*laughs* I think it's funny that you guys thought I was *resting*

*******************************************************************************

With the impetus of a passing thought, Anne took her head off Knives' shoulder and looked at him. "You know," she mused as she threw the covers off, "we forgot Mark."

Knives looked at her, smug expression returned to his face. "You may have forgotten him," he said loftily, "but I was merely ignoring him."

She grabbed his shirt off the floor and flung it in his face. "Next you'll be telling me that the backrub was only a seduction technique," she said, voice muffled as she squirmed into her shirt.

"Of course it was," he said, slipping out of bed and looking for his pants.

She stuck her tongue out at him. He returned the gesture, but made it a bit more lascivious. She laughed, but ignored the invitation. Knives shrugged and fished his socks out from under the bed. In a couple more seconds she was presentable enough to not shock the neighbors. She left the bedroom and opened the door to the hall. Mark looked up from where he was sitting on the stairs and gave her a cheeky grin. "All done now?" he asked saucily. It was obvious that he didn't mean with the confrontation, or conversation, with Ace.

Anne blushed a bit, but gestured for him to enter the apartment instead of dignifying that remark with an answer.

Mark was determined to not drop the subject. "Nice bed hair," he said as he walked up to her. Reaching out a hand, he tousled her already mussed hair even more. "Is this the way Knives likes it?"

"Stop it," she sighed, then grinned. "I was the innocent victim of a backrub."

"Is that all it takes?" he asked, slipping in the apartment. Anne closed the door and leaned against it while he flopped on the couch. "You mean all these years, all I needed to do to have you at my mercy was give you a backrub?"

"Now you'll never know, will you?" She sighed again and pushed away from the door, muttering something about brushing her hair. Mark's laughter chased her into the bedroom.

"You're a male; make him stop," she complained to Knives on her way to the bathroom.

"Can I use force?" he asked after her. She looked over her shoulder and caught a gleam in his eye that didn't bode well for her tormentor.

"No!" was the emphatic reply as she closed the door in his face. She grabbed her brush and started snickering quietly.

Violence denied. Knives went into the living room and stared at Mark, a smug smile on his face. He stared at the man on the couch, challenging him to say something.

"Oh, don't you look like the cat that just got into the cream," Mark remarked lazily.

Knives lifted an eyebrow and debated licking his lips, then thought that would be a bit much. "We talked a bit," he said instead.

"You two did a bit more than talking. I could hear you in the hall."

On Knives' face spread the blush Mark had tried to give Anne, and the man grinned. "What? If you didn't want someone to hear you, you might have been just a little bit quieter. These walls aren't so thick, you know."

"Oh, hush." Knives shifted from foot to foot and crossed his arms. His stare grew a bit colder, but that only made Mark laugh again.

"No, that's what you should have done," he said after he ceased snickering. It was ludicrous to Mark, his making the fiend blush, but he was willing to be amused at Knives' expense.

"Quit teasing him, Mark. It's not fair." Anne had finished her giggling fit and came out to wrap her arms around Knives' waist.

"And what do you mean by that?" Mark asked as Knives slipped his hands down to cover hers..

"The poor man just doesn't understand these sorts of things. Undersocialized."

"Then I assume that you realize just how loud you two were?"

"Of course."

"Then why are you blushing?" he asked, grin widening.

"I'm not," she replied prosaically. "It's the lighting. Or your eyes are going bad. Maybe you're colorblind," she mused as she fought the color out of her cheeks.

Mark laughed, then made an ostentatious show of checking his watch. "I don't know about you two, but I'm hungry. Then again, with all that exercise you just got--"

"Yes, let's go eat," Anne interrupted him.

"What are you making?" Mark asked.

"Reservations." She sat down next to Mark and started to pull her shoes back on.

"Too tired to cook?"

She smacked the back of his head. "Will you knock it off?"

"But I've been saving these little remarks for so long," he whined.

"Save them longer."

"But," he protested, whining for the fun of fussing.

"Save them for Effie."

"Oh, like that's any fun. She just looks at me all-knowingly and asks me if I'm jealous."

Anne turned to him, plastered a wise expression on her face and intoned, "Are you jealous?"

He laughed.

She looked up at Knives. "What do you feel like eating?" she asked.

He gave her a look from head to toe. Anne rolled her eyes and stood up in one smooth motion. "I am surrounded by perverts. Or men. No, wait, they're both the same thing," she said as she walked to the door.

"But you like us anyway, don't you?" asked Mark. Knives smirked and ducked back in the bedroom for his shoes as Anne suddenly started to laugh.

"Yes. But tone it down a little for public consumption, okay?"

"Yes ma'am," remarked Knives as he returned. Mark echoed him a half-beat later, and they all exited the apartment. Knives slipped his fingers around Anne's as they walked down the stairs, and she grabbed on the his hand and refused to let go until after they had sat down for their meal.