Open Post 2016 2017 Edition

[likeabulldozer]

☻Pick one of my characters or drop any of your characters in and get a random choice.
☻Pick a scenario or use RNG (or make one up if you don't see what you want here).
☻Have fun!

I. Roadtrip

1. BREAK DOWN. Oh snap. Your car decided to break down out in the middle of nowhere. WHAT DO? Is that Leather-face? Will this be "Children of the Corn"?
2. HITCHHIKERS? Is this even a good idea? Threads may also have a third participant. Go wild.
3. WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST HIT? Dude, I hear deer mess up cars... Or I think that was a deer...
4. DON'T MAKE ME TURN THIS CAR AROUND. Alas. You're the parent or disgruntled friend who has had it up to here with all the fighting in the back. This thread may also have a third or even fourth participant, if you can wing it.
5. OMG, I WANT TO TAKE A PICTURE OF THIS LANDMARK! No, no, and no. You tell that person that they're going to be driven around and they're going to like it.
6. THE GREAT ESCAPE. Either dinosaurs or the moth-man is chasing you. Don't stop now.
7. MAKE OUT. For whatever reason, the person you're traveling with in the car. You would love to make out with them and then some.



II. Cuddles

1. SWEET DREAMS. It's been a long day and all you want to do is sleep or just rest your eyes for a bit. Hopefully whoever is close by doesn't mind if you use them as a blanket.
2. STORMY WEATHER. The heavy rain, thunder, and lightning won't be letting up anytime soon. Luckily, it's the perfect weather to stay indoors and snuggle up close and keep warm.
3. SLOW DANCE. It's the end of a party, or maybe it's only the two of you, but the tempo is slow and the lights are low. Let your dance partner take the weight and just sway.
4. SURPRISE ATTACK. Time to invade someone's personal space. Are they working too much and need a distraction? Maybe you just wanted to brighten their day. Either way, they won't see it coming.
5. MOVIE NIGHT. It can be on the sofa or in a darkened theater, but you've got your popcorn and someone to settle against during your favorite movie.
6. I LOVE YOU, MAN. It's totally platonic, really. You're just very good friends, no matter what people like to think. But you just love your friend so much you want to hug them, whether they like it or not.
7. JEEPERS CREEPERS. Welp. You were just frightened. Was it a spider in the washroom, a ghost in the attic, a bad dream? Either way, you're looking for someone to cling to right now, and who better than that person right there?
8. HURT AND COMFORT. Whether you're sick in bed, just been dumped, or suffered a traumatic event, you need someone to wrap their arms around you and make everything go away.
9. SUNDAY MORNING. Maybe you just had a wild night. Maybe there's just not enough space at your place and you need to share your bed. Or maybe you just got really tired and someone else happened to be there. Doesn't matter because now the person with you looks way more comfortable than any blanket or pillow. Drape to your heart's content.
10. MOMENT AFTER. You just had incredible, vigorous sex and if you weren't a cuddler before, you are now. You're probably too exhausted to do anything else anyway. Just enjoy the moment.
11. PLAYER'S CHOICE. Pick one or make up your own!

III. Hurt/Comfort

1. INJURY. You've been injured. Broken bones or bleeding out or maybe just a tiny little paper-cut. The choice is yours.
2. SICKNESS. You're sick and laid up in bed, at home or in a hospital. The severity is up to you.
3. FEAR/ANXIETY. Something is happening and you're scared beyond belief.
4. LOSS OF SENSES. Sight, touch, taste, hearing, smell, etc. You've lost some important sense or ability and now you're left to deal with it.
5. DESPAIR. Nothing is good or right anymore and you can't shake the depression. Maybe that friend of yours can help though.
6. MAKE UP. Fight or break up, it's time to make up.
7. RESCUED. You've just been held captive and/or tortured for however long and finally, someone has come to the rescue.
8. BAD ROMANCE. Fight, cheat on, abuse, whatever the case is, someone else can clearly see you need comfort from someone who isn't your terrible lover tonight.
9. LOSS. You've experienced a loss of some kind and need help getting through it.

