C'est La Vie
The patchwork duffel that carried all of Fran's junk slumped off her shoulder, the handle catching on the crook of her elbow. In her fingers, she clutched the casting sheet for an upcoming play. As part of her beginner's acting class, she was required to participate in a performance that capped the experience. Judging by the confused look on her face, Fran's assigned role had taken her off-guard. She crossed her ankles and sank onto the cold sidewalk outside the building, unwittingly crinkling the page as she stared into passing traffic.

"See you later, Francess!" A girl with a hairstyle like a cinnamon bun waved.

"Bye!" She smiled brightly and waited for the girl to disappear between cars, then allowed her face to relax. She chewed her lip. A cold breeze snapped at the paper. Fran plastered it against her thigh and tried to iron out the wrinkles.

Avery passed a group of smokers cloistered about ten feet from the entrance of the Old Town School of Folk Music. They were gathered in a loose semi-circle, discussing either events from the various programs and lessons they'd just experienced, or a television show; he wasn't sure which, and he shook his head slightly, trying to get his attention span back on track. As he made his way down the sidewalk, he saw a figure camped out on the concrete, illuminated orange from a nearby street lamp.

The vampire approached her slowly, his hands jammed in the pockets of his slightly puffy down jacket. "Hi," he said, his voice quiet but clear. His eyes immediately alighted on the piece of paper. "I'd been meaning to ask you how the classes are going, but instead of texting, I figured I'd just come down here."

Fran's expression wasn't quite dour, but it was on the verge. When Avery showed up, the frown all but melted away. It had been a couple of weeks since they did more than text or IM. Even though it was unlikely, his hair seemed longer to her. "Hey!" She scooted over, making room against the wall in case he wanted to join her. "Do you want to sit? Or I could get up before my butt freezes. I just got out of class."

The door swung open again, depositing two teenagers on the sidewalk. The loudest was a girl who excitedly chattered on her cellular phone, the decibels increasing as her pitch sharpened. "I know! People tell me all the time I look like Snow White... Jon's the Prince. Yeah!"

Fran's mouth twisted at the corner. "We just got our assignments for the one-act play," she said. The paper snapped like a small flag on her lap. "Do I look like a wicked queen to you?"

He sat next to her on a patch of cement. "Well, no," Avery said, ignoring the girl as she strode by and eyeing the piece of wrinkled paper in consternation. "But isn't that what acting is about? Being someone else?" He gave her a tentative smile. "They must have thought you could handle the role." The vampire's gaze shifted upward as he cast around his memory, trying to recall the version of Snow White that he had seen, the 1937 animated film.

"Besides, the Queen's more interesting. How did she get to be so wicked? Maybe when she was younger, she was just as sweet and innocent as Snow White, but through a series of events she became jaded and fed up with people's expectations." Avery shrugged and wrapped one arm around Francess's shoulders.

She leaned into his frame, inserting her wrist between his knees so she could hold his knee. "I thought I'd be a dwarf or something," she said, fiddling with the inseam of his pants. "I was okay with it. I'd be nice and anonymous and association-free. Now I have the dubious honor of knowing I inspire thoughts of evil." Fran fit her cheek against Avery's shoulder. She sounded more bewildered than anything. Later, when she'd had a chance to digest the idea, she'd probably be thrilled. "You're right, she needs backstory. I'm thinking jilted lover."

Tilting her chin up, she looked at him. "How's things?"

People had mostly dispersed, leaving just them sitting on the sidewalk. "Well, the protests around the store have lost steam," he said, watching a gust of wind roll an empty Taco Bell cup through the street. "But that could be because of what happened." Avery gave her a sidelong glance, gauging her reaction. "When I staked that vampire on the news."

After the incident where he had initially admitted to her he was a vampire, telling her things had become easier, but he still wasn't quite sure to broach this particular subject. Most of all, he felt had been letting people down somehow, even though the act had occurred many years previously. "What would you say if I had, you know, made someone a vampire?"

