LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY inthefreakdom)

He paced in the hallway, the sound of his boots echoing down the empty space. He'd been pretending to mop about fifteen minutes ago, but he gave up pretense in favor of nervous pacing. Tonight was the night he was going to tell her.

He waited until she snuck out of the women's dorm. She stood before him, unbelievably enticing in her pajamas, which happened to include one of his shirts. He wasn't even sure how she'd managed to swipe it out of his locker, but it was definitely his. "Kylie," he said, a little admonishing as she inserted herself into his arms. "If they catch you in my clothes I'll get the boot."

"How are they going to know it's yours?" she challenged, leaning up the half an inch in their height difference to plant a kiss on his lips.

He picked her up and swept her around. "I dunno silly girl. They're psychoanalysts. What if they use their hypno-mumbo-jumbo on you?"

Kylie laughed, a little loudly in the quiet hallway. She liked Jack best when he was joking. They had compatible senses of humor, she'd learned. She wanted to change the subject, so she slid out of his arms and leaned against the wall, her slippers sliding on the floor that he'd recently mopped. "You going as a pirate again this year?" she asked, pointing idly toward his now permanent eye patch.

"Can't find a good parrot for my shoulder," he teased. "I was thinking I'd go as that spartan story-teller who gets his eye poked out. But then you wouldn't be able to keep your hands off me if I wore a little red cape and matching underpants."

"Fair enough," she replied, running one of her slippers casually up his leg. She put her foot back down the moment he'd cast her that look. The kissing had been bad enough in the open hallway. They could talk and pass it off as innocent, but if they were caught do anything more "familiar" they'd both be in trouble. "It's not like they'd let you wear your hot little costume to work anyway."

He shrugged. "I probably won't be scheduled to work on Halloween."

"I find that a little surprising. You'd think there'd be more clean-up on a night like that."

"You'd think, but I guess not," Jack commented. "They almost never schedule me on Halloween."

She was about to say how much she'd miss him, but god wasn't this getting strange? Kylie Mann was on the verge of admitting her feelings to Jack and that was just a complicated, awful thing. Her feelings came with a pound of baggage she wasn't sure she was ready to explore. He'd been fine with the breasts, accepted her excuse as needing reductive surgery for back pain (when really she'd had them built from nothing; she had to give credit to her surgeon, they looked amazingly real). And he'd been inside her; he had to have felt that it was different in there. Maybe he was just thick, or maybe he was willing to overlook the fact that Kylie had once been Kyle. She wasn't really sure and she didn't want to risk this nice thing they had going by telling the truth. Not yet. "Want to take me in the broom closet?" she asked, more to distract herself from confessing everything than out of any real desire.

Strangely enough he wasn't really in the mood for a quick rumble either. "Will you be offended if I'm not up for it tonight?" he asked, almost shyly. He'd never turned down an offer for sex before, especially not because he was worried he'd blurt out that he was falling in love with her.

"No," she replied, shaking her head slowly. "This is nice. Just talking."

"Yeah," he said awkwardly, leaning up against the wall next to her.

"Kind of weird."

"I like talking to you," he said. "I mean. You know. Not just having sex with you." He reached over and slipped his fingers into her hand, sliding them along her fingers until they intertwined.

She squeezed lightly, touched by that slight gesture. Maybe neither of them was ready to tell the whole truth, but this was starting to feel worth the risk. "I like this too."