[Finished] Lightweight

[Jacob Cunningham]

"I don't know, Dee. You know how I get with alcohol."

"You just scored an awesome, high-paying job and you're NOT going to celebrate? I don't about THAT, my friend."

"But I get--"

"Look. If there was ever time to have a few drinks, it's now. We'll walk or take a cab. No driving. Hey! Maybe we'll meet some ladies too."

"Aren't you married?"

"That's not important right now. What's important is that you grab your wallet and any one of your dozen nicest vests and we get out of here."

"... Are you insulting my vests?"

"I'm insulting your lack of getting out here. C'mon!"

===========

With the "encouragement" of one of his oldest friends, Dimitri, Jacob was out of his apartment in a nice crimson vest and walking into one of the many rowdy bars in the City. Now hanging out with Dimitri was never a not-fun experience for Jacob, and surely this time would be no different. Of their circle of friends, Dimitri was the most exhuberant and fun-loving of all of them and that was saying something. He was always the one that suggested they do such activities as cracking open his dad's liquor cabinet, sneaking into clubs they definitely were too young for, or somehow getting themselves in a situation where they were being chased by a truck full of shotgun-wielding hicks. Sure, they were in danger of physical harm a lot or at least getting in serious trouble, but that's what teenage boys are supposed to do.

Even Dimitri getting married didn't stop him going all wild and crazy on occasion, such as this one. Even with reservations, Jacob found it damn near impossible to not smile and laugh and generally enjoy the company of one of his best friends. It was fortunate there only the two of them, and not the full gang. As it stood now, things had the capacity to get crazy but the establishment did not run the risk of being set on fire or having a wall knocked down.

"Lets get two beers over here!"

The two bellied-up to the bar and Dimitri went ahead and got the booze train started after pointing out exactly what he thought they wanted on the shelf. Behind them, there was the typical bar scene for younger people going on behind them. Their ears were filled with the sounds of talking, yelling, laughing, playful arguing, clinking glasses, slamming mugs, loud music, hollaring, hooting, and maybe one person puking loudly in the corner. It was all very... bar-y. Between the atmosphere, his best friend, and the fact that he was a total lightweight when it came to alcohol, Jacob didn't stand a chance.

In no time at all, he was starting to feel tipsy and buzzed and slurred and it was getting harder to refuse Dimitri's suggestions to drink more and harder. Dimitri knew full well how easy it was to get Jacob drunk and essentially knew the right combination to get him hammered. A few beers to loosen him up, push a shot or two on him, BAM!

"WHOO!"

Jacob was joining in with some of the younger kids with Dimitri and, while they were at first hesitant, they started welcoming the older men, so as long as they kept drinking. It helped that Jacob was one of those "center of attention" drunks and was gladly making a spectacle of himself and hitting on women/girls far too young for him.

"W-Why don'tchyou... fuckin' get away fffffrom these douches, honey?"

Jacob leaned on a table, words slurring, next to a college-aged girl and motioned towards one of the guy friends she was with, presumably her boyfriend was among them.

"I mean... I mean loook at thaaaaat stuPID hat! Besides... I could show you thiiiingsss that would blow your mind... I bet they dontch even think they knows what a clitoris is."

Yeah, he was doing a great job of selling himself.

[Kara Eisenheim]

Kara was exactly where she liked to be when she had time on her hands and no projects to attend to for the following day – in the bar, drinking and conversing with her friends and whatever random company that stumbled onto their little group. Tonight they were entertaining the loud and progressively more inebriated company of two older men. While not especially against the intrusion on their little gathering, Kara wasn’t especially for it either, but she offered short smiles and the occasional comment.

Today was a day of celebration. They were going to abuse booze, gossip the hell out of recent events and dance their skirts –and pants respectively – off in festive acknowledgement of Kara’s recent success with her research project. It wasn’t often that a masters’ student was acknowledged with full scientific merit for their research and she was reveling in the moment, feeling exuberant and sophisticated as she sipped from her alcoholic mix. She spoke loudly with one of her better friends, sat right beside her, but it soon became evident that word processing was no longer something the other’s brain was capable of.

“WHOO!” Came the yell from one of the men accepted in their little drink fest and Kara lifted her gaze up to notice Jacob staring right at her, muttering all sorts of embarrassing nonsense. After he gestured vaguely to one of her friends and promptly insulted him she had to quirk an eyebrow, appearing both affronted and amused. When he leant in and slurred through his winning pick up line she was laughing, one of her hands holding her side slightly, her tipsiness just increasing her enjoyment. When her merriment subsided, she took a moment to study him, the hand at her side adopting a specific hand-on-the-hip position.

She was grinning and her eyes were shining with liquor, amusement and something clever. “Hear that boys, I was just invited to a dance,” she told the table at large, gingerly planting her fourth, half-finished, drink on the moist glass of the table, all dark jeans short skirt and silvery elegant top as she rose up. She reached to grab Jacob by the collar/front as she stepped over the table and if she had managed to do so would proceed to drag him along, all the way to the nearby dance floor, even ready to support him should the drinks have robbed him of his ability to stand up successfully.