Francess sat upright. "Recently?" With impeccable timing, the wind blew hair across her face. Prying the strands out of the way, she tried to maintain eye contact. A bad sensation settled in her stomach, making it feel like a sack full of marbles. When the story broke about Avery's heroism, which had been labeled as 'unexpected' but didn't seem so to her, she had been proud of him. There was a clipping tucked into her vanity mirror and also an editorial a concerned citizen wrote in, talking about how people had worse things to worry about than the 'poor boy at the bookstore' and how they should just move along. While Fran didn't think of him as a 'poor boy', she had appreciated the lady's sentiment and saved it for posterity. There were sympathetic people in the world; perhaps her parents would turn out to be two of them.

But that hope would be dashed if Avery had sired a person. Fran tried to keep any consternation or confusion from her face and give him a chance to explain.

"No, not recently, but he was the one on the news. Kenton. It was the seventies, when I...you know." Avery felt weird saying that, and the distance in time didn't mean much. A mistake was a mistake, and when one was essentially immortal, they tended to be big ones that could turn up at any time. At least, that's how it was in his experience. The vampire didn't want to make excuses for himself, and 'it was a long time ago', was the least reasonable one of all.

"Even if you asked me now why I did it, I couldn't give a clear answer. But that always seems to be the case with me." Avery leaned his head against her shoulder, the scent of the laundry soap she used and shampoo jumping out at him. He knew the combination wouldn't smell the same on anyone else; it was exclusive to Francess, in his mind.

"Okay," she said, hesitantly putting her fingers into Avery's hair. It marked the first time she wasn't sure what to say to the vampire. The combing strokes of her fingers were rhythmic and yet unsteady. "I'm... I'm not mad." Francess tried to work through her meaning. "I just didn't realize you-- I thought... if you had sired somebody, they would've been around still. So I figured you hadn't." And also because he had seemed so angry about being turned by Margot. Attacked, he called it. Why would he do that to somebody else, then? Had Kenton asked him to?

The fact that Avery had been different thirty years before was hard for her to grasp. He didn't understand it himself, and Fran hadn't the natural ability to figure it out, and no experience to inform her insights. Nowadays he seemed quite controlled; she couldn't come close to picturing him biting a person. She had so many questions! "Why did you stake him then? Was he evil?"

"He was, but that was my fault. If the guideline for evil is that he killed people, then I'd be evil too." Avery turned more toward her, his expression uncertain. "And that's the troublesome thing. Am I a hypocrite for staking him? He killed someone in the crowd, would have killed more until I finally gave in and destroyed him." The vampire shook his head, and his hand slipped down to where hers rested. "And that isn't even the worst part. Now some people are saying it was a heroic thing to do, but none of us would have been there if I hadn't done that to him."

"Well, you wouldn't have been there, if it wasn't for Margot." She matched up their fingers. Without her gloves on, Fran's hands had become cold and a little chapped, but she wanted to keep contact with his skin. "Maybe, in a way, when you staked him, you made it right again. You fixed what you did wrong." On the next breath out, she made herself relax back into the vampire. Internally, she was still working through this idea of Avery as a sire. She had gotten past the fact that he had drank from people; it was easy, when she thought of it like a former life. Maybe the difference with him being a sire was that the evidence was still around.

"Are there others?" Fran swallowed and ran her thumb over his.

He shook his head firmly. "He was the only one, I definitely wouldn't do it again." Avery leaned closer against her, and he could feel the cold coming off her body. "Do you want to go inside somewhere? You're probably freezing." The vampire had forgotten his own gloves, but he didn't have to worry about frostbite. His face tilting so it was against her neck and shoulder, he murmured, "I think there's a diner or something near here."

"In a minute." Fran reached up, threading her fingers into Avery's hair. She made room for him in the crook of her neck and settled her cheek on his temple, nestling in. The tip of his nose felt cold on her skin, where the fringed scarf didn't cover, but she didn't flinch. She wanted to let him know it was okay to be close, to develop that effortless-looking intimacy that couples had, when touches stoppe being awkward or startling and became familiar. As it was, she jumped whenever anybody touched her ribs.

