It's you who puts me in the magic position, darling
– Patrick Wolf, "The Magic Position"

xx

There were a few things Ian had learned to expect while staying at the Cahill's mansion. Messiness was a given, obviously. Even Sinead left behind a mess wherever she was—except in her laboratory, which always remained pristine.

Chaos also seemed to be standard among the house's occupants—which included the cat. So, he wasn't that surprised to find the kitchen in a state of national disaster when he wandered in to get breakfast that morning. There was a delicious smell coming from the oven, but aside from that, the kitchen looked less than appetizing. Sugar dusted the countertops, dirty dishes overflowed the sink, and egg shells filled the trash bin. (Much to his disgust, he noticed a bit of clear slime dripping down the sides of the receptacle.)

He was so entranced (read: horrorstricken) that he almost tripped over the girl sitting on the floor—which had remained shockingly clean.

He stared down at the small, flour-frosted figure, "Amy?"

The girl in question looked up, not at all shocked to see him, and laughed at his expression.

"Figures you would be the one to find me first," she said.

Amy shook some of the flour out of her auburn hair, and Ian noted that her face had stayed free of any baking ingredients. She awkwardly joked that it was rude to stare and gestured to the spot on the tile next to her, inviting him to sit.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, gingerly lowering himself onto a space of floor free of visible dirt. (He preferred not to think of what he couldn't see.)

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she smiled, "I was making breakfast for everyone."

She paused, green eyes darting around the kitchen, then back at Ian, "Though, it seems like you're the only one awake to eat it."

"As long as whatever it is doesn't look like the room you made it in," he said, the shadow of a smile playing on his mouth, "then I'll try it."

He watched her lips tilt up just bit before she looked down at her hands and begin picking dried dough off her fingers. At that motion, he noticed that he had been wrong earlier when he assessed that her skin was free of foreign substance. There was a stain of red on her neck near her left ear, almost like blood, but he knew it wasn't. Before his brain could stop his hand from doing so, he reached out and touched the spot. She didn't respond to the touch except for a slight opening of her lips and brisk intake of breath, which was so insignificant that he wouldn't have even noticed had he not been inches from her. He swiped his index finger down the dark smudge, leaving only a pink tinge on her skin.

"It's cherry juice," she supplied as he pulled his hand away, the red stain now on his finger, "I'm making turnovers."

He nodded, looking around for a towel to remove the spot from his fingers and seeing only an extremely dingy one hanging on the cabinet handle above him, he resigned to do the next best thing—

He licked it.

Amy giggled at his uncharacteristic gesture, and he raised his eyebrows in her direction as if to say, 'What's wrong with that?,' which only set her off more. He shook his head at her childishness, yet bit back the urge to laugh along with her.

It was nice to spend time doing something so mundane after the horrendous events that had scattered the past few weeks. Even if that something involved sitting on the kitchen floor, which had to be disgusting given all the people that walked on it daily.

Yet, it was somehow rectified by the girl sitting on the floor next to him. The girl whom he had made smile and laugh. The girl who's attention was currently focused entirely on him.

(The girl who still didn't belong to him, no matter how much he wanted her to be his.)

"So," she prompted, her voice still alight with soft giggling, "I'll bet you're happy that you're going back to your normal life now."

He smirked, earlier bitter thoughts forgotten, "Tired of me already?"

Shaking her head, she said, "I think this is the first time I've talked to you in person in weeks. How could be I tired of you?"

She smiled at him, and he couldn't help it — he smiled back. He wasn't surprised to see her cheeks tinted pink at the action. Weirdly enough, her shyness around him, however scarce these days, was proof that there was still something between the two of them. It was evidence that he still might have a chance, that he still might have some sort of claim on her. Not as in the sense that she was property to be owned — though sometimes it felt that way — but rather like having a piece of artwork on loan from the National Gallery. Something that was yours to treasure and admire, but never truly possess.

The oven's timer went off then, startling both parties. Amy jumped up to turn off the oven, and Ian took that as his cue to get up from the deceptively clean floor.

When the oven door opened, the air was suddenly thick with the scent of buttery pastry and candied fruit. Amy set the pan on the stove to cool, with Ian standing behind her inhaling the wafting aroma of food not cooked by Sinead "I can only boil water" Starling.

Cherry juice bubbled out of the shells, reminding Ian of the way his blood currently felt as it flowed in his main arterial veins. He refused to think about why this was, and tried to push away the lingering thought that it could be because the girl standing mere inches in front of him. He watched her lean over to breathe in the oozing pastries, her hair coming in close contact with the sweets. On a whim, he reached over and swept back the flour-brushed strands. He told himself that it was so none of the flour would get on the newly-baked goods, that it had nothing to do with wanting to touch her again.

She straightened, and his hand dropped from her hair to her neck. She blinked at him confusedly, but he couldn't provide spoken answer as to why he hadn't removed his hand. He realized that if he were to dip his head just a bit, that he would be in the perfect position to kiss her.

And she would be in the perfect position to slap him.

Yet, the possibly painful outcome didn't concern him; in fact he deemed it a worthy beating. He wasn't about to waste this magical position.

He slid his fingers forward to her jaw and tipped her chin up slightly, watching her eyes for signs of withdrawal and, finding none, he closed the gap between them.

Her lips immediately pressed against his, and he almost gasped aloud at the quick reciprocation. He hadn't expected her to respond at all, much less positively, but he took it as a sign to intensify the kiss, and moved forward a bit until she was caught between him and the stovetop. He felt her hands tentatively wrap around his neck, tugging him even closer. From the way her lips moved, he could tell that she was smiling, and the corners of his mouth turned upward at the thought that he alone had made her happy.

The hardwood floor in the dining room creaked unexpectedly and the couple pulled apart, Ian a bit slower than Amy.

"Well," Nellie Gomez smiled from the doorway, her eyes holding an omniscient glint, "I see someone is having a good morning."

The Cahill's former au pair sniffed the air and sighed dreamily, "I'll pretend that I saw nothing if you let me have at least five of these things before everyone else."

Ian was sure he'd never seen Amy make a deal so fast.

A/N: Yay more Ian/Amy! This is supposed to be set post-Cahills vs. Vespers, so pretend Evan doesn't exist and/or is not dating Amy. I couldn't find a way to insert anything about him without ruining the flow of the story.