It had to be nearly midnight when I'm half asleep and can't carry on an intelligent conversation when he showed up. I hear the tinkle of the bell on the door ring, and I push my dark locks away from my face. If I face him, I'll at least face him with a smile. Maybe no comprehensible words, but a smile nonetheless.

"Hell of a time to show up, Sparky. Take a seat," I say with no falter in my voice. It's better than I had anticipated; I can string words together and make sense. He smirks and slings one long leg over the seat of a chair, turning it so that he can face me, seat backward. He looks worse than me, but his smile seems broader with that cigarette peeking out from the corner of his mouth.

"You got vodka back there, kit?" I nod, ignoring the endearment for the time being. "Make me a dry martini."

"You know I make my martinis with gin."

"Well, make mine with vodka." I'm in no mood to argue with the kid, and he sounds in even less of a mood to argue with me. I make him his dry vodka martini. He manages me a real smile once he has a few sips of the drink. "You still mix the best around here."

"There's nothing else around here, Sparky; it's not hard to do." He shakes his head.

"Around anywhere, kit. You're the best." I raise an eyebrow.

"I don't sleep for money, Sparky, so stop sucking up and quit calling me kit." He just stares into his drink. Usually that would have at least warranted a laugh, former enemies or not. "What's the matter?"

"Do you hate me?" Well, there's a random question.

"Now or then?"

"Now."

"No." He doesn't seem convinced.

"Why can't I call you kit?" That takes me a second to process.

"Sparky, I've never known you to call anyone but your lovers kit, and I'm not joining that throng. What makes you think that I hate you because of that?" He won't look up from his drink.

"I'm still a virgin, kit. I just call girls that'll talk to me kit." I blink.

"All that hype and you're a virgin?" He nods. "I'm amazed, Sparky, but why do you think I hate you?"

"I was just doing my job." Oh. He thinks I'm pissed cause he killed my ex-boyfriend. Here's a task to make him get this.

"Spark…I'm not mad at you."

"You loved him…I saw the way you looked at him. That whole damn time, I saw the way you looked at him. The dying wish of my last superior is to kill that kid, and now you're pissed."

"No I'm not, Sparky. He's dead, I'm over it, and now I run a bar in the middle of nowhere. You're a paying customer; I'm not pissed."

"If I don't pay, will you be pissed?"

"Only cause you didn't pay." He's crying. What the fuck is going on? "Sparky, you're going to zap yourself, filling those blue eyes with tears. What's wrong?"

"My eyes are green."

"Blue-green then, now what's up?" He looks up at me.

"Am I really that bad of a guy?" I shake my head.

"Not anymore, but you've got a touch of a reputation, Sparky. You kill a couple well-known celebrities and you'll get shunned pretty fast."

"Even murderers have girlfriends." I sigh.

"Sparky…if you wanted one, you could go out and have any girl you wanted. You're an attractive guy with money. Go get yourself a girl."

"Why do you call me Sparky?" I smile.

"Why do you change subjects so quickly?" He doesn't answer, so I answer his question. "Because you seem so bound and determined to put the past behind you, so I call you Sparky and not your real name."

"Would you date me if I asked you to?" I'm never going to get him to actually answer my question.

"If I answer that, will you actually answer one of my questions?" He pauses, still staring at the martini.

"Yes." Finally, a real answer.

"Sure, I'd probably date you…but I don't know, Sparky. It would depend on some stuff." He nods. "Now why won't you just stick one topic for any stretch of time?" There's another long pause before he says anything.

"If I keep changing the topic, I make you think." I blink.

"What?"

"People say I don't make them think, they can just read me like a book. If I randomly change the subject, that makes you think." That makes me laugh.

"Sparky…you've always made me think." That gets him to turn those blue-green eyes on me at last.

"Really?" I nod, the gesture finally sending my hair back into my eyes. He pushes it back, and I smile.

"Yeah. I could never figure out why you did the things you did unless I thought about them." He lowers his head again.

"I was ordered to do everything."

"You seemed to have fun doing it." He snaps his head up to look at me with a patented death glare.

"Being brainwashed can make you enjoy watching paint dry, kit. Lucky me, I recovered." He downs the drink and stands up. "You'll think about a date?"

"Come back here in a few days and ask me again if I'll go and maybe I'll answer." He smirks again. Just before he gets to the door, I watch him stop and turn like he was in slow motion. Blue-green locks onto blood wine again as he formulates a question in his head.

"Why Sparky?" I point to his side, where his weapon rests.

"Your sparkling personality, what do you think?" That finally gets him to laugh as he walks out. I clean the glass and walk back home, saying a quick prayer for Sparky. There's something wrong with that kid.

So? Any good? It's 12:46 and I think I started this about 10-15 minutes ago, so… The first line is a paraphrase of a sentence I said: "It had to be nearly midnight when I'm half asleep and can't talk when he signs on." Can you guess who the two people are? Read and review please, none of the characters belong to me, yadda yadda yadda.

-Skie