Once there, she would quickly slip into rhythm, her hips starting to sway to the tune, hands now somehow on his shoulders, one of them quickly drawing down across his arm to grab his hand and place it on her hip if she was allowed. Normally, this sort of behavior had its home on her repertoire. The bar was her playground and escape from the realities of life, most of them rather boring in essence. Usually the people she engaged with were closer to her age and not nearly as vocal when drunk, but there was always room for something new. Her honey colored eyes were direct, staring at his own, wondering what could possibly be going through the stranger’s mind right now, because she knew what was swimming through hers – absolutely nothing.


((Hope you don't mind my jumping in and what I did there ))

[Jacob Cunningham]

It was great that the group that Jacob and Dimitri had, almost literally, fallen into was so inviting to them. Some time had passed since either of them had been any real party-like atmosphere, especially one so raucous and plastered with the world's oldest beverage. Maybe it was a side effect of just growing up, in that most people their age were less likely to throw something like this on their own, or maybe they were just missing out because of their other responsiblities. Either way, they were having a damn good time. Especially Jacob.

It had been years since he had cut this fucking loose, thanks in no small part to Liquor and His Intoxicating Compadres. Nothing better illustrated the teacher's uninhibited state than him putting the drunken moves on a cute blonde girl who was too young for him.

Jacob was blessed in that he still looked very youthful but the way he carried himself, when his BAC was within normal levels, showed his age. Maybe that's why he thought he still had a chance with a girl who could have passed as his daughter. Knowing all that, even he was surprised when the girl actually came back at him invitingly.

"D-Dance...? Wha?"

He was so dumbfounded by her forwardness that he had no idea what to do with his body when she took him by the front and dragged him out to the dance floor, glass still in hand. Dimitri, whom was far more coherent while still technically drunk, slipped the glass from Jacob's hand just as he pulled away. The two exchanged looks, Jacob looking outright stunned and Dimitri nodding approvingly. He raised his and Jacob's glass at him.

"Get some, boyo!"

While shaky and wobbly on his legs, Jacob managed to stand on his own volition while he was "guided" by the girl. Coming to a stop was a bit of an affair, but he stayed off the floor and looked the girl in her golden eyes. It would be a bold-faced lie to say that her looks and actions hadn't turned him on a bit. Though given his inebriated state and how long it had been since any woman had come onto him like this, he was totally thrown for a loop and subject to her will.

For a bit, he was completely still and stunned while this girl swayed in her skirt and guided her own hands as well as his. Soon enough, the girl's influence and the music had Jacob swaying and moving to the beat as well. As his hands stayed on her slender hips, their eyes remained locked, and his old dating skills were getting the dust brushed off of them, Jacob quickly regained his confidence and initative.

Time may have passed since he last danced in a club, but times were slow to change and he was right back into it. The looks he was getting from other people, both the impressed/congratulatory and the sneering/disapproving, were being completely ignored as Jacob's dancing brought him closer to the girl with a small drunken smile. His hands began to wander lower and he lowered his own head to her ear.

"So what's your name, honey?"

[Kara Eisenheim]

Soon enough both his hands were on her hips and hers responded by going up to loosely twine around his neck, action encouraged by the quickly developing proximity. The music bounced through her mind and the smoke in the bar made everything hazy and hushed, everyone around them in their own little bubble of fun. Although he had seemed tongue tied at first –which only heightened her own confidence - now he was maintaining eye contact in a way that gave her a brief flutter of nerves. As it passed, she could, only briefly, consider the shade of green in his eyes before she was offered a silly smile.

Her lips barely had time to curl a little in reply when he leant closer, his hands confidently gaining ground, slipping lower as he asked for a name. “Honey could do,” she commented with a smile in her tone, thinking of the sweet substance whose coloration resembled hers and not the over-used term, “but Kara if you want to be more specific.” As she said this thoughts blitzed through her mind like they had failed to do earlier. Kara was no stranger to wandering eyes and touch. She came to the club often and when she danced, it was uninhibited and rash, but a long time had passed since she had come into contact with someone whose gestures became so quickly wandering.

While she resolved to be more cautious of drunken people next time, she kept him close, strangely appreciating the proximity, fighting off memories of the last green eyed man she had held so close. Her nose was near his neck when she spoke again. “So what’s your name Mr. Boastful?” She leant back then to tilt her head and search his eyes. There was something equal amounts caution and daring in her own and as the beats of the song called, she leant in and drew back, each time coming a little bit closer as her smile widened but did not reach her eyes.

“So, do you normally try to pick up girls like that?” Amusement was back in the gold of her orbs and when the melodic line took a turn for the slower, she finished the distance between them, coming to be half-pressed against his front and side, one of his legs between hers as the melody urged them sway together in a slow circle. She caught herself considering his age, trying to pin point it, but failing as moments slipped by. “I’d ask you conversational stuff about you and your life, but I’m not sure you’d care about that.” Especially while alcohol was rich in his smile.

