Feels like Forever [Alastair, Sophie]

The City of Lights looked a shade greyer than the last time Alastair had seen it. It was not the city that had changed though, it was him. The vibrant gardens that sprung up between buildings of blinding white tiles were no longer so luminescent, instead, there was just a sea of muted greens and blues. He was lucky to still be walking he supposed, especially compared to many of the other Jefferson survivors from the Vandenreich, but that was hardly a comforting thought.

Though certainly able to walk, Alastair was also far from uninjured. His left arm hung loosely in a sling, a fracture - the medics had said - likely caused when he had plummeted from the sky to evade an attack. A few blemishes did also adorn his pale face, nicks and scrapes from various close calls, but they could easily be masked away or covered with a wayward plaster. Still, he wore the scars in some dour display of resolve with a coat thrown over his shoulders to cover the arm-sling.

Perhaps he should still be resting, but he'd promised that lady another date not a week ago, in fact, and the thought of failing to come through on that promise had been driving him forwards ever since he had woken up on the flight back to headquarters. Not that Sophie Geisleitt was exactly the type of woman to appreciate such a self-serving gesture, as far as he understood her, but there was a selfishness to it too that Alastair did not wish to acknowledge too. Beneath a thick layer of nonchalance and perseverance, he wanted to think about something that wasn't the mission.

Instinctively he raised a hand to buzz up to Sophie's apartment but picked the wrong hand, and a burst of pain shot up his arm. Grimacing, he raised the other arm and keyed in her apartment number.

Working hard and driven she was, various files messily over her table while she went over the logistics of operations that were being planned. She had been meaning to look into the result of Jefferson but there was so much else to be doing and getting time off to stick her nose where it didn't belong was not an option for her at the minute.

She was sitting on the floor in a shirt and shorts, hair left in a mess since she wasn't going out today so she hadn't bothered to get dressed. A resounding sigh as she reviewed the current class she was overseeing and their grades in terms of performance. She took it pretty importantly given that these recruits were going to be future members of the Vandenreich, she didn't like the idea of some who weren't up to snuff remaining inside their current class and people who advanced much more quickly being held back.

"Ugh. I told him I don't want to be bothered today."

Sophie complained, expecting the face of Domino to appear and insist on asking her to sign off on something. Without bothering to check she hit the button to let him in and await the sheepish face of her subordinate, an unhappy scowl on her face while she stared at the apartment door waiting for Domino to knock.

He had expected her to speak to him, some form of greeting at least, that it was almost peculiar to just hear the buzzing of the doorlock as a muffled series of words was all that came across the intercom. Had he done something wrong, perhaps? Or was there something else at work that he did not yet understand. He considered, for a moment, whether to buzz again or not. The thought crossing his mind that perhaps she had not noticed that it was him. But he had not known Sophie to be an air-headed woman, she clearly wanted him inside else she would not have pressed the button to give him access. So inside he went.

There was nothing peculiar about this, he told himself as he began the ascent to her apartment, nothing at all awkward was going to happen and everything was going to be fine. And then he was at the door. Half a hundred things raced through his mind in that moment. Should he have dressed smarter? Should he have brought flowers? Chocolates? Should he have called ahead to confirm? It went on and on.

But he silenced the voices and stepped up to wrap his knuckles against the frame. If he could stare down a demon without flinching, how could he let his nerves get the better of him now?

Three sharp knocks, orderly and precise, before he took a step back and waited. A hand swept through his hair, pulling crimson strands back over his head in a sweeping fringe, as the slightest ghost of a smile crossed his lips.

That was weird, the knocks were completely off she thought while picking up the coffee on her table to sip at. Trying to make sure her scowl was really good to make it crystal clear how annoyed she was at the poor second-in-command who was not actually here. After a small pause she opened the door ready to confront him.

"What did I say about bothering- Huh."

Her angry tone lost all its bark only to be replaced by a meek sound of surprise and humiliation. Hot coffee spilt all down her front when she dropped it and sent her backwards a little while trying to hold the fabric away from her skin. The scene of embarrassment felt like it lasted a lot longer than it did before she took a few steps forward again and pulled him into a big hug.