Down the street, a siren rose in an ear-blistering crescendo. Having grown up in an urban area, she was conditioned to the noise, but tonight it caught her attention. It made Fran realize she'd just stuck her neck right against a vampire's face, with absolutely zero forethought. She blinked at a square of the sidewalk beside him, a flash of his story about Kenton slamming into her brain like a freight train, but she closed her eyes and breathed out and remained still, except for a little shiver in her knees. You're the same old Avery, she thought, moistening her lips.

Beneath her knit cap, the wind kept whipping strands of black hair across her cheek, which threatened to stick to her chapstick. She let go of Avery's hand and reached up to hold the pieces away. "I hope it's okay to be proud of you. Is it? Because I am." She thought about it for a second before she kissed the corner of his mouth.

"You are?" His cheek brushed against the scarf as he turned to look up at her. "Of course it's okay for you to be." Avery swept away the errant strands with his thumb, brushing over her lower lip in the process. "I'm proud of you, too, you know. With the play, and everything. I can't wait to see it." Leaning in, the vampire kissed her, his coat crinkling against hers. It was like New Year's, except they weren't being other people, this time. He even forgot they were on a sidewalk on a busy street.

The siren faded away. Francess tilted her face and kissed him back. The soft press of his mouth and its even softer sounds gave her a fluttery feeling and warmth bloomed in her chest. All of her muscles felt strangely tingly, like they might start shivering at any minute, not from cold. She opened her mouth and experimented with touching his teeth; why she should be so fascinated with those, she wasn't sure, but she liked them. "Avery?" Withdrawing only slightly, she winced and asked, "Are my lips too big?"

He pulled away a fraction, the question catching him off guard. "What?" he asked, a smile of confusion crossing his face. "Of course they aren't." Avery gave her another quick kiss. "They're just right." The vampire pulled her knit cap down over her ears, which were starting to twinge red, presumably from the cold. "Did someone say something to you?"

She squeezed her eyelids shut, groaned, and shook her head. She thought, 'way to go pointing out your flaws, Francess, in case he didn't notice!' That was one thing she couldn't get about women who asked if they looked fat in such-and-such. What was the guy supposed to say? 'Now that you mention it...'!

"No, just when I was little," she said, ducking. "Once, my brother was having friends over for snacks, and this kid stuck two apple wedges in his mouth and made fun of me." Fran flailed her hand. "It's stupid. I could have worse problems. Like giant man-hands or ears that stick out like cookie jar handles."

Avery shook his head with a good-natured smile. "You don't need to worry. I mean, you've seen me when my face changes." Maybe that wasn't the best comparison. "I think you're beautiful, but that isn't the most important thing to me." A gust of wind swept past them, reminding him that they had been outside for quite awhile. "Oh, guess what I found. A place called Frances' Diner. It isn't spelled the same, but..." He trailed off with a shrug, then leaned forward to touch his nose against hers briefly.

She smiled at the compliment; if he liked girls like her, who was she to argue? "Is that a warm-place suggestion?" Francess brought her knees up to her chest, in preparation to stand and just to ward off the cold. Underneath her jeans, a pair of argyle socks were pulled up past her calves, keeping the wind from cutting through her clothes. "I could go for that." She rolled up the cast sheet and tucked it into her bag for safe-keeping.

He stood first, holding out a hand to assist her up. "It seems the later it gets, the windier." His own black knit scarf flapped a little absurdly and he fastened it more securely around his neck. "I think you'll like it. It's kind of old fashioned. And not old fashioned like a 'fifties' diner that has big screen plasma televisions." Once they were side by side, Avery hooked his arm through her elbow. "And maybe I'm a little glad that you aren't going to be Snow White," the vampire admitted wryly. "The whole kissing thing. I'd know it was just acting, and I'm sure I could handle it, but still."