It would take a few songs before Kara could decide what to do with the emptiness in her stomach and the touchy feely longing in her hands. She had found the absolute worst moment to feel lonely in a crowd and try to drown that feeling out through boldness and some random man’s presence. As one of her hands moved onto his chest and her fingers lightly gripped onto his crimson vest, she wondered what on earth she was thinking and if she should revert to not thinking at all.

[Jacob Cunningham]

There was the smallest hint of a tingling in the back of Jacob's head. It was nearly completely unnoticeable to him given his current state but had he been more clear-headed, he would have automatically known what it was. The tingling was the pseudo-psychic link nearly all men share, a Man Sense. Any male who has cringed and closed their eyes whenever another got hit in the groin knows of the link. However, this time it was being used to give Jacob a psychic pat on the back. There were only a few other men his age or older, excluding Dimitri. When they saw what Jacob was up to, instinct kicked-in and the inwardly applauded him, even if their rational minds disagreed.

Jacob, on the other hand, was just enjoying dancing with a girl after so long, and that she was letting him do that on her perogotive. The old cliche of the older man/younger woman could not have mattered less once he felt her hands on his neck skin. She had a nice sweet voice too, which rung low and close to his own ear. He was also picking up some kind of sweet scent, the kind seemingly all women possessed, mixed with a subtle hint of alcohol.

"Kara... Karrraaa... I like that name..."

He whispered to himself, just out loud, before chuckling at the nickname she hoisted upon him. He wasn't the least bit embarassed about it and, honestly, could not recall why she was calling him that. Alcohol killed his memory before the hangover set in.

"The name's Jacob... Mr. Cunningham if you're nasty..."

Alcohol also made him recite hackeneyed old song lyrics too apparently.

It took a moment for him to lean back up when she did, and look her in the eyes again. In his drunken stupor, he could only manage that same stupidly endearing grin of his, though his eyes began to slowly widened as Kara drew closer to him as the music played on and his hands teased going lower than they actually were. Any lower and he probably could have lifted her up onto him.

"Hehehe... Well, I--"

Jacob let out and uncontrolled gasp when Kara finally closed the gap and pressed herself against him, and their legs intertwined a little. He never thought he would ever run into the same problem that he experienced during his first slow dance in middle school, but here he was, with only slightly more control than that previous incident.

The move made his hands grip her for a moment, but then they actually retreated. Instead, the opted to wrap around her waist and the small of her back, a less lewd and more intimate position than they were before.

"Well, I haven't even, y'know, tried pickin' up anyone since... since... I was your age, Kara..."

The beer and liquor was still messing with his ability to not say things like that. The liquid courage was like an honesty enhancer to Jacob.

"... But don't worry... This isss a dance that... that... Steps I've... Familiar... Something... I know what I'm doing. I'm experienced..."

[Kara Eisenheim]

Unlike him, Kara wasn’t poked by any tinglings nor did she give a dying rat’s ass about what other people thought of the age difference between her and her unexpected dance partner. Whatever eyes may or not have been directed their way went completely unnoticed. When he tested her name out loud she huffed out the beginning of a chuckle, watching him briefly from the corner of a smiling eye. Nobody had ever really expressed liking the sound of her name. The thought tripped around in her mind before it was granted a new focus.

He shared his full name and she gave him a toothy little grin, briefly, queerly staring at him with a low angled gaze up. “Mr. Cunningham,” she laughed a little then wrinkled her nose and furrowed her brows as she raised her chin extremely, watching him from a new deliberately overly-serious perspective. “Jacob. I like your name too, now what do we do about that?” She kept the serious face on for only a little before blooming into a genuine smile that was quickly replaced by mock outrage made expressive by the prolonged gaping of her mouth as he threatened letting his hands wander even lower.

Hardly as close to being as drunk as him she was painfully aware of the look on his face. It had that typical “watching you from a haze” vibe and it left her slightly disappointed. Her expressivity dulled some although it remained friendly when she considered he would probably not even remember her name the next day. Deciding it was okay she had moved in closer at the song’s urge, knowing full well that she was acting provocative. She had to grin a little on the inside at the impromptu gasp, at the same time wondering just how often he could have been subjected to this sort of display to be so surprised.

The sudden pressure he applied on her clothes covered flesh inspired her to be drawn to it, that instinctive yearning for physical closeness she had been suggesting. Her breath was on his neck, heart pounding with impulsiveness when he let it drop and instead suggested something else. It was her turn to be dumbfounded when he muttered his confession, eyes briefly wide with the shock of its implications. If it wouldn’t have been completely rude she would have started fingering his pockets for where he had hidden his wedding ring after quarreling with his wife and deciding to get stupidly drunk because of it.