"You're back. I... I haven't read the reports."

She'd heard they were awful from regular chitchat. The casualties were tremendous and she wondered if she'd have opened the files and seen his name amongst the deceased when she had gotten around to them. It wasn't pleasant to hear from her second in command that some of her men had began to refer to the division that had ended up being assigned to arrange funeral logistics for the many dead had been called the graveyard because of how grim and how many hours they spent combing through the results.

"Are you okay?"

Alastair flinched as the door opened into a tirade from Sophie, and yet his smile only began to widen. He took a step forward of his own accord, a response just about forming on his lips, before the mug slipped through her fingers and coffee now stained her shirt. His mind immediately blanked as he watched on, almost dumbfounded, as she struggled against her clothes for a moment before leaping forwards to pull him into an embrace. It was not an unpleasant feeling, even as she pushed hot coffee against the arm that was still hanging in a sling previously concealed underneath the coat that she had already half-removed.

"I did not want you to worry, so I caught the first flight here."

His free arm wrapped around her back, resting at around the mid-point, with enough force to keep the pair entwined still. There was a tenderness to the whole gesture that caught even Alastair himself by surprise, but it was also something they had not really delved into on their last meeting. It was not exactly first-date material, was it second-date material? Should there be a handbook for these things? Why did he want to just keep her close? All good questions, yet no answers came.

"I am fine," He lied, and it was a particularly poor attempt at one too, "Though perhaps we should deal with this."

His gaze shifted downward, dropping under her face until he reached the point where coffee was slowly beginning to transfer from her shirt to his own and then onto the floor beneath them.

"Right.."

She admitted a little sheepishly. She might've been crossing a line now that she thought about it, they had only had one date after all and she staining him with coffee right now in her embrace. The white of the Vandenreich uniform did not appreciate stains.

"I'll take care of it."

A dainty hand coming up to trace a circle on his clothing around the stain, soft blue energy doing a simple spell designed to clean impurities and remove the little coffee issue. Then there was the coffee on her but it was a lot more than a simple matter of coffee on her that made her feel flustered.

Firstly, she was barely dressed. These were not things that she'd just wear out and about. It was the apparel you wore when you expected to spend the whole day without any company. Her hair was a mess, she hadn't made an effort to even try to look decent.

"Could I maybe go, you know, freshen up quickly? You sit here, help yourself to anything you want. Just don't peek or else you'll be in big trouble."

It was a question but it was rhetorical given that she was already stepping backwards towards the bathroom with a small smile. No peeking should've probably been clarified to refer to the plethora of documents she had scattered over her coffee table.

He winced a little as she pulled away, though played it off with an easy smile that suggested it was just an awkward movement rather than a jolt of pain. Truthfully, he wished he had not said anything so that he could have held her there for even a moment longer. But the words had tumbled out of his lips and now he was here. No doubt she thought him a fool, trying to drive her away like that, but his arm still retracted so that she might escape without issue and he let her go about her spell without interruption.

Seeing her flush red again, he wandered for a moment what might have caused this further moment of concern. It was only then that he really took in how she looked, what she was garbed in, and how totally unprepared she had been for this unexpected visit. His response was naturally to himself become flustered as he tried to process this information and exactly how she might feel. A part of his brain instantly told him to tell her that she looked perfectly fine as she was, which Alastair could not deny was true, but that stain really was not going to just come out by itself so that was a really stupid thing to even consider.

"Oh... Of course, please, go sort yourself out. I can keep myself out of trouble for five minutes, I promise."

He stood just inside the entrance as Sophie backed up and then disappeared, his smile a reflection of her own. He began by pulling the door shut behind him, and then stooped down to pick up the mug and salvage what was left of its contents. Heading further into the apartment, his first port of call was to look for a sink or just a kitchen area to deposit the mug and perhaps find some towels to take back to the hallway to work on cleaning up the last of the spillage.