IV. Texts from Last Night

1.Go here
2. Make Magic happen

V. Intimacy

1. PHYSICAL INTIMACY. It might just be innocent touches or it might be foreplay.
2. LONG CONVERSATIONS. Honest words can be more intimate than touch.
3. DRUNK. You're over-sharing or simply maudlin.
4. FORCED INTIMACY. Magic. A truth serum, whatever - you didn't mean to bare your soul, but that is precisely what you're doing right now.
5. SLOW-DANCING. There is something inherently intimate about trusting someone else to lead you, and someone trust you to lead them.
6. OTHER. Intimacy can come in many forms. Pick your poison.

VI. SENTINEL GUIDE

Prompts
oo1. The Meeting:
How did you meet? Was it at an event organized specifically for finding your other half? By accident? Did you follow a mystical calling to them? Some other way?

oo2. Rejection:
Sometimes Sentinels or Guides propose a match but it's just not perfect. You don't feel the pull or maybe you think there is someone better or maybe you're already claimed. Maybe you were claimed and someone better came along?

oo3. Protection:
Sentinels are meant to protect Guides, any Guides, but it's even worse when they feel their Guide is in danger. They go feral; blind to anything but stopping and killing whoever threatened their Guide or the bond. Maybe someone attacked your Guide or you haven't bonded yet and you feel threatened or maybe you're the one doing the threatening. Whatever the reason, Sentinels in a feral state are dangerous and only their Guides can stop them.

oo4. Lost:
Sentinels often lose themselves in their senses. Either you're a Sentinel who has lost themselves or a Guide that has stumbled on one or a friend trying to draw them out. Unbonded Sentinels will find it hard to escape without a Guide. Or maybe you're bonded already which means you just need yours to come home.

005. Persecution:
Sometimes normal people or the government fear the power of Guides and Sentinels. Guides are empaths, feeling the emotions and sometimes passing thoughts of others and it can make people feel violated. Sentinels often have enhanced strength, which can make them dangerous. So they scorn them, hurt them or in the case of governments, regulate them.

oo6. Old-School:
Guides used to be treated on the same level as slaves. Unable to work unless their Sentinel said. Not allowed out on their own. They used to wear collars and couldn't own land or inherit money. Maybe the old ways haven't completely fallen out of style.

oo7. Unbonded:
Nothing sucks more than being an unbonded Guide or Sentinel. Always looking for your other half to fill that empty feeling but you probably have friends that aren't your match or who are trying to set you up with someone. Maybe you're skeptical about the whole love at first sight thing and haven't been looking.

oo8. Wildcard: Some mish-mash of the above or anything else you can come up with!



Other Options
Don't like any of the above? Here are some other options:

1. Picture Prompt: go here or any of your other favorite picture sites. Leave me a few pictures and I'll set something up.
2. Pick a prompt from this prompt tumblr or try googling OTP prompts
3. Insomnia! One or both of you can't sleep. Be awake together.
4. Leave me a scenario, lyrics, a word or a quote

Comments

[mightbeconcussed]

She shrugs a little at that and gives him a knowing sort of smile. "Probably, but it wouldn't have been half as good as this." She's got the classic Southern Belle accent. It drawls a little and is slow and lazy, but doesn't distort words so badly one can't understand. It may be too early for that, but Lucy would like to see where this goes. She tries not to get serious, but she falls in love far harder and faster than she wants to admit. Right now, everything about Derek makes her feel warm, safe and happy. Those are good feelings to have.

His schedule prompts her to slide a hand up his arm to curve over his bicep. "Well, I can certainly appreciate the dedication to the gym," she tells him. She's half turned on the stool so that she's facing him and she scoots a little closer so she can rest her chin on his shoulder. "Tell me this is the best part of your day." It's not a statement, more of a request. She doesn't even care if he's lying about it. She likes the sweet words.

"Good. I got a coffee, worked this morning," she works in a local candle shop, "then spent the afternoon organizing my closet," something she loves doing, "had dinner with Mom and Daddy and tried to convince him I need a degree in Business." It's not that she's that great at school or that smart, but she loves going to school. "He's thinking about it. Now I'm here and it's easily the best part of my day."