She tensed a little in his arms, trying to explore less paranoid circumstances, but it was no good. After he tried reassuring her he knew what he was doing she tilted her head to notice him from the corner of her eye. “Are you married?” It was a simple question, one she felt she needed an answer to. If there was anything she didn’t want to be – it was that woman. “How come…” She hestated a little, biting her lip and staring to the side. “How come it’s been so long since you last approached someone?” Her voice was rather quiet but hopefully carried through the din and his drunkness. When she looked back to him there was something tentative and genuinely interested in her eyes.
He was starting to seem less and less like the aging playboy she had anticipated and more like something else and the implied intimacy suddenly gave her a brief chill. She wouldn’t have needed to worry about how she treated someone like that and there would have been no room for any genuine consideration for the person behind the cloak of urges.

[Jacob Cunningham]

By now the music had slowed somewhat, leaving Jacob and Kara less grindy-y and more sway-y. The bar also seemed to have gotten a notch or two quieter and calmer, which it really had not. In reality, it just seemed like that because Jacob was so engrossed with the honey-haired girl in his arm that everything else fell by the wayside. Call him a hopeless romantic or blame it on the burning fluid that ran through his veins now, but there was little else that mattered in the world other than the girl that was, more than likely, slowly falling for.

Or something like that. There was warm feminine body right up against him, and she was pretty enough to turn some heads. She was breathing right on his neck and her hands were on his chest and Jacob had not had any of that in... forever. So Jacob could maybe be forgiven for feeling less-than-polite feelings at that very moment.

Normally, he would have maybe laughed Kara's question about marriage away, or scoffed at it. Under the influence, however, Jacob remained silent a moment, staring past Kara into the open space, before bringing his eyes back down to her. His eyes looked a little more lucid now.

"No... No. I'm not married. Never have been."

Never even fucking came close. Even with Cassandra. Sure, they might have gotten married had they had the time. But during the time they knew each other, the prospect of marriage seemed far off but not off the table. The thought made him a little nostalgic, and Kara's follow-up question only made some old feelings come back up.

Jacob looked into the girl's quizzical eyes and, though his smile had waned somewhat, there was still some hint of a grin. His eyes nearly closed as he leaned closer to Kara. It almost looked like he was leaning in for a kiss, but instead he just leaned his forehead on her and spoke quiestly.

"Just... Life's been busy, Honey... And since lost an old love... a long time ago... I just haven't... felt it."

The alcohol must have been wearing off or something because Jacob was getting more lucid by the word, and after he had finished that sentence, he stopped feeling the hyperactive buzz of before. It had been replaced by something a little more somber.

He brought a hand up to Kara's face, and gently held her cheek while looking into her eyes. His own possessed a veneer of drunken happiness over something deeper and worn by time. He gave her a kiss on the forehead before starting to pull away, arms and all.

"But don't let this sad old man get to ya. Have yourself a good time..."

With that said, he began to turn away back to where he thought he remembered where Dimtiri was. The turn showed that he was still a little drunk because he wobbled in his steps, though his head drooped a bit more than before.

(Thread's not over, if you don't want it to be.)

[Kara Eisenheim]

As his gaze became lost in space and time, Kara watched him with quietly growing curiosity. His sudden seriousness and apparent lucidity made her heart skip a beat for sheer surprise. Selfishly, she was glad for the content of his reply – it meant she had wronged no one. On a deeper level she failed to acknowledge, but just that slightly widened her eyes, she was glad he had never shared such a bond with anyone. Even if she acknowledged it she wouldn’t have dared explore why she should have such a thought.

When he chose to look at her again, it startled her a little on the inside, for it seemed like such a deep and different person was suddenly coming out. When she had impulsively dragged a ridiculous-sounding drunk to the dance floor she hadn’t signed up for any of this and now she found she didn’t know how to react, her grip on his crimson vest loosening somewhat, fingers fretting to hold on to an actual person and not just some mindless bastard of no substance or thought.

He leant towards her and her eyes instantly shut, remaining powerfully closed in fright. Only Kara could be physically uninhibited but as emotionally daring as a scurrying mouse, and he had just passed a barrier that now threatened to start involving her heart, as it inevitably happened when she started considering people truly. Her eyes popped open when he leaned on her, his life weariness a tremble in her own eyes. People were rarely this open with her and she found herself impossibly receptive to it when they did.

Listening quietly, she instinctively allowed her fingers to slip from the fabric of his vest and creep gingerly up, aiming to offer a timid hug with such tentative slothfulness they never reached their mark for he was suddenly touching her cheek, kissing her forehead and pulling away, turning away. She stood there, as dumbfounded as he had been by her forwardness when their interaction had begun, arms limp by her sides, for a moment just staring as steps started bearing him away.

Before she could consciously be aware of what she was doing she had walked after him, in a few quick steps managing to allow her hand to shoot up, catching him by the back of his clothes. “Wait.” Thoughts raced around in her head, colliding with each other and the sounds in the bar that had not existed during the sudden exchange. Slowly and with deliberate breaths she eased her mind into the new situation, feeling not nearly as confident as she had when at the start.

Letting go, she drew her hand back and brought it to her other, fingers fretting almost nervously over each other. “I… uh…” She had developed his earlier difficulty with words, her eyes darting about the bar before finally settling on him. “I don’t want you to go.” What on earth was she saying? She had to slap herself on the inside, immediately wishing to take it back and secretly happy it had gotten out before her restraint could have kept it back.