"Nope. No kisses for me," Fran said, affecting a disappointed look. Her shoulders slumped and she twirled the handles of her bag. "Just flying monkeys and evil apples. You'd think girls in stories would learn. Nothing good ever comes from eating shiny, red apples." Fran leaned on him, making them veer slightly to the left. "Hey, you know what else bugs me? How girls in fairy tales always have to kiss boys to get a happy ending." Realizing that sounded kind-of bad, she hurried to say, "I mean, don't get me wrong, I like kissing you! I really, really do. Bring on the kisses. But not as an alternative to a coma!"

Avery tilted his head thoughtfully, his temple brushing against her hat. "Yeah, what makes the guys so special? Or their lips, for that matter. But I guess that's why they call it fairy tales." He grinned, stepping over a pile of plowed up slush on one stretch of the sidewalk. "It makes you wonder if apples weren't code for something else. Authors do enjoy their metaphors and euphemisms." The vampire paused, then continued. "And kissing, for that matter. Sounds pretty suspicious to me. I mean, now you'd probably get in a lot of trouble for kissing some poor, unconscious girl."

"Maybe even the slammer!" she agreed. "Because of consent. What if Snow White wanted some... some other guy to kiss her awake? Or maybe even some other girl." Francess lifted her shoulders, thinking if fairy tales were based on truth, that was a possibility. "I'd like to see a story where a guy's in a coma, and Princess Charming comes along and saves the day." The bag she was slinging knocked into her thigh, bouncing and going on a twisting tangent, so that the nylon handles burned her fingers.

"And what happened to all the plain girls who weren't princesses?," Avery added, gathering steam. "Who went around kissing them? It's a flawed system." He led them around the corner, and they crossed the street to the diner. The lights from inside the big, picture windows shone out onto the street, and they could see a few people sitting in cozy-looking brown booths, eating dinner.

"Hey, though," she said, getting so involved in holding up an accusatory finger that she narrowly missed walking into a newspaper stand. "Th... oh... okay, that assumes that all princesses were attractive! Surely you don't mean to imply that wealth and royalty equal beauty, Mr. Adlam." Francess opened the door and propped it with her hip. "I submit for your consideration Donald Trump and Prince Charles." The air inside the diner was warm and smelled of french fries. She pulled at her scarf and unwound it.

"I'm sorry, you're right," Avery answered, feigning a regretful expression as he grabbed hold of the door and followed her inside. "And there were a few who didn't start out as princesses, but that brings up the whole topic of marrying into wealth, and that seems more of a round-table debate." He gave her a teasing grin as a waitress plucked two laminated menus from a stand and led them to an empty booth. "Then again," he added thoughtfully, sliding into the cushioned seat across from her, "One could always argue that being compared to charming princes puts a lot of pressure on a guy."

"You don't want to be a prince, anyway," she said, landing awkwardly on the cushion, because she'd attempted it while wrestling with her coat. Francess bounced across the seat, peeling her green sleeves down. "There's already one, isn't there? The Prince of Darkness who drinks blahhhhd. And also you'd have to wear a crown and carry a scepter," she listed them off in an exhausted voice, "And you might be tempted to change your name to an ampersand."

Tucking her fingers under her legs, Francess studied the menu, shoulders hunched near her ears.

He flipped idly through his own menu, deciding after a moment's deliberation on a milkshake. "Don't forget the cape," he told her. "The cape's the most important part." Avery closed the menu and pushed it to the side of the table, where it clinked against his water glass. "Not enough people wear capes nowadays. Well, except for Batman."

"Could it be fur-trimmed?" she asked. Cheese fries. Definitely cheese fries and a Dr. Pepper. She stacked her menu on Avery's. "Not with real fur. Faux fur. Otherwise you'll get trouble with the animal rights activists. You'll also need a servant to hand everything to you on a velvet pillow. You know, like... 'Here's your remote control, Sir Avery. May it please you.'" Francess trumpeted the quote with a hand outstretched.