[duelo]

Lucy gives Derek those same feelings: warm, safe, and happy. The scary thing is just knowing that the last three women he felt like that with had been psychotic or had just been doing their job. He was a job, for Braeden. He can't imagine in a million years that, given the circumstances of their meeting, that he's in any way a job for Lucy. Derek finds himself having to actively remind himself that not everyone is out to get him; that Lucy isn't out to get him. ...probably.

He laughs a little at her appreciative comment and he looks her in the eye before responding to the later comment. Or, at least, he does until she gets too close to be able to focus his eyes on properly.

"This is absolutely the best part of my day," he admits and he finally ventures to kiss her. It isn't the first time they've kissed and he hopes it won't be the last, but it's chaste and when he pulls back, he's smiling down at her. Lucy is always the best part of his day.

His reflexive response to get mention that she'd like to go back to school and that her father is thinking about paying for it is to...offer to pay for it if her father turns it down. If Lucy likes being in school and wants to better her chances in the rat race, then she should be able to. But strangers who kiss sometimes and flirt even more often aren't the types of people who pay your way through college. He knows that'd be an inappropriate offer, so he doesn't make it, but the thought is there. ...if she was his girlfriend, he wouldn't even have thought twice about saying it. He is in so deep…

"That's great," he encourages. "I hope he gets on board with that."

[mightbeconcussed]

It's debatable whether Lucy is mental or not. She's got a few ex-boyfriends that would claim she's crazy. Derek definitely isn't a job for Lucy. She's not nearly that dedicated and a job like that would take up too much of her time and cramp her style. Lucy is not out to get him.

The kiss and the words are sweet. Lucy touches his smile with the tips of her fingers then presses a sweet, tender kiss that lingers to his lips. "I'd say you need better days, but self deprecating isn't really my style," she tells him with a grin.

No. Absolutely not. She wouldn't let Derek pay for school, not now and not if she becomes his girlfriend. Her father can afford to pay for college and Lucy already has a bachelor's degree in Philosophy. It's useless unless she wants to get her masters and be a Philosophy professor. She doesn't and the uselessness is part of why she majored in Philosophy. Lucy likes uselessness. She likes not having a purpose and a focus in life. She knows she's putting off the future by not getting a degree in something that she can use. She likes to think she's growing past that by choosing business, but she also knows that she's just as likely to change her major once she gets in school or procrastinate so that a four year degree takes her six years or longer. Lucy just likes being a college student with a future full of potential rather than an adult who is supposed to be responsible and successful. See? Mental might not be a stretch.

"Daddy has a hard time telling me no. He calls me Princess Lucy." Yeah, she's one of those girls.

[duelo]

With a surprised huff of laughter, Derek cranes his neck back and his eyebrows lift in mock offense. "I think my days are just fine, thank you very much," he shoots back, looking as amused as he is by the comment. She has worded it in such a way that she can get away with saying it without actually saying it and Derek thinks that's cute and clever, although if he ever admitted that, he can only assume she'll run with it. He tries to be careful not to give Lucy things like that to run with because he's already wrapped around her little finger as it is, whether she realizes it or not.

"Well, then I guess you'll be good to go and you don't really need my good luck wish all that much," he says, leaning forward again. This time, he stops shy of kissing her and changes course, moving to whisper in her ear, his lips brushing against her skin as he does. "You'll have to let me know so we can celebrate when he inevitably gives in, then."

[mightbeconcussed]

Lucy probably would run with it. She likes his answer though. As for that very important realization, she hasn't had it yet. She tries not to think too much about how very much she feels for Derek, how very much she's falling in love with him despite all her attempts at not doing just that. Instead she hums a little and leans into him. Honestly, if he moved away right now, she'd probably fall off the bar stool she's precariously perched on. "In that case, I think you should spend more of your time with me. Days. Nights. I'm not particularly picky."

She shrugs a bit. "It never hurts to have luck on my side." She shivers a bit when he whispers in her ear, when his lips brush against her skin. "I'll start planning the celebration," she tells him.

[duelo]

Her suggestion is one that sticks with him. It means that his feelings, at least to some degree, are not one-sided. She wants to spend more time with him just like he wants to spend more time with her. She's just the one of the two of them brave enough to come out and say it directly instead of just creepily showing up at her favorite haunts in the hopes of yet another chance run in.

