fandomtownies | Late Tuesday evening by the pond...

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Late Tuesday evening by the pond...

Shane sits on the grass several feet away from the pond, a few stale sandwich rolls from the diner in her lap and a take-out cup of coffee from the perk sitting beside her.

The ground is cold and she can almost see her breath, but she's bundled up in her soft gray hoodie and denim jacket, the hood of her sweatjacket pulled up to cover her hair. Tearing pieces off of the roll in her hand, she throws them to the ducks, seemingly lost in thought.

[ooc: Come play with me!]

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Finding he can't focus on his work and is too wound up to go to sleep instead, Ben decides to take a stroll in the park. The cold bites him where the jacket, scarf and hat don't cover, but the walking keeps him warm enough. He sees a familiar figure by the duck pond. "Aren't you cold?"

Turning in the direction of the voice, Shane shivers. Keeping still probably would have been a better idea. "Yeah, a little," she admits. She reaches for her cup of coffee and takes a long sip. Looking up at him again, she offers him a small smile. "Hey, Ben. How are you?"

"I'm good." Ben lowers himself to sit, but lands a little hard. "Ow. Remind me not to do that again. Although I might not get up from here now." He smiles, but there's worry in his eyes. "You look a little distracted."

"It's okay, once you're down... it's just... getting up again kinda sucks," Shane says with a quiet chuckle. She takes another sip of her coffee, places it back in the grass and then holds out one of the extra rolls to him, quirking her eyebrow just slightly.

Returning her attention to the pond, Shane's expression is placid but there's much, much more going on behind her eyes. "Yeah, I guess," she murmurs softly. She tears off a hunk of bread and tosses it to the ducks, lips pressed into a thin line.

With a smile, Ben takes the roll. He tears a few pieces from it and tosses them to the nearest duck, who doesn't seem all that interested in more bread and waddles away instead.

"Don't suppose you want to talk about it?"

Taking a deep breath, Shane lets it out in a huff of a sigh, the chill in the air making her breath fog a little. "Somebody... somebody kissed me," she says quietly, a slight crease appearing between her brows. "Who wasn't Kate. A girl. She -- she has a ... she has a crush on me."

Ben nodded. Things like this were apt to cause confusion, and self-examination. "And that makes you feel a little confused, right? Does she know you've got Kate?"

Nodding, Shane places the roll in her lap and reaches for her coffee, wrapping her hands around the cup. "I... I could tell, right off... that she was interested, y'know? I mean, after..." She shrugs a little.

After working on the street, she'd become very well acquainted with what someone wanting her looked like. "I just -- I can just tell. Y'know?"

A long pause. "She asked me if Kate takes good care of me... and I said 'yeah, she does,'" she murmurs.

Ben distractedly pulls off another piece of roll and tosses it, accidentally hitting one of the ducks in the head. "Oops." He sets the roll aside.

Ben wishes he knew what to say. After being on the other end of Michael's one-night stand, he knows he probably doesn't have much objectivity on matters of the heart. "Maybe you just need to set some boundaries -- and make them clear -- with this person. Sounds like she might not be seeing the ones you have out there."

"Well, it -- it wasn't ... it wasn't really her fault," she mumbles. "Not exactly. Not... entirely." Shane takes a long drink of her coffee, grateful for the warmth of it as she stifles another shiver.

Ben slips his arm around Shane's shoulders and pulls her close -- as much for comfort as for warmth. "Blaming yourself, or is this some sort of..." He didn't even want to say the words. "Magic spell?"

"Both... kinda," Shane says, leaning into him, just grateful that he's there. "There's this... guy... but I don't think he's a guy... he -- he's friends with Mr. Phale. I think he's kinda like the opposite of... whatever Mr. Phale is, whatever that means."

Swallowing, she takes another sip of her coffee. "I was just out walking and saw they were open and I ... just wanted to say hi. I must have... interrupted something," she says. After a moment she lets out another dry gust of a sigh. "The next thing I know, she's kissing me and that's all I want her to do."

Ben winces. It's still too soon, too close to home. He hugs Shane a little tighter, but says nothing for a long moment.