Avery made a face, trying to stifle a snicker. "I don't think I'd do well with being served. I'd feel the need to ask if I could help with anything, and I'd feel guilty and mess up, like wash my own dishes or something." His foot brushed against hers under the table. "Do you think animal rights activists would be angry if they knew where my food came from? I don't think they would, right? It's not like I go around attacking pigs in dark alleys."

"Well." Francess pushed up her sleeves. "If that happens, you just say, 'Listen here, cause-head. It's you or the pigs! You decide.' I bet they'd start looking on your diet a lot more positively, given the options." She took the tip of paper from her straw and sipped her Sprite. The little bubbles leaping off the surface tickled her nose. "Anyway, it's just a suggestion." When the waitress approached, she folded her arms and ordered her fries with melted cheese.

He ordered a strawberry milkshake before turning back to Francess. His face lit up in a goofy smile as he peeled the white wrapper off a straw. "You defend me. Like when I told you about those protesters, when they first started showing up." Avery set the plastic straw next to his cutlery. "It's just nice, to know you're on my side. And you give me a different perspective on things."

"Of course I defend you. I can't sit idly by and go 'la-la-la' when someone's trashing my frequent date partner. Even a hypothetical someone. It's just not done!" Francess fiddled with her sleeves and scoped out the diner, deciding if she was glad it shared her name or not. So far, so good. "Oh! I found a new place, a second-hand shop. It's called Hello Again Resale. The girl in there, Erica, she's cool. She lifted my owl-shaped pepper shaker with her mind. That's where I got this coat. She said she had heard about the bookstore, but I can't remember if she said she went in yet or not."

Nodding slowly, Avery tried to follow along with what the brunette said. "She used magic to lift it?" If she was another witch, he wondered if Purity knew about her. "Is it just owl-shaped, or does it have a face and wings and stuff? Because that would look more like a bird flying, wouldn't it?" His milkshake was set before him, and he thanked the waitress before dipping his spoon into the top of it. "You should come into the store sometime," the vampire told her. "It's usually quiet when I work -- well, it is now that it's gotten back to normal a little bit -- and if any customers ask, I'll just say you're an efficiency consultant. I'm sure I can find an extra clipboard somewhere."

"No, she used her brain to move it, like Carrie. She gestured and it accidentally moved." Francess picked up a french fry. It bent under the weight of goopy cheese. "So maybe it was her hands. All I know is she didn't touch it. She's like Melinda, the girl I switched places with." She ate half of her smothered fry. "Hot, hot, hot!" she mumbled, blowing steam behind her cupped hand. When she was done flailing, she went on, "It's part of a set. They look like little ceramic owls? You know, they're painted all brown and gray with yellow eyes and a beak. Only they have holes in the top and you can fill them up with salt and pepper."

Francess sipped her Sprite. "I'd like to come by your work. Erica said I could probably find better books there on astral projection, too. I felt so dumb I didn't think of it before." The idea of pretending to be an 'efficiency expert' appealed to her. Often, she and Avery pretended things just to be ridiculous. It was taking on more appeal now that she was trying out acting, too. "Do you think an efficiency expert would talk differently?"

"I'd imagine so," he replied thoughtfully, trying to sneakily steal one of her fries and failing when it dropped from his fingers and landed splotchily on the white tablecloth. "Oops." Avery plucked the cheese-covered fry back up and popped it in his mouth, wiping his fingers on a napkin. "Like you could be really curt and direct. 'Mr. Adlam, is that any way to stack a display?' It would be a good cover, if a customer came in and caught us talking. Or other things." He added the last part in a rush, barely putting a space between the words, and he deflected by taking a long, noisy sip from the milkshake.

"You should talk to Purity. She's really good at finding just the right books for people. A knack for it, really. I'm usually at a loss and have to check the inventory sheets."