"Yeah?" he asks. "...you wanna finish our drinks and get out of here now and spend some time together?" he asks. It's not too late; he could take her to dinner, if she wanted, he thinks. Or back to the hotel. Or her place. Or they can just go for a walk; she knows the town and its offerings better than he does, but it doesn't really matter to Derek what they're doing if he gets to spend time with Lucy.

Which, again, is a huge red flag that he's getting in too deep, but he can't help himself. He likes her...a lot.

[mightbeconcussed]

His feelings are definitely not one-sided. She's either brave or very stupid. Time will tell. Right now, she just wants to spend more time with Derek. She wants to get to know him better, to see if her feelings are reciprocated. He can stop stalking her, or rather don't stop, but be more obvious about it so that she can make sure to see him every day.

A smile curves across her lips at his suggestion and she dips her head before looking back up at him. "I would very much like that." She's not opposed to going back to his hotel or to her place. Really, she's not opposed to any of that as long as she spends time with Derek.

At least he's not in it alone.

[duelo]

If the choice is between brave or stupid, Derek's going to have to bet that he falls in the center of that particular Venn diagram; he's easily both. It's just that she makes him happy when he's around her and that's not something a whole lot of other people can say. Derek can probably count on one hand the number of people who could ever accomplish that feat, so she's in a very select group...and she's the only one who's still alive to do it.

Careful not to make her lose her balance, Derek starts to move back very slowly so that she has time to right herself. "Can I take you out to dinner?" he asks, and for the first time in forever, he feels like a teenager again. He hasn't asked someone out to dinner pretty much ever but he can't help thinking that the closest he ever came to it was when he and Paige were together when he was still a kid. Fifteen and free of worries, sorrow, and pain. It was a lifetime ago.

Right now, though, he's just going to enjoy Lucy and the fact that maybe there might actually be something to this...whatever it is that they have going on between them. He finds himself foolishly kind of hoping so.

[mightbeconcussed]

Sometimes being brave is stupid, or at least reckless which Lucy is pretty sure a lot of people think of as a synonym for stupid. She is very pleased to be in that small circle of people. She's also pretty pleased to be alive (she's been dead once. She doesn't recommend it; it's a long story involving another city where things like that happened).

She does lean back when he starts to move back, switching her hand to the bar so she can scoot back on her stool a bit more. His question makes her smile broadly and she nods before she ever says anything at all. "Sweetheart, you ask me like that and you can take me anywhere you want," she tells him, a little bit of giddiness bleeding into her voice.

She scoops her hair up and pulls it over one shoulder. "Now, or some date in the future?"

[duelo]

The tone in Lucy's voice gets another smile out of Derek. She's so painfully adorable sometimes, he thinks, and when he hears that excited lilt in her Southern drawl, he thinks so himself that this is absolutely one of those times.

"Well...you probably shouldn't have admitted that, Luce," he says with a tone of feigned scolding before he grins. His eyes move over her face as she pulls her hair over her shoulder. "Now's good for me, if it's good for you?" he suggests almost hopefully.

...okay, totally hopefully. He'd really like to take her out to dinner right now if he's being entirely honest with himself.

[mightbeconcussed]

She can handle painfully adorable.

"Momma's been telling me that for years now," she tells him with a laugh. "And in that tone too. Apparently, you're not supposed to admit when you've done things like sneak out at night." She drains her drink in one long swallow and hops down off the stool.

"Now is perfect. I haven't eaten dinner yet," she tells him, holding out her hand and wiggling her fingers for his hand.

[duelo]

In spite of himself, Derek can't help laughing at that comment. "Yeah I feel like that sort of contradicts the whole point of sneaking out, doesn't it?" he asks with a smirk.

When Lucy hops off her stool, Derek sets a twenty dollar bill on the bar and tells the bartender to keep it — it more than covers their drinks — and he gets to his feet, too.

"Awesome, me either," he says and grins a little, a laugh escaping him a little unexpectedly as her fingers wiggle in an effort, he assumes, to get him to take her hand. It isn't like she needs to ask him twice. Derek takes her smaller hand in his much larger one and gives it a little squeeze as he starts toward the door.