She looked to the ground, released a sigh, and consciously discarded some of her newfound shyness. Looking to the side she rubbed her arm slightly. “I know what you mean by not having felt it since… someone.” Her eyelids lowered somewhat, her mind briefly glimpsing a person she constantly failed to forget. Although her fixation paled in comparison to his when it came to time, for the person in her mind had been absent for only two years, she still understood the feeling.

“Ever since then it’s always been… this,” she gestured at the atmosphere at large, feeling strange about how natural it felt to speak of such a thing, something she never discussed. Somewhere along the way she had become decidedly unemotional and in it for the fun and normally people didn’t challenge her to change that. Suddenly believing she was acting quite foolish she slapped her forehead and turned to the side, giving him a glance from the corner of a suddenly weary eye. “Don’t let me keep you, I’m just being stupid.”

[Jacob Cunningham]

Jacob nearly fell over right on to his face when he suddenly found his forward momentum suddenly halted when his vest decided to stop moving along with him. For a moment he thought it was just the booze just messing with his balance, or moreso than usual. But when he noticed the tightening of his vest around his neck and sides, a few seconds later, the idea dawned on him that maybe he was caught on something. A glance over his shoulder confirmed that he was caught on something. Kara. Actually it was more like she was caught on him.

Wait...

There was a few moments where nothing was really registering in Jacob's head, not the bar around him nor the words that were coming out of her mouth. But when they did, when they finally did start clicking into place in his mind, there was no way he could have continued walking at that moment.

Well, the night had definitely taken a turn for the unexpected. He had come out to get drunk and celebrate his new job with his Partier Friend, maybe have some boozey fun and hit on women inappropriately. Typical stuff. He did not expect any real emotions to come out of him, and certainly not for any to come out of the young woman whom had dragged him out onto the dance floor for a flirty dance session. As unexpected and strangely out-of-place this whole connection was, Jacob could not help but feel like this was something he actually wanted.

There were damaged people everywhere, and Jacob sometimes forgot about that. Hell, he would bet that everyone in the bar had something the regretted or lost or hated or missed. It's just that everyone had trouble realizing and sharing that part of themselves. But it was happening right now. Between him and this girl. A guy who was almost forty and was still kind of pining over a girl from his youth, and a girl who was probably more than ten years his junior who also missed an old boyfriend he assumed.

"I... I..."

As she turned away, Jacob looked back ahead and found his friend Dimitri, leaning on a table with drink in hand and watching the whole scene. There was no way he heard anything they were saying, but he could see it all play out. They looked each other in the eye, Dimitri looking a little happy, the drunk kind of happy. But his eyes twinkled with knowing. Without a word, Jacob asked his friend what he should do. The reply? Dimitri turned his glass up and took a long drink while looking away, making it very obvious that he wasn't looking.

A moment passed, then Jacob gave-in.

"F-Fuck it!"

He whipped around so fast that he nearly spun his ass into the floor and it took a good couple of seconds before he regained his footing. But when he did, he made a beeline for Kara. Reaching out a wobbly hand, he tried grasping at her shoulder, which only took a few tries, and turned her to face him. He put a finger up to her lips to stop any protests for a moment.

"Lets-Lets get out of here, Kara. I dunno where we'd go, and I can't remember how to get back to my own place, but it'd be you and me and FUCK whoever stares at me."

Jacob sounded like he was out of breath. Like the decision he just made was akin to running around the block. His face was serious and he still swayed on his feet from the alcohol, but his voice was excited and determined. There was nothing going through his head right now. All he knew was that he could not go anywhere or do anything the rest of that night without Kara somehow coming along with him.

"Whaddya say, Honey? You and me. No one else."

[Kara Eisenheim]

It didn’t make any sense, how her little harmless celebrating had turned into this. Kara glanced back to where her friends were still seated around their low table, looking to be enjoying a mindless, collective drunk stupor. Everything looked so simple there and Kara had been enjoying and hating the lack of complexity in her life. She was preparing to join them when a hand landed on her shoulder and turned her around, a finger coming up to her lips and keeping her quiet. Her eyes widened progressively at the words tumbling from Jacob’s mouth. What was she getting herself into.

Regardless, when she was finally expected to speak she shot him a funny little smile and motioned towards where her friends were seated. “Can my purse come?” Kara always functioned on a surplus of rationality and she wasn’t the sort of person who charged out into the night with an older man she had just met but that ring in his tone was infectious and the look in his eyes somewhat scary and she felt inclined to trust whatever this feeling was.

Without another word she rushed back to the reserved bar booth and got a questioning drunk look from her sort of best friend as she rummaged through the pile of belongings to extract her purse. “What are you doing?”

Kara shrugged her shoulders in reply to Patty whose face was scrunched up, deep in concentration to process the situation through the haze in her mind. “Are you going somewhere?” In reply, Kara nodded, finally finding her black purse and dragging it from the pile. “Don’t wait for me.” She lunged forward to give Patty a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” With that she was gone, leaving her friend more than a little confused and somewhat worried as she watched Kara return to the idiot that had called her boyfriend a douche not very long ago. Patty rubbed her eyes, sure she was hallucinating because the concept didn’t make any sense.

