinescry]

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..."

[utilitybelted]

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."

[sanguinescry]

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.

[utilitybelted]

"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."

[sanguinescry]

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.

[utilitybelted]

"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."

[sanguinescry]

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.

[utilitybelted]

"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."

[sanguinescry]

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."

[utilitybelted]

"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 .

[sanguinescry]

"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.

[utilitybelted]

"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"

[sanguinescry]

Lydia shakes her head and smiles, turning her phone screen off and dropping it back into her purse before finally pulling out of the parking spot. "It's flattering," she corrects him gently. The difference between creepy and flattering being entirely dependent on the person giving the compliment and whether or not she's attracted to them, as per the rules of engagement for the average teenager.

Her lips press together to keep from laughing a little as he goes on. "I'll take it as a compliment," she said, dimples cutting into her cheeks and amusement in her voice.

[utilitybelted]

It takes Dick a moment to respond, he's pleased that she is taking it as the compliment it was meant as, and he's really glad she figured out the werewolf thing because otherwise it would have just sounded weird, or rather, weirder. But when she smiles... it nearly takes his breath away.

"You have the prettiest smile," he says before he can stop himself, staring at her dimples with fascination. Since she took the scent comment so well, he hopes she feels the same about this one, at least it's a slightly more normal compliment.