All of Us -- Chapter 24

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Alec, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Becky/X6-405, etc.).

Wayne stopped in front of the door to Jondy’s apartment. He took a deep breath and knocked on the door. He straightened his shirt and put on a big smile when Jondy opened the door. “Hey, there.”

“Hey,” Jondy said. She and Wayne both looked at each other up and down. “You look amazing.”

“So do you,” Wayne said honestly.

“Come in,” Jondy told him. She stepped aside so that Wayne could enter the apartment and when he did, she shut the door. “Dinner’s just about ready. I hope that you like salmon. I know, that’s probably a dumb question considering that we’re part cat, but some of us only like certain kinds of fish. I know both Rena and Sasha can’t stand mahi mahi but they both absolutely love tuna and Brin—“

“Jondy, relax,” Wayne said. “You’re starting to babble. I love salmon.”

“Sorry,” Jondy apologized. “I guess I haven’t grown out of babbling when I’m really nervous.”

“It’s okay,” Wayne assured Jondy. She’s nervous? Fearless Jondy is actually nervous? “I’m a little nervous myself.”

“Oh,” Jondy said. She took a deep breath. “Well, I should put the salmon out on the table. Just sit down.” She walked into the kitchen and took the salmon out of the oven where it had been broiling and started to set it out onto plates for herself and for Wayne. Calm down, Jondy. It’s just Wayne. It’s only Wayne. He’s only on this date with you because you lost that drinking contest to Syl! It doesn’t matter that he looks like an absolute Greek god and it’s too damn easy to picture him on a nude beach on the Mediterranean somewhere…damn, it’s a good thing my heat is about a month off otherwise I’d be getting worried! She carried the two plates over to the table and set one down in front of Wayne. “Here you go. I hope you like it.” She put down her own plate. “Do you want anything to drink? Milk, wine, anything?”

“Well, this is a date, so I guess wine,” Wayne said, laughing a little. Jondy also laughed.

“I’ll get it.” Jondy walked towards one of the kitchen cabinets. “Is white wine okay? I don’t like red wine all that much for some reason, but I love white wine.”

“It’s perfect,” Wayne said. “I’m the same way.”

So we have similar tastes in wine and coffee and insane stunts…Max, Rena, Syl, Brin, and Jace better not say a word! “Cool. I hope you don’t mind this one. It’s post-Pulse and it was fairly cheap, but it’s all that the liquor store that Ralph and Kyle and I robbed yesterday had that looked halfway decent.”

Wayne snorted. “Did you guys rob that liquor store just so that we could have wine to drink on our date?”

“No,” Jondy insisted, laughing as she brought the bottle over to Wayne. “That does sound like something that one of us would do, though.” She smirked as she handed the bottle over to Wayne so that he could uncork it. “We robbed the store so that we could re-stock Alec’s personal supply of tequila and Everclear.”

“I don’t know why he even bothers with tequila,” Wayne commented. “He’s been one of my best friends ever since I first moved here to Seattle, but I still don’t understand it. It takes forever for someone like us to get a buzz off of that.”

“Are you a lush?” Jondy teased.

“No, I just went to medical school with a bunch of drunks,” Wayne said. “Seriously. The school I went to was one of the best in the South, but a whole bunch of the students that I went to it with were tanked at least 80 percent of the time. I can’t count how many drinking contests I’ve seen and won with and against those guys.” He shrugged. “Whatever.”

“Yeah,” Jondy said. Wayne poured himself a glass and then leaned over the table so that he could fill Jondy’s glass. Jondy raised her glass and waited for Wayne to do the same. “Here’s to us. May this date go well.”

“To us,” Wayne echoed. They clinked their wine glasses together and took a sip before they started to eat. Wayne took a few bites and looked surprised. “This is really good, Jondy! I can’t believe you’re this good of a cook.”

“What, have the only X5 cooking you’ve eaten before has been Max and Brin’s?” Jondy asked.

“I’ve had Max’s before,” Wayne admitted. “Once when Alec and I had gone over to her place after Jam Pony and we were just hanging around before the three of us plus Original Cindy were going to meet Krit, Syl, Becky, Jeff, and Sketchy over at Crash and Alec and I were really hungry and Max had actually made some cookies, I think she later told me that it was because Syl had dared her to actually try something more complicated than a microwave dinner when Max had told her about her lack of cooking ability, and Alec and I snacked on them for a few minutes before we got sick of them. Let me just say that if they were spicy, they would have been mistaken for Cajun.”

“Ah,” Jondy said. “I see.” She and Wayne continued to eat their salmon. “So am I the only one of us who can cook? I don’t think that they taught us cooking before thirteen or fourteen because I never heard Zack or Tinga talk about it.”

“What did Zack tell me?” Wayne said, trying to recall it. “Tinga cooked fairly well and Jace can actually cook really well. Maybe it’s a mom thing. Once you become a mother, you learn how to cook. Hey, that means that there’s hope for Brin’s cooking skills!”

Jondy leaned over to try to punch Wayne in the shoulder and ended up with her face just an inch or two from his. What she had been planning on saying to him went out of her head. “Um…”

“Yeah,” Wayne said slowly. Before either of them knew it, Wayne put his hands on either side of Jondy’s face and was gently kissing her on the lips. Jondy responded to the kiss after a moment of shock and they remained liplocked, deepening the kiss and not parting until they both finally needed to breathe.

“Holy crap,” Jondy breathed. “Wayne, I—“

“No, I’m sorry,” Wayne said. “I shouldn’t have made a move like that. I know that I’ve got a reputation that I’m a ladies man and that I’ll go to bed with anything two-legged and female, but I don’t want to be this bold this quickly with somebody that I care about and actually want to have a relationship with.”

“You want to have a relationship with me?” Jondy asked hopefully.

“Yeah,” Wayne admitted. “I do. I want to make this work, Jondy. If I can help it, I want this to work for as long as possible.” He looked down at the table for a moment. “I don’t know exactly when I realized that I had feelings for you, but all I know is that I do and I want us to have something like Max and Zack have or like Sasha and Biggs. I mean, we’ll work our way up to that if you want to.”

“Now who’s babbling when they are nervous?” Jondy teased softly.

Wayne grinned. “We have so many things in common, let’s add one more to the list. What the hell.”

“What the hell,” Jondy echoed. She grinned back at Wayne and leaned forward for another kiss.

TBC