"I can't say I know this friend of Mr. Phale's, but knowing this place, being under an enchantment isn't so unusual." He shakes his head. He can't believe he's really going to say this. "I'm starting to think those of us without those powers need to think about getting protective spells put on us." Ben sighs. "As for your friend with the crush, I couldn't tell you what to do, Shane. Love is tough. Finding a person worth fighting for is tough. And nothing in life is ever easy. You just have to decide what you want and fight like the devil to keep it."

"I... I have... bracelets," Shane murmurs. "Red gave 'em to me. They're supposed to protect me from stuff like that if I wear 'em, but a friend of mine look at the engravings and ... he said he was worried about someone trying to take them from me if they found out what they did. So I gave them to Red to copy off the engravings and put the bracelets in a safety deposit box and he's gonna tattoo the engravings on me."

She reaches up and scratches a hand through her hair. "I don't even know if they would have worked against... whatever that was that Crowley did to me," she murmurs pensively. "It -- it was me... just... more, y'know? Like, up until then, I was able to deal with it -- just kinda push it into the background. Because... I love Kate and ... I don't wanna hurt her."

Ben grits his teeth and takes a deep breath. "Maybe Michael's the one you should be talking to about this," he says, quiet enough that she might not hear him. Louder he says, "Protection is a good idea. Even if it doesn't work 100% of the time -- like the flu shot, like condoms -- at least it will cut down on the possibility." Ben runs his hand up and down her arm, coaxing the heat. "I know you love Kate, and don't want to hurt her. But that's something you have to work at. So you're going to have to do something to protect her -- get that tattoo, set some boundaries with this other woman, whatever it takes."

((ooc: and mun needs to go to bed fairly soon, so we can either wrap this up now or pick it up again in the morning))

Shane nods. "Yeah," she murmurs. "I -- I wanna protect her."

"Then the ball's in your court. It's up to you to decide the move you need to make." Ben winces. "And I promise that is the last sports analogy I will make for a long, long time."

Sensing the need to shift gears, he says, "Hunter might be rolling into town for a bit next week. He told Deb to 'brace herself' for the invasion." Ben chuckles softly, his expression a bit wistful. "I'd almost forgotten what a whirlwind he can be."

"My court," she echoes, her expression pensive, "right."

"Yeah?" Shane asks, smiling. "Ben, that's so great. How long has it been since you've seen him?"

"You mean aside from my..ahem...visit a couple of weeks ago?" Ben smiles, glad that someone has forgotten the whole business. "We didn't really communicate much on that visit, anyway. Before that, we haven't seen him since we left Pittsburgh. It's only been a couple of months, but it feels a lot longer. He's curious about this new hometown we've discovered."

"Oh, right," she says, nodding as she draws her knees up to her chest and takes another sip of her coffee. "Well... it'll be good for you and Mike to see him. I bet you've really missed him. Even if you did only get to see him a couple weeks ago. You'll really get to see him this time." She pauses and takes another sip of her coffee. "So... did you guys ... talk? How are you doing?"

"Yeah, we talked." Ben blushes, but he knows this will make Shane laugh. "After I got into a sort of...bar brawl." He laughs. "The guy Michael...y'know. He got under my skin and I took a swing at him. If he'd really been trying, he probably would have had my head on a plate." Ben took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Michael noticed I'd been hurt and I told him about the fight, and why I'd been fighting."

Ben looked up into the sky for a few long moments, then spoke again. "I wanted so badly to know if this guy had something I didn't. Or," he added seriously, "didn't have something I do -- and wish I didn't. Reason enough to make me the lesser choice. But Michael is very good at setting me straight on those kinds of points. He definitely has a lot of Debbie in him."

"Yeah, he does," Shane says with a chuckle. She would never be the type to say or even think 'I told you so', though, for most people, at a moment like this, they probably would say it or think it.

"I am very lucky to have the family I do." He squeezes Shane's shoulders to include her in the definition. "And you will have to meet Hunter. I told him a little bit about you. Now he's curious."

((ooc: Mun is going to be spotty for the next couple of hours, then out for another couple -- PFLAG meeting night. :D I'll continue when I can.))

"You told him about me?" Shane asks, both brows arching in surprise. "And, yeah... yeah, I'd -- I'd love to meet Hunter.

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