/////author note: I think this is my favorite chapter I've written so far/////

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"Job hunting?" Roy raised an eyebrow and took a sip of his drink. "We're going to find a poor, defenseless job and put it down?"

MacKenzie smiled deeply. "Roy, it's a mercy killing."

"It is incredibly heartless to hunt those poor jobs."

"It's for your own good. And the job, of course. Population control, you know."

"And you. You've got to benefit from this, correct?"

"No, I just like you."

"I likewise enjoy your company. But is it futile?"

"The job hunting? No. It is absolutely futile-less."

"Not the killing of innocent jobs. The enjoyment of your company and otherwise lucky moments of you finding me at my weakest."

"Both are equally futile-less. Believe me."

"I think I believe you."

MacKenzie bit her lip as Roy gently lay his hand on hers. MacKenzie's hand was tiny, near like a child's. Roy clasped his own around it.

"I'm so glad." She suddenly stiffened beneath Roy's grasp and frowned. He pulled back suddenly, fearing he became too intimate to touch her too fast. But it was only a friendly gesture, he tried to tell himself that. And she had already touched him in so many ways.

"What-what's wrong, did I-" Roy began.

"No, it's nothing," MacKenzie sniffed. She tucked strands of blonde hair behind her ear. "Hey, let's get going."

"Oh. Um, okay, sure," smiled Roy.

She stood up gracefully. "Come on."

"I'm sorry," MacKenzie apologized as they sat in her car.  It was stuffy and the windows were rolled down.

"Don't be," Roy said. He studied her face. He couldn't tell if she was just sweating from the heat or had tears on her cheek. He felt guilty for no reason.

She adjusted the mirror and pursed her lips.

"Did I, uh, do something to upset you?"

"No, you didn't," MacKenzie said flatly before starting the engine. "I'm just, I'm tired. Can we just job hunt tomorrow?"

"I mean this was your idea," Roy was puzzled. "I don't care either way."

"Okay. We can go home then."

"Are you sure, MacKenzie? You were so-"

"Roy."

"You're tired," Roy sighed.

"Yeah, I just got real tired all of a sudden. It's the heat. It's the alcohol. I think I drank too fast."

"Ladies. Let's go home then."

"For a second you almost sounded excited about hunting," MacKenzie slightly smiled.

"Almost."

MacKenzie sped off. The LA heat still entwined the wind tumbling through the windows as they accelerated. Roy put his head back and closed his eyes, focusing on the rippling breeze. He then turned to MacKenzie whose eyes were plastered ahead at the road. Her cropped hair blew back from her face, cheeks red and eyes wet. She could've made a beautiful flapper girl. A striking vamp. Roy wanted to dress her up simply to stare at her. She pulled over in front of the apartment building.

"Are we making a habit of you finding your own way to fix this stair problem or-"

MacKenzie took Roy's face in her child-like hands. She ran her fingers across his cheekbones, a finger across his slender nose, down his lips open in wonderment. She brushed back his hair and studied every inch of his countenance with her pacific blue eyes. They wrinkled in approval.

She seemed to always find him too inebriated to talk to her, too fragile.

But not this time.

And he didn't want to be fixed. He didn't want her to try to fix him.

And a small fraction of him feared that was her goal all the while.

But he pushed those ideas to the back of his mind and tried to focus on the other things, like the fact that they were already inside his apartment, and that MacKenzie sat next to him with that same expression on her face.

And for the first time Roy didn't feel absolutely livid at what had been happening in his life. Not at his body that refused to listen to what he commanded or the movie contract or lawsuit or that he still desperately craved Alice.

It started with denial. And then outright anger. And he still felt angry. But he couldn't be angry with the way she looked at him with her hands on his face. A faint smile gracing her lips. Eyes scanning him carefully. Eyes wet. Cheeks red. Her index finger down his chin, down his Adam's apple, outlining the buttons on his shirt that she had picked out. Was she only confident that he was becoming a product of something she was trying to mend? Roy could only wish and beg that this wasn't the case.

She lay her head on Roy's lap and exhaled as if preparing for a thousand years of slumber but sat up again, anxious for unknown reasons. She then pressed her lips to his, throwing her arms around his neck, something familiar that Roy had done when she had lifted him up effortlessly. He could taste the alcohol on her breath and worried for a minute that she'd been kissing someone else, which he then concluded was paranoid and ridiculous considering they had shared several drinks.

He put his hands around her slender waist, running them down the outline of her hips, still terrified of shattering the hourglass and a blast of sand drowning him. She continued to kiss him, kissing every inch of his face before stopping at his lips again.

"This is really good," Roy whispered. "But sexual relations with patients are more than likely frowned upon."

"You're not my patient anymore. That means I can do whatever I want."

"Oh, boy."

She stopped. "Roy, I gotta ask you something."

"Anything," he responded as he motioned her over to the bed. It seemed bigger. Deeper. The silken sheets seemed more serene and continuous. The blankets extendedly suffocating. They lay there staring at the ceiling. Roy had to stop himself; ceiling staring was a far too familiar past time, something he spent months on end doing. He beamed at MacKenzie instead.

"How much can you actually  feel?"

"How much? Oh, you mean how much..."

"I'm sorry I said that, I-"

"No," Roy grasped MacKenzie's hand, slowly inching her to the innermost part of his upper thigh. "Just..."

MacKenzie flung herself on top of him, unbuttoning his trousers. Touching him felt like electricity, a mixture of tickling and stings and sensations he knew were still there but was hesitant at first to acknowledge.

He still noticed her eyes were wet. He wasn't sure if it was because of whatever happened earlier or if he was now actually hurting her in some way.

There was no other way to describe it other than electricity.

MacKenzie bit her lip, digging her nails into Roy's back. Realizing everything was hypersensitive now, real power shooting the lights throughout his body, he couldn't help but scream in euphoria as they both touched infinity.