To that end, he was as true to Sophie's request as he could possibly be and only peaked around whilst passing through on his way to take care of that most pressing issue. It was not that he was nosy by design, but even the purest of souls could not help but be a little inquisitive when given unfiltered access into someone's home. He fully expected she would do the same if roles were reversed, so that made it okay.

Still, the fact that he had to rationalise it made Alastair feel a little worse. So, by the time Sophie returned, she would find him sat politely at the requested position with his coat now fully removed and hung up accordingly. It was not a proper Vandenreich uniform that lay beneath, just a smarter shirt that was buttoned up and looking fully recovered after its own experience with the coffee.

She decidedly did not take too long in the shower, usually she did which was a pretty bad habit of her's. That frugality she had didn't really extend to considerations of water usage. Well regardless once she was out of the shower and going through the standard routine it occurred to her that the usual process of just going the distance from the bathroom to her room to get changed had a variation that she didn't normally have to consider and that was company.

After a long planning process of making elaborate usages of her spellcraft just to try and sneak past him but the more she thought about it. The more stupid she felt. Eventually she just decided to be honest and walk out in her towel, trying to act completely natural and perfectly calm in this situation which was actually a fragile mask of being absolutely terrified at the knowledge that she might be on display.

"I forgot to get clothes. One sec."

She felt so much relief when she was safely in the confines of her room and able to slide on a simple flowerprint dress. Once she felt a bit more secure in her skin she got the courage to walk back out to see him properly and smile, if she played it off as nothing and total confidence then he wouldn't question it she thought.

"I hope I didn't take too long."

It felt like an eternity had passed as Alastair listened quietly to the shower going, sat patiently as he was upon the sofa whilst resisting the urge to look into Sophie's business that was so haphazardly discarded across the room. In actuality, it had been all of perhaps ten minutes before the sound of flowing water stopped and she emerged.

Turning to greet her expectantly, he was given an entirely different sight than one he had expected. He managed to spend about two nanoseconds appraising her form beneath that towel before he felt his cheeks overheating and averted his gaze as politely as possible. Behind a raised hand, implying that he was shielding her from his view when in fact the opposite was very much the truth, he felt his features flush far redder than even she had been at his arrival. An awfully pleasant image was now burned into his irises, and even after hearing the bedroom door slam shut he remained fixed in that position for a little while longer.

He had not even replied to her as she rushed past, cowering as he did behind his own hand. That was not an ideal response, so he quietly prayed that she also wished to swiftly move past this total non-event.

When Sophie emerged once from her bedroom, he moved to greet her this time. Fully intending to make none of the mistakes of before. Her smile was warm enough for him, though that floral dress did compliment that natural radiance, and it drew a narrow smile in turn from Alastair.

"It was not a problem, though it was my fault in the first place. You look lovely, by the way. I should have said it before but things were a little hectic."

He took another step closer, his good arm moving out to show that he either intended to take her hand or wrap her in another embrace. Perhaps he had simply just enjoyed being close to her, even if it had been a hot mess the first time around.

Sophie did hope that the compliment was intended to refer to her current look and not the state of undress she was previously in, though he did say that he meant to say it before. So when she was in nothing but a towel? It made her head ache a little to try and wrap her head around it, eventually opting to just accept that it was innocent and cute. He was so formal after all and such a gentleman that attaching the stigma of pervert felt a little weird. Though it would be a lie to say that she didn't wonder about what guys, particularly this one thought of her.

Didn't everyone think that though at some point or another?

"Hey, sit back down. You just got back from a battle you know."

She chided and didn't give him much of a chance to act on that embrace. Trying to shoo him back to sit on the couch and sit next to him. Maybe a bit closer than she normally would but that was coming from the same place as her not wanting to exert himself. A guy needed to be able to relax after a really stressful situation.

"Do you want to talk about Jefferson?"

It felt a little awkward to say, maybe he wanted to deal with it in his own way. She thought it was at least considerate to ask him anyway and let him have a choice in it though.