"The only problem is that I don't know this town well enough to have picked a place," he says sheepishly. "So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find the best place in town and direct me there. Make sure it's impressive, now," he says. "I really like this girl and I kinda want her to like me back, so it's gotta be a really great place."

[mightbeconcussed]

"Yeah, I was horrible at it. Besides, you try sneaking out in four inch heels," Lucy shrugs a little.

She murmurs a thank you when he pays for the drinks. It's nice of him and she notices that he tips well. Her best friend has spent a long time waitressing and bartending. She likes people who tip well.

She likes the way he takes her hand, the way he gives it a little squeeze. Quite honestly, she hasn't found anything she doesn't like about Derek.

His sheepish confession gets a laugh out of her. "Have I got the place for you. Not only am I going to introduce you to the best place in town, I'm going to introduce you to the best bar-b-que in the country. Your girl doesn't stand a chance," she teases him back. "It's a little of a drive though. That okay?"

[duelo]

Laughing, Derek shakes his head. "I mean, you could've taken the heels off, snuck out, and then put them back on?"

Try sneaking out when your parents have werewolf hearing, he has the urge to challenge, but keeps to himself because he does not love the idea of her finding out about the werewolf, yet. Things are going really well right now and the last thing he wants is to scare her away because he's, quite literally, a monster. He just doesn't happen to do monstrous things. Most people don't bother to get to know him well enough to learn that part, though.

Derek's older sister waited tables in two shitty diners in Brooklyn when they were still teenagers, trying to support them both financially when they'd gone on the run from the Argents after the fire. They'd had to leave too abruptly to stop at the vault to take some of Peter's cash — everyone else in the family was smart enough to invest or keep their money in bonds — and they'd probably have been followed there, anyway, and picked off as well. They'd gone to Brooklyn with barely a penny to their names and had wiped out their savings accounts renting out their crappy, cockroach infested loft. That first year had been rough before the inheritance and insurance payouts had started to roll into Laura's bank account. He tips that way because he knows first hand that these types of jobs tend to depend on tips. The pay isn't great and the hours are just as bad or worse, most of the time. Tips put food in kids' mouths. Derek's mouth was one of them. It's the least he can do when he has the money to spare.

"I'm completely okay with a drive so long as you think I'll be able to impress my date with this bar-b-que," he says playfully. "You sound pretty confident. You wouldn't lead me astray now, would you?" He grins a little and leads her out to his car — well, his car now. The Camaro was Laura's — unlocking the doors and pulling the passenger one open for her.

[mightbeconcussed]

She wobbles her head side to side in a 'yeah probably' sort of gesture. "Grass stains or dirty feet would ruin my pedicure, not to mention the insides of my shoes."

Yeah, he definitely had it harder. Lucy's parents are ridiculously indulgent. She's an only child and they'd tried for years to get pregnant before they were able to have her. Lucy can do no wrong as far as they're concerned. As far as the monster thing goes, she's willing to get to know him before she makes any snap judgements. Right now, she can't imagine ever thinking he's a monster.

It's nice regardless and Lucy thinks well of him. She's been lucky and she's never had to deal with anything like that.

"Oh, I think your date will be very impressed," she grins at him. She shakes her head at his question. "Nope. Wouldn't ever led astray. I'm just not that sort of girl," she tells him as she gets in the passenger seat of the car, murmuring a thank you as she does.

[duelo]

"Wow," Derek laughs, genuinely amused. "I mean if you didn't get in enough trouble for sneaking out then I guess I can see the appeal of prioritizing that way, but wow, Lucy. Wow." He's laughing, though, and he thinks that's cute, too. Everything about Lucy is cute. Some part of him is pretty sure that the whole reason he's still hanging out in Alabama of all places is because he wants to keep her.

"Oh okay, good," he says sagely, feigning seriousness. People who know Derek back home would never recognize him when he's with Lucy. She makes him feel safe; his true self comes out when Derek feels safe. Back home, he's always on the defense. He's always cold and closed off, and angry. Back home, he's also always tired because he doesn't sleep well and then it seems like every other day, they're fighting for their lives. Derek is another person entirely here in Alabama and with Lucy. He likes this version of himself an awful lot more than the one with whom McCall's pack is familiar.