"Uh huh..." Sure, maybe she would investigate that. But Francess had narrowed her eyes and was giving Avery a particular look. A knowing one. She drummed her fingernails on the table. They were painted blue with tiny flecks of silver glitter. "You have a pushy librarian fantasy, don't you?" The active imagination that made Fran love reading so much really took off with this. Before Avery could answer, Francess had already imagined herself in a pencil skirt, button-down blouse, hair bun, and horn-rimmed glasses. Perhaps a switch. "If you wanted, I could 'shh' you and demand you return your late books."

Avery nearly ducked under the table before he caught himself. "What? No." The words were hastily spoken, but his gaze didn't quite meet hers. "I wouldn't have late books," he mumbled, stirring the straw around his shake. The vampire looked back up after a moment, his chin lifting slightly. "I didn't mean it like that. I meant, just us...being ourselves."

"Oh." Francess turned pink and busied herself twisting a string of cheese around her next fry victim. Sexual roleplay fetish jokes were out! "Just us being ourselves. Because... I'm an efficiency expert." A bit bewildered, she took a bite and tried to will her blood to rush away from her cheeks and neck, for a change. But the more she focused on it, the worse it got, until it felt like she was standing before an open oven. Desperately seeking a distraction, she said, "Could I try your shake?"

He watched her expression change, and felt instantly stupid, with an odd tinge of guilt thrown in for good measure. "Sure," Avery said, sliding the glass full of pale, pink liquid across the table toward her. The vampire grabbed another plastic straw out of the metal dispenser, drumming it absentmindedly against a bread plate. "I didn't mean it's out of the question," he said, after a moment's pause. "It isn't." </i>Swish, swish, swish.</i>



"It's like walking this balancing act," he admitted, his posture slouching forward a fraction. "Between not being pushy, and making it clear that I do, you know...want you. I know we've talked about this before, but it takes awhile for things to sink into my brain. Worried you'd somehow be able to read my mind, and see how not different I am from other guys. And I don't want to be the same as every other guy, because you deserve someone better than ordinary, but also trying to reconcile that sometimes it's okay to think that way, and it's not like I think about it twenty-four seven." If he had required breath, this would have been the moment to take a deep lungful. As it was, he just looked chagrined.



"I don't mean to flinch or act put off when you say certain things," Avery added. "Because when you do, I feel this little...surge of excitement and I guess part of me hopes it isn't just joking around."



"I am and I'm not," she said carefully, dipping her straw into his beverage. She sipped it, knowing she had blushed the color of strawberry shake. "I mean," she glanced at him, "I haven't done much of anything, so I'd... I'd probably be better off being Francess first, before pretending to be anybody else." Lifting the straw, she stopped it dripping with her mouth, capturing little pink drops on her tongue. Francess returned it to her Dr. Pepper. The ice cubes bobbed around, doing a good impression of her stomach, which felt as if it was leap-frogging over her liver. "Then again, sometimes I wonder if, past a certain age, it's like a swimming pool. I'm almost twenty-one. Maybe I should dive in the deep end. Here, a deep end means impersonating a librarian."


She crammed a french fry in her mouth and wiped her fingers on a napkin. Francess felt odd about it. She was definitely attracted to Avery, definitely curious, but had spent so long thinking no one looked at her in 'that way', she had convinced herself she didn't either. That maybe she was a freak-of-nature, bred to become a nun or a prude or the world's oldest virgin. She knew that with the right clothes and make-up, she was pretty. She wasn't a bag-over-the-head girl, and had gotten enough whistles in her swimsuit to know she was a-okay under her clothes. It was all about personality and vibe and just letting loose. Her brother Gil said some girls walked around with body language that screamed 'fuckable', and other girls walked around with body language that screamed 'you'll never get in my pants', and both were severely hot. Then there were girls like her, who walked around with body language that screamed 'book nerd that watches Star Trek'.

"It's okay if you think like other guys, sometimes," Francess said. "Because I think like other girls. And believe me, we've got dirty minds, too."