When Kara reached Jacob again her eyes and lips were smiling with enthusiasm. She poked him in the shoulder and some slyness slipped into her smile. “Race you to the exit, Mr. Cunningham.” It took a second for her to flee towards it, feeling foolish and silly as she went but considering it appropriate for the situation. When she turned her gaze to find him again there was something warm in her eyes.

[Jacob Cunningham]

"Y-Yeah. Definitely. Get your purse. I'll be... Right. Here."

Jacob had no real answer for her question about her purse because he was still acting on almost complete impulse, and whatever he was saying was being thought up the instant it came out of his mouth. If there was any strain of logic to what he was talking about now, it was that he thought it was a good idea for her to bring along her stuff. His newly reawakened impulsiveness might go too far and he wanted to give her a way to defend herself. It was a morbid thought, but it showed that part of him really cared for the girl.

On a more practical level, Jacob was just having trouble getting any of his limbs to move to any meaningful way that wouldn't end with him on the ground somehow. Not only were the spirits still messing with his sense of balance, his body was tingling with excitement and anticipation for any number of things. Some of those things were more heartfelt than others, and yet some were quite carnal in nature.

Kara's return renewed his drive to move with her bright smile and enthusiastic gaze. He could only smile as well in return. Had she not slipped away from him to the door, Jacob may have just scooped her up in his arms for a... hug.

"Hey! Wait up!"

Like the ever-entranced moth to a golden flame, Jacob was drawn to follow up Kara without any thought whatsoever. It was the entire package that was enrapturing him as he followed her out the door: The warmth in her eyes, the out-of-nowhere connection he felt with her, and the way her bottom looked in that jean skirt. Everything.

On the way out, he stole a last glance at his friend. Dimitri was watching Jacob leave, his smile even more toothy and stupid than Jacob's. The last thing Jacob saw before exiting was a full-armed Thumbs Up from the guy whom had dragged him out to the bar in the first place.

"K-Kara!"

He finally managed to catch up to the young girl and, still acting on whim, he did what he wanted to before. Underneath a single streetlamp, Jacob wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, drawing her right up against him gently, his chin rest on her shoulder, laughing quietly and cheerfully.

"Thanks for goin' along with me. It's nice to get ssssome time with you without the loud music... Now I gotta ask, and feel free to knee me in reply... But how old are you, Kara?"

[Kara Eisenheim]

Kara couldn’t remember the last time she had been quite this absurdly impulsive. Her heart was racing from the run and confusion, her rational mind twitching somewhere deep inside as if it was being subjected to electrical shocks. She had known Jacob for what – under half an hour? And now she was out of the bar, jumpy like a teenager impressed by the first glimpse of someone new and just instinctively pleasing. It was hard to remember the thoughts that had motivated her dragging him onto the dance floor. They had been, in short, not as kind and friendly as it must have appeared, but he had warped those intentions with words.

What in the world had been in her drinks?

Reaching a streetlamp she stopped and paced on the spot, jumping from one foot to the other under the influence of adrenaline, ever smiling as she looked up into the sky. Eventually he reached her and suddenly trapped her in a hug by drawing her in from behind. With some form of combination between a squeak and a laugh, her hands reflexively came onto his arms, her heart aflutter with brief surprise and insane spontaneous sentiment. His head nested on her shoulder and she quirked an eyebrow, canting her head to the side to glimpse his face from the corner of her eye.

She considered his words and looked away with a smile, releasing a slow sigh as she started to relax. Stars were already up in the sky, she noted as her eyes, suddenly calm and thoughtful, scanned the heavens. “I can’t knee you from this position,” she commented lightly, sounding amused. This was probably the first time in history a girl of legal drinking age considered lying about her age in a direction that added years. “I’ll be 23 in a couple of months,” she went with the truth, the enthusiasm in her blood finally calming down. “What about you?” She braced herself for his reply, letting her head lightly bump against his and remain like that. “And you don’t need to thank me, it’s not like I’m doing you a favor. I’m having fun.”

Maybe it was the green of his eyes or the pleasant look of his smile, reminding her of something she had once had and lost. However, even as Kara’s mind insisted on finding a resemblance between Jacob and someone she had known she had to admit it wasn’t that. It had been that raw way in which he had shared a glimpse of his true self and the enthusiasm in his eyes. Those were the reasons for which he now felt familiar enough to be close to like this. Sometimes you just recognized something in people from an instant’s glance and that’s how it had shocked her back in the bar. She had seen something she liked on a fundamental level.

Some minutes passed before she attempted turning in his arms, slowly hinting she was going to draw her shoulder from its supportive position. Being hugged and held was nice. It had been quite a while since she had registered it being this comfy and warm. She knew he was a practical stranger and she was aware it was probably stupid to get so carried away with a vibe, but her eyes were lucid when she turned around, not as frightful and wide as they had been for some time since he shocked her by drastically shattering first impressions, but calm, knowing and deliberate as they usually were.

