The Universe's Mixer

Fred had had the most peaceful sleep after Eric left. He had kept his word, not pushing any further than she was willing to go, and it took all the courage she could muster to drink blood willingly. It had been different. She barely remembered the times before, but the feeling had been so familiar, as it slid down her throat. Eric let her feed, and she did with some gusto, after that first bit of squeamishness. She drank until he said stop, showing reluctant restraint. Once he was gone, she showered and went to bed, somewhat anxious that she'd have the dreams, but there was nothing more than a wonderful deep dark empty.

When she woke up, she was momentarily afraid she'd turned into a vampire. She was so very hungry. She crawled out of bed and checked herself in the mirror. There was something a little different about the face looking back at her. At least she could see her reflection; she probably should have asked about that - if Eric's world vampires could see their reflections. With a shrug, she got dressed and headed out into the sun, pausing only a moment to see if she'd burst into flames.

"Not a vampire!" The brainy female smiled brightly at the poor fellow who heard her exclamation. It didn't make a lot of sense, but she didn't care. She hadn't slept the sleep of the dead, and she was in the sunshine. She was feeling pretty darn good, too. Fred didn't notice that the poor fellow had watched her as she walked away either; she hadn't seen the look of interest.

"Waffles." Finally her stomach had decided to tell her brain what exactly she was craving, and with the spirit of a determined hunter, she sought the food that would bring about the end of her hunger. Oh, she was definitely feeling good. Her brain was working faster, and she felt as if she was on the verge of a breakthrough, even though she couldn't quite decide what it was she was breaking through to.

It didn't take her long to find her favorite waffle spot. Now for good food. She'd loved to have good company, but good food would do for now. Maybe she'd get lucky.

Sleeping in Harry's bed, seeing him try to stretch out the kinks--and not in a fun way--after sleeping on the too-short couch for weeks was getting old. Knowing she was a trespasser on another woman's turf was also getting old. Especially when it didn't take much to guess that said woman was tiptoeing around her. It wasn't as if either of the three of them had anything to hide from one another.

Harry was alive and well. Murphy had her reassurance that he wasn't going to disappear, nor was she going crazy. Now, it was time to move on to plan B. Which was to go back to what she had been planning to do before Harry had gone missing: Go get really drunk, and then have sex with the first reasonably healthy male who walked by.

Sitting at the bar, in a little red blouse and black skirt that she'd bought with magical money that appeared out of nowhere, she was working on the drunk part. Now, she was keeping her eye out for reasonably the healthy male. And if anyone so much as whispered 'cougar' in her general direction, she was going to break something.

The Duke took Six away from Jesse and the man, Gaius, who she had decided to spend her time with. He didn't mind the guy, but he seemed awfully possessive of the girl, and being that this was the first time that John had ever met another so-called invisible friend, he wanted some time away from the ranting and madness to get to know her.

He took her to the botanical gardens, where she could get to see that not every portion of this place was filled with strippers - which he did not approve of, by the way - that it could have some beauty. And where they could also talk alone. Not that it really mattered to them. The people that could see them were off in a bar, having some kind of weird moment together.

"Now, little lady, why don'tcha tell me some about yerself?" He said, motioning toward a bench.

Happy in his conquest of Fred, Eric found himself strolling about the City. He'd not seen Baba yet since completing the third blood exchange, so he'd not been able to tell her the rather hilariously contrived story of it, nor the story of Bill the Human. He wondered if he should first tell her about Bill the Vampire and his loathing of the guy just to make the story and why the name was significant clearer to her.

He was actually sharing quite a bit more with Baba Yaga than he normally would have. But then, she wasn't exactly a normal woman. She knew where he slept during the day. She knew his history. It wasn't all one sided, though. She had told him to read the book that she had bought from Beauty. It had been filled with stories of the crone. Pictures - or rather, renderings - of her in various other forms. It had held secrets.

Her blood was gone completely from his body now. Hopefully soon, that would be remedied. Things would be tried. Perhaps the world would find itself a whole new terror.

This night, however, he was just happy to be filled with Fred's blood, wondering how the girl was doing with what she would be feeling. The new and surprising sensation that he'd forgotten to mention, which was the fact that she would feel his emotions now as well. The tie went both ways. He hadn't thought that she would have been so agreeable to things if she'd known that. Then again, she'd been awfully willing to be toyed with.

He kept a vague eye out for the Human Bill, because he was sure that when enough time had gone by, there was going to be an attempt at revenge. He'd been quite horrible that night, he knew. Doing things just because they were fun to do. Eric didn't know if the human realized how easily he'd gotten off. He didn't know if the human understood just how lucky he'd been to walk away alive. Though, he probably hadn't done a whole lot of walking right away. The blood would have helped that eventually. Eric hoped Bill was having some very naughty dreams.

From the corner of his eye, Eric experienced an explosion of color. Turning his head, he discovered a flower shop. He didn't know why, but he just hadn't considered there being a flower shop in this city. It seemed too ordinary. He stopped and looked into the window, contemplating the flowers.