"Oh," he said, sounding relieved. Then his eyes widened slightly. "Oh! I've used that pool analogy, too, before. If two people think it, maybe it's true. Maybe you just have to jump in. Or to use another sporty analogy, it's a little like ice skating. Yeah, if you just stand there and stay still, you won't fall. But if you don't just start moving your feet, you won't get anywhere, either." Forgetting the straw was in his fingers, he went to scratch his temple and nearly poked himself in the eye, catching himself just in time.

Clearing his throat, he set the drinking utensil down and leveled her with a feigned solemn gaze. "Really? What do you think about?"

Francess cracked up and hurried to cover her mouth. It was partly the straw's fault. After a couple seconds, she went to just fingertips, and then nothing at all. "Well. I think about..." Her eyes drifted around the room, searching for ideas of what might fracture the fake-serious look on his face. They lit on a particular object and then returned to him. Francess gripped the table and leaned ever so slightly across it. She whispered, "Dribbling warm maple syrup all over your body, and then dunking a bite of pancake in it, swirling it around... and devouring it."

It took all of his willpower to keep her gaze, and he straightened up a bit. The corners of his lips nearly gave him away, though, as they had begun a barely noticeable, funny little twitching motion. "But Fran," Avery said slowly, a mock expression of disappointment on his face, "you forgot to mention the chocolate." He nodded toward another patron who was sprinkling chocolate chips onto her pile of pancakes.

"Those are for me," she said, pretending to be hurt at his selfishness. She could affect quite the pout with her oversized lips, when she tried. "You know..." Deciding to go all out, Francess darted a quick glance to neighboring tables, making sure nobody was looking. Then she pointed her fingers at her breasts and quickly shoved her hands into her lap, appalled at herself, and also vaguely proud.

For a moment, his eyes followed the lead of her hands, and he had to quickly collect his thoughts in a rallying retort. "Right," he said, rolling his eyes at himself in a what was I thinking? manner, "Of course. I guess I'm new at this. For instance, I always wondered...," his eyes trailed down and rested on the milkshake. "Where does the whipped cream go?" Avery was committed now, and once he got started, he found it was strangely easy to go on.

At least he didn't ask where it came from. Francess would've had to hide under the table. Instead, she folded her hands beneath her chin, going for a cosmopolitan posture. "I can't believe you don't know," she said, shaking her head, the physical equivalent of a 'tsk tsk'. Her eyes were quite sympathetic. "It's clear to anyone with experience that it goes in the belly button. Of course, the powdered sugar... now that's a different story."

She ate another fry. The cheese was cooling down and becoming a bit viscous, but it was still tasty.

And that was the breaking point. He ducked his head, trying to hold it in, but it was no use. It came out as a desperate snort, at first, collapsing into full-on peels of laughter. Several heads in the restaurant turned toward their booth, and he pressed one hand against his mouth, copying her earlier tactic. After a moment of staring down at the table, watery-eyed, he was able to collect himself enough. "It's a good thing I have you to tell me these things," he said, his voice slightly strained.

Impulsively, she climbed up on a knee and leaned across the table to give Avery a kiss. "I like it when you laugh," she said, going back to her seat cushion. Francess eyed her plate, but her feelings towards the side item had changed since they began the conversation. She sucked in her cheeks and pursed her lips. "Is it weird that I kind-of want pancakes now?" She lifted her head, shoulders already hunched in self-judgment.

Avery smiled at the kiss, leaning forward to meet her across the table. "I don't think it's weird. In fact, it's pretty understandable. You're attracted to pancakes. C'est la vie.." He leaned back in the booth, unable to hide his grin. "Or is it the syrup? Like, you'd just as soon have waffles or french toast, but it's all about the syrup?" The vampire knew he was making little sense now.

Francess tilted her head, a bit like a Jack Russell terrier might. "I'm not sure. I don't think I'd have such fuzzy feelings about a crepe. This seems pancake-specific." Giving a small sigh, she nudged her plate of fried potatoes away. "Too bad I filled up on these. I suppose the pancakes will have to wait their turn." Balling up a fist, she lightly pounded the table, allowing her lip to quaver dramatically. "Damn it. I... I can't look at these anymore. Let's just go, Avery."