In the new position her hands crept up to his sides and she stared into his eyes. “We just met not long ago at all,” she pointed out, with lips unsmiling and eyes passing over aspects of his face. He appeared so close, so receptive and so warm. Kara didn’t care how much of what she was seeing was alcohol. “But…” She leaned in slowly and planted a kiss on his cheek, the forward movement allowing her to better return the hug, fingers lightly passing across his vest. “You’re organically intriguing to me,” she admitted under the form of a whisper near his year. For a few moments, the female of the two was driven by something that was purely chemical.

After a brief personal smile her lips were back on his cheek, planting a new light kiss and, with slow deliberateness, moving along an invisible line to press yet another. When her lips withdrew from his skin her direction remained and the next stop was his lips but she paused, her eyes locked on his, something plain and simple and primal in their depths with just a touch of dazed sentiment that was in no little part fright.

[Jacob Cunningham]

"Knee me. Heel me. Same thing."

Jacob was tempted to put his lips on her neck, but he resisted that one impulse out of the many that he acted on in the last few minutes. For now, he was fine where he was. She was helping him stay in a standing position.

So she was... Twenty-two? Yeah, she was twenty-two. The barely-counted-as-math that he had to do in his head took a second and he eventually picked up on what she was saying. He let out the smallest sigh of relief when she at least turned out to not be a teenager, and definitely legal. Kara was still a lot younger than him, but there was no way he would be getting thrown behind bars just for hanging out with her too closely on accident. Of course, there was the slightest chance that she was lying about her age, which was always a possibility, even a slight one, when it came to the fairer sex. He preferred to take her at her word.

The only possible follow-up question reared its head and this time Jacob didn't hesitate at all in telling her his own age, even though he was only a few years short of being twice her age.

"Prepare yourself... I'm thirty-nine."

He was prepared for nearly any kind of reaction that could have come out of her. Everything from creeped-out disgust to simply high-tailing it out of his arms. Those were all both of the possible reactions he could come up with that night. What she did give him was out of left field, for him. She stayed where she was, in his arms and held very close. It was the best possible outcome that he had never considered.

"I'm havin' fun too, Kara..."

The girl didn't know how much Jacob actually needed this. "This" being "having any meaningful contact with a woman". What he said before was true. Life had been busy and a long lost love had hung around his neck for years, preventing or holding him back from doing what he did this night. He would have to thank Dimitri for being such a pushy partying man-child. For the first time in years, Jacob didn't feel quite as empty or hollow.

His grip was loose enough to let the girl turn in it, and he was treated to a knowing look. His own look was one caught in the moment. Jacob knew what was going on, and he could read her expression and her movements, but reacting to any of it was just an inch out of his grasp. He could only let her do her own thing, and let his own hug retightened around her body.

"Yeah..."

Kara's words were only truth. Their first encounter was not too long ago. Then he had been more akin to a drunken fratboy who was hitting on anything with two X chromosomes. Now was a complete one-eighty, but with a much better outlook.

Her kisses felt like they burned his skin and they were doing something to him. He felt the usual suspects. Heart racing. Skin blushing. Breath increasing. All the things that he hadn't felt in a while. Then she whispered into his ear and moved her lips to within an inch of his.

Time seemed to freeze.

--------

A boardroom with a big screen with Kara on it. Several Jacob clones were on their feet, out of their chairs, and they were going nuts.

"Do it! We have to do it! There's no way we're NOT doing it!"

"Are you kidding?! We're almost old enough to be her dad!"

"But she said she's into us!"

"She said we were 'organically intriguing'! What does that even mean?!"

"Sounds liks an invitation if we've ever heard one!"

"She's drunk!"

"So are we!"

"We just fuckin' met! Even you know we're going too fast!"

"Well, find us another girl with that much of an emotional connection that's close to our age! But it better be within the next two seconds!"

"It'd be better for both of us if--"

A much larger Jacob clone with a beer in hand burst into the room and slammed everyone's head into the table.

"WOO!"

-----------

Time unfroze.

Jacob looked into Kara's eyes, his were a green-colored reflection of her's. Then his arms tightened around her, pressing them together, and he lowered his lips to her's. Right there, under the streetlamp in the middle of the night, he kissed a twenty-two year old girl full on the lips. He didn't care who saw or what they said or what past loves he had lost or even that they were both kind of drunk. He just kissed her and that's all he wanted.

[Kara Eisenheim]

Thirty-nine was a lot. Kara would be lying if she said she didn’t do a double take on the inside, having expected something less than that, in the mix of dim lights optimistically having hoped he wouldn’t have been far over thirty. Although the number registered, in the moment it didn’t matter. Her father would kill her, if he would bother to find out what she was doing these days, which he didn’t. It always had to be like this didn’t it? Why did all the guys she felt drawn to have to come with some incredible flaw in the grand scheme of things? Something that did the selecting was definitely set on making it wrong.