Once she's in the car, Derek shuts the door and rounds the front of the car to get into the driver's seat, looking over at her as he puts the keys in the ignition and turns them to bring the engine to life. "All right, I'm trusting you here," he teases, "where'm I going?"

[mightbeconcussed]

Honestly, it's impossible not to grin at him. "You'll find I usually do prioritize that way. Shoes are very important, Derek." Hers, not his. He's wearing shoes so she's happy. Her expectations for her own shoes are so much higher. Plus, her shoes cost more than some people make in a week, which she is aware is very wasteful of her. She's helping the economy, or something like that.

One of these days, when they're both more comfortable with what they feel for each other, he should tell her that. She would appreciate it and be so pleased (and yes, smug) that he is this happy and light with her. She would also do her best to insure that he stays this way because she likes this version of him as well.

"I won't fail you," she tells him then proceeds to give him directions, but not all at once. She parcels them out as they drive, watching him unabashedly. They'll weave through some neighborhood streets and look like they're kind of going out into the middle of the woods. "I like your car," she tells him.

[duelo]

A smirk takes over his face for a second before Derek forces something more akin to a neutral expression and then he nods. "Of course they are," he agrees. Maybe for her. If he's paying more than $20 for a pair of shoes, he's a very pissed off werewolf. Women are weird about those sorts of things, though. Shoes, bags...he doesn't get it, but to each their own, he thinks.

Derek glances in Lucy's direction at the compliment. He's the sort of person who tends to be in the zone when he's driving, and he puts his full focus on the road, but when she says she likes the car he smiles a little and gives her a brief look. She may or may not have had time to notice, in the few seconds he's looking at her before his eyes move back to the road in front of him, that the smile falls a little short of his eyes.

"It was my sister's," he says. "I always felt so cool when she would take me to school in this thing..."

[mightbeconcussed]

And Lucy doesn't think that she's got a pair of shoes in her entire closet that didn't cost more than that. Maybe her house slippers? She's not quite as fanatic about her bags, but she cares about the shoes.

She doesn't have enough time to really identify what's off about his smile, but she does notice that it's not the smile she's used to getting out of him; it's not the smile that she likes. So the car is a sensitive area. She won't poke and prod at it too much.

"Loads better than a mini van," she agrees with a nod. "Forever when I was little, my mom had this bright yellow Hummer because Daddy was convinced that it was the only think Mom and I would be safe in, except she kept running over things in it: bikes, curbs, sidewalks, bushes, a fire hydrant once. Finally, he bought her a very safe, normal four door Audi."

[duelo]

Some part of Derek would like to talk about it, but a larger part feels a lot better when Lucy either doesn't pick up on the fact that his smile isn't quite right or she does and she decides to let it go. Derek lost Laura several years ago but sometimes it still stings. Werewolves losing a pack member, especially their Alpha, feels like losing a limb that'll never grow back. He can function, but he's broken and it takes more effort. That feeling never seems to fade.

He laughs a little at her story though, because how can he not? "I have an SUV back home, too. They say they're safer, but I think in the end it's probably all the same, you know? I like this one better, in any case, it's just no good for moving stuff." Which he'd had to do when he'd finally gotten out of the burned out shell of the old Hale House in the woods and relocated to the loft in the abandoned warehouse he purchased instead, thinking that it'd mean more privacy. Instead, it had meant unsolicited black light and paint parties while he wasn't home to tell them no. Go figure.

"So you're into barbecue, huh?" he asks. "I would've thought more, like...comfort foods. I don't know, I've only been down South for a few months. I don't know how you pick, honestly, because you've got such great food down here, I swear."

[mightbeconcussed]

If Derek wants to talk about it, Lucy will be happy to listen, but she spends a good deal of her life coping with the bad things that have happened to her by not talking about them. Denial is a way of life for Lucy. There's no way she's going to prod Derek into talking about something that might be painful for him.

Good. She'd told the story to make him laugh, to ease that pained look in his eyes. She nods a little in agreement. "Bad enough car wreck and it really doesn't matter much. If it's your time, it's your time. All that jazz. You can't tell Daddy that though, not when it comes to his girls." Lucy probably would have been right in the middle of that black light and paint party because it sounds like fun.

