Heavy files and fun.

Here's just a fun little scene between Daph and Eric right after the first meeting at the Met. Daph is given a heavy set of files to read and Eric pesters her to let him carry them :) Enjoy!

“Daph? Want me to carry those files for you?”

In all my effort to valiantly ignore him, I’d forgotten my cool in carrying the weighty homework around, and had grunted shifting them from one arm to the other.

“Err...why?”

A firm hand on my shoulder stopped me short when I’d tried to continue onwards.

“Daphne, stop walking for a second and give me the files.”

“Maybe I don’t want to.” I tried to move but the hand didn’t budge. “Let go of me.”

“Then stop trying to walk away from me.” I ignored the unspoken ‘and us’, that I knew he was thinking along with it.

“No.”

“Then I’m not letting go.”

I heaved the files up a little and whacked him with them. Or at least I would have if he hadn’t side-stepped, catching the impact of the blow partially on the side, just enough to set me off balance and cause me to topple over. The files scattered around my head and I lay winded on the floor. A woman walked past with her children and shot a condescending glance in our direction.

Eric leant over me with a smirk. “Right, darling?” Right, dahlin’?

I flipped him the bird but he only laughed and grasped my hand to haul me upright. Then, with seemingly super-human speed – I wasn’t sure how much was my imagination and how much was that other supernatural thing – he gathered up the files and wouldn’t give them to me.

“You’re not being fair!”

“You’re not being reasonable; the files are heavy, just shut up and let me carry them for you.”

“You’re not winning macho points here, Eric. I’m not falling in love with you as you heave those things over your arm.” I crossed my arms and glared at him as he did just that.

Eric only grinned, holding the files in one hand like they weighed nothing. “That’s only because you never stopped loving me to begin with. You can’t fall in love if you already in love with someone.”

I poked him in the stomach. “Yeah, but you can fall out of love with them.”

“Oh honey, who are you kidding? Not me.”

I bit my right palm to smother a frustrated moan. “You haven’t changed, you are still the arrogant son of a bitch that I first met in London last year! Jesus, just carry the frickin’ files then if it means that bloody much to you!” And with that I self-righteously turned my back on him and stomped away.

I was barely five feet ahead when he called me again. “Darling, how about we drop them in my office for a bit and I take you on a tour through the museum? I know you want to, you’re just too proud to admit it.”

I looked back at him, to see him standing next to a door that read ‘Dr Keanu Roberts, PhD’. “Eric, that’s not even your office.”

“Well not anymore – now my office is next to Frank’s back in London.” He pointed out, and I rolled my eyes. “Kay is in Morocco on sabbatical, which is part of the reason I’m back in New York. So I’m using his office to keep my stuff and get my work done until I head back to England. So how about it?”

On the one hand, I was supposed to be avoiding Eric at all costs – per my own refusal to give in to him, and Mim’s earlier warning about getting into trouble. But on the other hand, it was still Eric – no matter what I had always felt safe with him around, and I had missed him so much what was a little innocent company? So long as he kept his grabby hands to himself.

Besides, he was right; I really, really did want to see the museum, and Eric knew the place better than most people.

I weighed my options up, and figured there was no use in denying myself a perfectly good tour of the place just because my were-cat was paranoid.

“Alright, show me the Met.”

“’Show me the Met, please.’”

I rolled my eyes again and said, “Eric, show me the Met, please.”

He nodded and unlocked the office door, flicking the wall light switch on. “There now, was that so hard?”