Despite such thoughts, she didn’t care. Today was for drinks and mistakes, she could begin thinking tomorrow. Her heart was hammering against her ribs when he agreed with her direction and kissed her. She had needed this, a drop of affection, however illusory in the long run, even if it wasn’t real at all on his side. She couldn’t tell anything anymore. If they had been somewhere more convenient and not in the middle of all roads she estimated she wouldn’t have stopped at a kiss, already feeling the familiar sensation that urged her to get closer, wrap her arms tighter around him. She started becoming aware of the true effect of alcohol and that thought was suddenly sobering.

When their lips parted she bit her lower one and drew back some. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.” Her voice was quiet and she eased herself out of his arms, one of her hands slapping onto her forehead as she started to pace around. “I shouldn’t have done that. You’re drunk. If you weren’t drunk you wouldn’t have.” Paranoia was kicking in, implications and circumstances were suddenly flooding. She wondered how all of this would look in daylight, she remembered just how drunk he had appeared when they had first started talking. That was it. It was the alcohol, making him do things he wouldn’t even remember tomorrow. The worst thing was that it didn’t feel completely meaningless, that she was perceiving some form of connection.

She stopped pacing briefly. “I’m sorry,” she insisted again. “I need to go. You need to go. I’ll call you a cab. ” She drew the purse from her shoulder and started digging through it while pacing again, drawing out her phone and dialing numbers on it, peering at it, erasing, and poking numbers again. “No, wait.” She stopped. “Maybe you want to go back in. I should take the cab.” Her thoughts were all over the place and she didn’t actually know any cab numbers. “What the fuck am I doing?”

Stopping from her agitation, she gingerly looked back to him. “Sorry. I just… We’re drunk.” She flipped open her purse again and found a tiny notebook. Ripping a page from it, she brought out a pen and proceeded to write numbers on it. When she was done she marched back to him, all of her actions developing as if in the same moment. She took his hand and pressed the piece of paper in his palm. It looked like a phone number with the letter “K” under it. “You should have that. If you still know who gave it to you in the morning, and if you still want to see me you can call.”

With that, she was prepared to walk randomly in any direction so long as it took her away from him. She felt stupid and she was panicking, torn between physical desire derived from prolonged loneliness and wanting to run away as she had tapped into something emotional. She didn’t know what was worse – burying the potential for meaningfulness by turning purely instinctual, stopping for a moment to realize that potential and subsequently freaking out or the fact that they were both at varying levels of drunk and seventeen years apart. It was too much. She wanted to go and she didn’t want to go and she didn’t know what to do about anything. Why on earth had he turned out not being just an aging playboy?

[Jacob Cunningham]

Wait? As soon as his lips touched Kara's silky-soft lips, Jacob was prepared to go further right up against that streetlamp. For a few beautiful moments, a complete Devil May Care attitude combined with an honest-to-God desire for this young women and made Jacob succecptible to just about anything that she could either think up or his mind wanted. And his mind was wanting A LOT right then and there. For a split second, he felt that sweet spot between unfettered animal lust and a genuine Human emotion that also started with the letter "L".

Dear Lord he wanted that moment to last forever and, had his body not began begging for oxygen, he just may have. To say that he was completely surprised that Kara pulled away as soon as they stopped kissing would be a lie. He was surprised that it had to come to an end after only one, very heavy, kiss. But given the situation, he stood as much a chance of being the one to forcibly seperate them. Even what she said next was something he kind of anticipated.

"Kara, I..."

His hands remained on her as long as they could without him chasing after her. But sadly his fingertips eventually left her and his arms flopped to his sides dejectedly. There were so many things he wanted to say, like how alcohol wasn't the primary factor in this whole situation. But after that kiss he couldn't manage to sort any of his thoughts into coherent sentences, much less an earnest protest.

"I just... I... Don't... Please..."

The girl was talking so fast and in such an agitated tone that it was hard for the muddled mind of Jacob to keep up. There was talk of a cab, and then a phone, and then a piece of paper was put into his hand. The only reply he could give was a desperate look that said, "Don't go."

But deep down he was almost agreeing with what Kara was saying. If he wasn't drunk, if they BOTH weren't drunk, would this had ever happened? Was this real or just total impulse and instinct? He tried searching his mind, heart, and body for an answer. The desire was there, that was most evident. But was there anything else? Was it really for Kara or was he just using her as a substitute for Cassandra? Was it wrong for him to feel that way? Was he abusing this young woman's inexperience for his own gain? While these questions and more ran through his head, Kara began to walk away.

With what was going through his head, there was no way he could have done the expected thing and run after her. That was something he would have done if he were younger. Now, though, he needed to think. They both needed to sober up and sort out their feelings. However, as he gripped the paper in his hand, he couldn't let the girl just go into the night as confused as he was.

"Kara! I'm... I'm not just drunk...!"

That was it. He just stood there with that statement hanging in the air, watching the blonde girl walk away from him. He wasn't sad or hurt so much as he was confused and wondering. He hoped he would remember her in the morning.