He'd spent hours agonizing over the perfect suit to wear that night. He'd found a moderately tall building to perch on and spied each man in a business suit until he found one he liked- the right age, the perfect fashionably-cut dress clothes, handsome enough for his standards (though at this point it was rather difficult to gauge such things- he'd been wearing the same clothes for months now). Getting the clothes was simply a matter of stealth, though he was extra careful to keep the blood to a minimum.

The night had started pretty well, actually. His date had chosen the restaurant, and as they were being seated he'd noticed the staff actually seemed to recognize him. This gave him pause, until he realized he was wearing the face of a young, handsome man who had until recently been quite rich (and alive). Odds were the man had been here before, and judging by the looks the wait-staff were giving him, with a different woman each time.

His date was doing most of the talking, which suited him just fine. Alex sat with his elbow on the table, chin in hand, watching her with an unintentionally dreamy expression. She was perfect in every way- long, wavy blonde hair and bright green eyes, a slinky black dress that left little to the imagination.

She paused and looked at him expectantly, and jerked back to reality. A waiter was standing beside her, and she handed him her menu. "Well? Are you going to order?" she wondered with a slight smirk, as though she knew all too well he'd been distractedly staring at her the whole time.

"Oh, yes," Alex muttered, glancing down at his menu, completely lost. None of it sounded appetizing, strangely enough, so he handed his menu to the waiter and said, "Uh, just surprise me."

They made small talk until their salads arrived. His date reached over and placed a manicured hand on his, fixing him with a devilish smile, and Alex's heart skipped a beat. He had memories to guide him in this- none of them his own, true, but it was better than nothing.

"So, uh... It was nice of you to ask me out like this." He gave an inward cringe at how high-pitched his voice was coming out.

His date took a sip of wine, her eyes never leaving his. "Well, you did save my life," she said, her soft voice difficult to hear over the other restaurant's patrons. "I don't make it habit of wandering around dark alleys, in case you were wondering," she gave him a sardonic smirk. "I got turned around. There were a few tanks in the cross-street and I figured it'd be better to avoid them than take my chances with those jarheads."

Alex snorted. "I agree with you there."

"Unfortunately, what was lurking in that alley was far more dangerous."

Luckily for her, the handful of stray infected she had encountered hadn't been the most dangerous thing stalking the alley that night. Alex had been sitting in the fire escape above them, and in a fit of whimsy had decided to investigate the screams. He didn't usually go about saving civilians, but he'd been bored that night.

The alley had been dark, thankfully, because when he jumped down to investigate he hadn't bothered with a disguise. He took the infected out with little decorum- a punch to the chest took out one of them, and he'd picked up the second and thrown it at the third, grinning as they both hit the alley wall with a satisfyingly wet smack. He turned on the woman, then, intending to consume her, and-

He couldn't. She'd stood, silhouetted against the light at the mouth of the alley, her blonde hair waving slightly in a cold fall breeze- and she'd smiled at him, unafraid. She'd walked up to him and took him by the still-bloody hand, and thanked him with a kiss on the cheek.

And that was all it took. She asked Alex if he wanted to go out sometime, and he'd said "yes" before he'd even had a second to think it over. It was stupid- monumentally stupid- to even consider, going on a date with a woman who'd seen him, seen what he could do, could probably put two and two together if she ever really thought it over. His name and face were plastered all over the news- he was a terrorist, a murderer, not even human. But he said 'yes', and here they were- and their food was arriving.

The waiter placed a steak in front of him, and he eyed it dubiously. It didn't even smell appetizing. He picked up his fork and knife and poked at it, as if it was likely to jump off the plate and attack him.

"Something wrong?" his date wondered, already taking a bite of her meal.

"No," Alex muttered, and set to cutting the steak into easy-to-eat pieces. He put them into his mouth and chewed mechanically, but there was no flavor, either. He figured, upon later reflection, that the lack of flavor really should have been his first clue.

It was only when his meal was half-finished that he began to feel strange. His date was talking, but he didn't know what about- he'd started to tune her out, more interested in the battle that seemed to be taking place inside his stomach. He felt like he'd swallowed a ton of bricks.

"E-excuse me," he blurted, interrupting her. "I have to go- I have to pee." He felt his cheeks turning bright red, but it was too late to take it back, so he beat a hasty retreat into the men's room.

Even the bathroom was swanky. He leaned against the marble countertop and stared at his strange face in the mirror. He hadn't actually tried eating food before- there hadn't been a reason. Consuming gave him all the energy he needed, and he'd never really felt hungry enough to try anything else. But it was pretty obvious that he couldn't digest the steak he eaten. He wondered where it even went- did he even have a stomach?

Alex grimaced at himself, then pushed away from the sink and staggered into a stall and slammed the door shut- a little too hard, as it came off one hinge and hung drunkenly behind him, leaving a gap for anyone to see what he was up to. He didn't really notice, though, too busy bent over the toilet, trying to figure out how to gag.

He braced himself with one hand against the side of the stall and coughed a couple of times, trying to retch. Nothing happened, so he tried again, this time sticking a finger down his throat- again, nothing. He growled and punched the stall, leaving a fist-sized crater in it. He looked down at his shirt and sighed.

"It was such a nice suit," he muttered, and turned his hands into claws.

He ignored the stares as he made his way back to their table, unconsciously smoothing his tie down over the wreckage of his dress shirt and coat. His date turned to him as he sat down, whatever she had been about to say faltering as she caught a good look at him.

"Alex… what happened to your shirt?"

Alex looked down at himself, as if just noticing his clothing hanging in shreds over his torso. He appeared to think it over for a moment, then replied, "I, uh, got caught in a door."

His date raised an eyebrow at him, her skepticism obvious. "And the door just happened to have claws?"

Alex laughed, nervously. "So, uh… have they brought the check?"

As they left, he thought he heard somebody screaming, "Holy hell, did somebody die in here?"

Dana muttered to herself as she flipped off the bathroom light and stepped into the hallway. Somebody was in the kitchen, doing quite a bit of pacing, and it had woken her from an otherwise peaceful sleep- the first in months. She growled and stalked into the kitchen and stopped dead in the doorway.

Alex was hunched over the table, an intense look of concentration on his face as he stared down at a glass of milk. "Alright," he was saying to himself, "I can do this. It's body temperature, like, eight percent protein. I can do this." As she watched, a tendril of black and red seemed to burst forth from his abdomen and reached out toward the glass. Dana gasped, breaking Alex's concentration.

They stared at each other for a moment before Alex cleared his throat, his face red. Before he had a chance to say anything, Dana cut in.

"…Okay, I'm not going to ask. I've caught you doing weirder things." She raised an eyebrow at him. "Just… wash that cup when you're done, okay?"