"I'm Southern, Sugar. Of course, I'm into barbecue," she teases him. "I also like fried chicken, mashed potatoes, cheese grits and chicken dumplings. I know. It's a wonder we don't all weight three hundred pounds. 'Course if you go to Walmart on any given day, you'll think we do." She continues to direct him, having him turn into a street that looks like a neighborhood street, an old one lined with trees and small houses. Some of them are junked up while others are obviously loved and cared for.

[duelo]

With a little nod, Derek smiles slightly. "Yeah, I get that," he replies, side-stepping the 'if it's your time, it's your time' sentiment entirely because he knows that all too well. It's uncomfortable to think about how all the family members he'd lost had gone when they were mostly so young. Some of them were children, even. It's not something he enjoys contemplating if he can avoid it.

"Is that a Southern thing, then?" he asks, genuinely interested. He's not all that well versed on the culture yet. He's still learning. It's almost like a whole new world, in some ways, and Derek thinks maybe that — if he excludes the obvious: Lucy — might be the thing he likes the most about Alabama so far. "Don't judge me, but I've never had grits before. ...I don't even know what grits are." The latter part perpetuates the former part. He doesn't know what they are, so he avoids ordering them because he doesn't want to waste food if he decides he doesn't like it.

He can't help noticing that they're going through residential areas and he wonders what that's about; he can't imagine the restaurant will be on a residential street. "You sure you know where you're going?" he asks playfully.

[mightbeconcussed]

That would make the phrase a good deal more uncomfortable. One of these days, Lucy will learn to filter what comes out of her mouth, to consider how others might take her words, but today is not that day. Hopefully, Derek will realize that she didn't mean any harm. She rarely does.

"Oh yeah," she tells him. "And it's different from barbeque in other places. In the south, barbeque means pork, smoked and a little sweet. We get real upset if you say you're having a barbeque and we come over to find nothing but hot dogs and hamburgers. That's a cook out." She can't help but smile at that. "Then I'm going to have to make you grits. It's ground up corn, sort of like cream of wheat, but savory." Some people eat grits sweet, but that's hardly the point here.

"Absolutely certain," she assures him. "Turn at the next street. It's about half way up on the right. It looks like a shed, but I promise you're not going to be disappointed."

[duelo]

"We used to call that a cookout, too," Derek replies. He supposes it's different in different parts of the country; of the world. Their terminology just happens to mesh with this specific subject. "See...but back home, and maybe it was just my pa—rents...but," he says almost starting to say pack before correcting himself to something more socially acceptable, "but you'd have had to have been more specific. Ribs were a barbecue. But a whole pig is a roast. We're picky like that," he says playfully.

He grins a little when she decides that he's going to get grits and when she explains what they are, Derek lifts his eyebrows. "That actually doesn't sound half bad..." he comments thoughtfully, more to himself than in direct response to Lucy.

Derek follows the remaining directions and when he parks, he looks at the restaurant and then back at Lucy with just the slightest bit of surprised incredulity. "...you're sure?" he asks. "I could take you literally anywhere you want," he points out, because money isn't an obstacle for Derek Hale, "this is where you want to eat, for sure? Out of anywhere else?" His tone isn't as incredulous as his expression had been for a second, but lies closer to curiosity than anything else.

[mightbeconcussed]

She laughs at his specifications for barbecue, cookout and roast. "See, I think I could get behind this roast thing. Once of these days you'll have to show me how it's done. We'll invite people over. I'll make sides." She's a really good cook and she enjoys cooking for people.

"I'll make you a convert, Sugar." And she will. "You'll stay over for breakfast sometime. I'll make biscuits, gravy, bacon and grits." She can feed a small army. Note, she doesn't ask him about staying over. She's just going to assume that things will go there eventually.

That gets another laugh out of her. "All the money in the world isn't ever going to buy you better barbecue than this," she promises him. "I'll let you take me somewhere fancy and expensive next time." Because Lucy loves dressing up and what better occasion than a nice dinner. She gets out of the car and goes around to the front, stopping to beckon to him with one finger.