just us, just us

Horus

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Jun 18, 2015
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Another day, another couple dollars...

Tybalt shut the door to his locker and turned the lock, jacket slung over his shoulder and his usual scowl planted firmly on his face. He was tired and cranky, having worked through a huge pile of papers just to have another plopped down in front of him. No field work today. Nothing exciting. Just another day in his insurmountably long life.

He hadn't spoken very much to Angelo all week. In fact, he'd gone back to the usual; only talk about work, maybe how he felt after a particularly eventful day. No mention of the date, no mention of the kiss, or the bullet hole in the window that he'd barely glanced towards the end. He wasn't expecting it to go very far, really; he was his work partner, and there was some clause about keeping it professional. Something like that. He hadn't read the rule book in years.

Still, he found himself standing there for a few seconds longer than usual, just letting the thought roll around in his head. Angelo was a murderer, but for some reason he didn't feel like one. His soul clung to his collarbones, sticky and grey like tar and yet he was just... Not. He'd only seen a couple like Angelo in the past, but few he'd had to work so closely with.

No sense in worrying about it now, but he'd do so anyways.

Tybalt turned on his heels, back shouldered and ready to go home. Footsteps coming down the hallway towards the lockers made him pause, though.
 

Romi

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He was ignoring him. He hadn't expected Tybalt to be tripping over him at work or anything, but he'd expected... well, normality. Instead, it seemed like they'd taken a step back, all the way back to where they'd been when they'd first been assigned partners. Had he gone too far with the kiss? If so - well, Tybalt was an adult (more than that, if he was being realistic), and he was really expecting him to say something.

So he waited. And he waited. No change though - it was the same stiff formality until Angelo had decided he couldn't take it anymore.

And at that point, he found Tybalt by the lockers. He sped up, sliding in beside him, a grin on his face as usual. He wasn't going to show that he was concerned, even if he was.

"Let me walk you home?"
 

Horus

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He wasn't actively ignoring him, per se... Just being a little colder than where they'd left off. It was like they'd met for the first time, and Tybalt himself didn't have too much of an issue with that. Of course he figured Angelo would and, speak of the devil, there he was.

Walk him home? He paused for a few seconds, just staring at his partner before the corner of his lips tugged up into a vague smile.

"I was wondering when you'd ask." He gave him a light tap on the shoulder with the back of his hand, just barely grazing his knuckles, before striding towards the door. "Come on now. If you want to walk me home, there's nothing stopping you."
 

Romi

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For a moment, Angelo's face flickered to something more serious. He was... while not quite upset, certainly frustrated. He didn't like not knowing what he was dealing with. He didn't know what to make of Tybalt's reaction. Did he hate it? Did he just want to be professional at work? Did he regret the date? There were just too many questions and not enough answers.

He trailed Tybalt on the way to the door, then moved ahead to keep pace with him more smoothly.

"I just... figured it was worth talking about the date." He said when they'd cleared the station, just in case that was the issue. "You've been quiet lately." Well, being fair, he was always quiet - he'd just been more quiet to Angelo lately.
 

Horus

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Quiet? Now when was that so unusual? He figured he knew what Angelo meant though, and it wasn't in him to play coy and clueless. He just took a deep breath and, once out of range of the station, pulled his package of cigarettes out of his breast pocket.

"Well, I enjoyed the date. What else is there?" He supposed being quiet meant he hated it in Angelo's eyes. He lit his cigarette, took a puff, looked unfocused for just a few moments. "There's a certain separation between professional and personal life, though. I just make that gap a little wider." More than absolutely necessary, but entirely necessary for him.

It was a dangerous field of work. He fell a little in love, sure, but he wasn't one to grow extremely attached very easily.
 

Romi

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Angelo frowned, and this time it stuck rather than vanishing in a moment. He didn't like that at all. 'What else is there'? He wasn't - christ, was that the impression he'd given?

He circled around in front of Tybalt, a frown still on his face.

"Tybalt - Christ." He paused, trying to pull himself back together. "I don't know what you thought I wanted, but I didn't -" He had to cut himself off again, letting out a little huff. He was having a hard time articulating himself, a problem he didn't normally run into.

"I'm not looking for... I don't know, casual dating. I wanted to see if we'd actually work. Not just... 'what else is there'." He hated hearing that from him. There was plenty else out there.
 

Horus

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Tybalt was surprised when Angelo circled around and stopped in front of him, then he was surprised that he was surprised. His partner certainly was more spontaneous than he was; he wouldn't put it past Angelo to stop him in the street. What caught him more off guard was the frown. What happened to that beaming attitude?

He was getting all flustered, too, stumbling over his words in a way that he'd never seen him before. Now that was worrying, and Tybalt shifted his weight onto one foot. His expression otherwise didn't move at all. It remained neutral, almost a scowl but not quite. Talk about resting bitch face. Seeing a ball of sunshine crash down into a flustered mess so fast unsettled him.

He took another deep inhale of his cigarette, taking it almost halfway to the filter. His mind clicked away. All these things about finding the right person and having them die, finding the right person only to realize they were terrible... He'd had a long enough life to realize that.

"And do you think we will?" He hadn't put much thought into it. Actually, he'd put effort into not putting much thought into it. He purposefully detached himself from the whole idea.
 

Romi

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Ahh, Tybalt was breaking his heart, wasn't he? He let out a little sigh.

"Yeah, kind. Or I did, before this. Now I'm wondering if I was reading too much into things." Had he been reading some sort of affection in Tybalt that Tybalt didn't even have? "I thought the date went well. I liked it, you seemed to like it, you opened up, I opened up, and... that was it. Done." And the date was never mentioned, as if it had never happened. It had been good when it happened, and then... nothing.

"I feel like I fucked up somehow, and I have no idea how or why." He couldn't even begin to guess what he'd done wrong. The kiss? Something else? Was it a case of 'it's not you but me'? Tybalt was going to have to throw him a bone here.
 

Horus

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It sounded like they were teenagers and he'd just let a date down. This couldn't have been Angelo's first date ever; actually, he even mentioned that he'd had experience with this whole thing before and yet here they were. Angelo was hopeful and Tybalt, admittedly, was jaded. Maybe it was because he was older and seen more, but most likely it was because he was made for judgement and, technically speaking, nothing more.

Angelo's blackened soul didn't help things, either.

"You don't have to be so dramatic about everything." He brushed a few blond strands out of his face, leaving whispers of blue smoke in its wake. "I liked the date. I even said so." And he was blunt, honest... He didn't embellish things, especially when it came down to dates and mutual interest.

"What else do you expect from me, hm? I don't like doing... Things like this. And I don't like it being dragged into the office."
 

Romi

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It was far from his first date, but at that second it felt like it might as well have been. He hadn't dated in a while, and this was... well, it was different. It was Tybalt. It was more than just a casual date for him, because he'd already assessed Tybalt and established that he wasn't a nutjob or anything. He'd emotionally skipped the first date pruning.

"I mean.." Ahh, there it was again - he couldn't get his feelings in order. Something about Tybalt was just throwing him off.

"If it's just that - then fine, I'll drop it. I just felt like you were doing okay, and then... I don't know. I expected you'd act a bit differently after the date." Not flirty and unprofessional, but at least... what, acknowledging him? At least seeming aware that he even existed. Something to show that the date was more than a one night thing.
 
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