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C.C. Babcock has a hickey on her neck.
It's small, but Niles is observant, especially when it comes to her. He can't miss the little, bright red patch on the otherwise unblemished, fair skin of her neck.
He noticed it as she came into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water from the fridge, but he didn't notice it this morning, when she had first arrived.
There was no way she could have acquired it during the course of the day, so maybe he had just missed it earlier.
He didn't even know that she was seeing someone, and the fact that they were doing much more than just seeing each other made a small bout of jealousy rip through him.
What the hell did he have to be jealous about anyways? This was Babcock he was thinking about! Good lord!
Why was he even thinking about her? Jealous of someone with her? Envious that it wasn't him that got the chance to blister hot kisses along the perfect column of her throat, as she melted against him and his hands trailed down her body, towards her...
What the devil?
What kind of ridiculous thoughts were these?
What kind of abominable spell had she cast on him?!
Anyhow, she seemed preoccupied. She didn't notice him staring at her while he was lost in thought (thankfully, or else he would have certainly earned some biting quip).
Hell, she hardly glanced at him all day and she didn't even react when he acknowledged her with a casual, "wench...".
Well, here was an opportunity to get her attention, on a silver platter.
"I see someone's chompers had the misfortune of getting stuck in that old neck," he taunted nonchalantly, chopping away at a carrot.
She whipped her head to unamusedly narrow her eyes at him.
"What the hell are you talking about now, Windex?" she rolled her eyes, setting her water bottle down on the counter. He could see a red lipstick stain on its own neck.
"Or maybe Dracula finally decided to sink his fangs in you," he replied, gesturing towards his own neck.
Before she could toss out a retort, Fran entered the kitchen.
She glanced back and forth between the duo, with raised eyebrows.
"Well, don't let little old me interrupt your sparring session," she scoffed amusedly, waving a hand and making a beeline for the sub-zero.
"Oh no, Miss Fine. I was just telling the witch that some vampire got his teeth stuck in that neck," he pointed towards C.C.'s neck. "Halloween must have come early this year."
Fran quirked one brow slightly and the two women exchanged a look that Niles couldn't interpret. He could have sworn he saw Fran blush slightly.
She turned from the refrigerator with a slice of cake in hand, and stepped closer to C.C., inspecting the small love bite on her throat.
"Like I told Maggie... you need an oil based concealer to cover that up," she snickered and shook her head.
C.C. huffed with a small blush on her own cheeks and left the room - water bottle forgotten.
Fran grabbed a fork for her cake and pulled a stool to sit at the counter.
Niles watched silently as she slid a magazine towards herself and absentmindedly took a sip from C.C.'s disregarded water bottle, before digging into her cake.
He looked at the lipstick stain on the mouth of the bottle and then back at Fran - and it was then he noticed that they were both wearing the same shade of lipstick and that Fran had a tiny love bite blooming on her neck too.