A/N: I have no idea how I'm going to do this without writing smut, which is entirely OOC for both of them. Any suggestions are appreciated .
How it happened, he would never be sure. In fact, he was fairly certain that if asked, he would blame it on the painkillers he was on for his injuries relating to the cave-in. Because, after about a week of having Cassie Hack stay in his home, he was definitely ready for her to leave, yet the finding the correlation between wanting to get rid of her and sleeping with her was proving to be difficult.
He supposed she was an attractive woman – a bit young for him maybe, but she wasn't altogether unpleasant to look at once one got past the black lips, average at best intellect, and her occasional irrational bloodlust, but he couldn't exactly fault her for the last one since that would border on hypocritical.
But it didn't change anything – in fact, he was more or less disgusted with himself seeing as he was wasting time where the work was concerned as it was; with his injuries he couldn't get down to what was left of the basement, and it seemed Dan and Cassie were doing whatever they could to prevent him from setting up equipment on the kitchen table.
Then again, despite his now former assistant's willingness to stay and help until he recovered, he and Dan still hadn't spoken, leaving him with Cassie as his only other option for conversation. He mainly confined his thoughts to his notes of course, but there were times where talking to her was necessary whether he liked it or not, mainly because she was awful when it came to helping him.
When Cassie Hack had to fight for her life, she was the most graceful woman on Earth. When she had to carry a glass of water across the room on the other hand, she naturally tripped, fell, and landed on him. She would repeat this process a few times as the week progressed, but he didn't mind her clumsiness as badly as he minded her mouth.
Before the Miskatonic Massacre and he and Dan were forced to leave, people used to complain about the noise coming from the basement of 666 Darkmore – they would have a conniption if they'd heard Cassie Hack screaming obscenities first thing in the morning.
Her voice echoed off the walls of the old caretaker's home and reverberated back into his head, making his brain feel as if it were rattling around, and he knew she was making a point to be loud. She didn't like the silence between him and Dan, and tried to make conversation with the both of them separately as to make it seem less awkward, and although he supposed he could relate, he was sorry it didn't make her want to leave sooner. He was even more surprised that the human heart she found while helping Dan clear out the basement didn't send her away. Not that separate body parts bothered her, of course. Cassie Hack was the only woman he knew that laughed when he warned her that a re-animated eyeball might still be loose in the house somewhere.
Yet, with Cassie around, doors slammed causing plaster to fall off the ceiling, proceeding to make Herbert slightly nervous since plaster falling was what left him at the mercy of a slightly disgruntled former assistant and a monster hunter who was a borderline sociopath. Not that Herbert could fault her for that either, since he'd been labeled as such before, although the test results had been inconclusive.
Loud music played around the house occasionally, and he actually had to wonder if it really was music or some ritual to raise that Cthulhu creature everyone used to scribble about in the school textbooks.
There were women's clothes strewn all over the place, some of which he was surprised didn't come with an instruction manual since even Cassie herself picked up a few of the articles and admitted that she'd forgotten how to get into them before proceeding to slingshot them across the room again. Dan used to complain about Herbert leaving coffee mugs all over the place; he never said anything about Cassie's making a mess, although that could be attributed to the fact that Dan didn't sleep at the house anymore.
In fact, most of Dan's things were packed up in boxes waiting to be moved. He had been living with Francesca when he wasn't at the house fulfilling what he thought he was obligated to do, even though Herbert had insisted several times that he could manage on his own. Meanwhile on a more amusing note, Cassie and Francesca had met once when the Peruvian woman came over to pick Dan up one night. Neither woman had been impressed with the other. Herbert still would have found it amusing if he hadn't been so busy hating himself and Cassie interchangeably.
It hadn't started out like anything other than a casual conversation. He'd been up late writing down new theories on electricity and how it correlated to the nature of life, and Dan had already left hours earlier for Francesca's. If Herbert really thought about it, he could probably get away with blaming his actions on an empty water glass.
He'd startled Cassie, who was up cutting an apple at the counter and she'd screamed when he flipped the lights on, and even brandished the knife in his direction before she realized she wasn't being attacked by one of his experiments or whatever else haunted her at the time. Maybe he could blame Cassie herself – seeing as she didn't look like herself at all at two in the morning, with damp hair from the shower, no makeup, and an oversized white t-shirt that would have effectively covered all the parts of her he had the misfortune of seeing on accident during the day, that is, if it weren't as damp as her hair.
After she lowered the weapon, the argument went as follows:
"Holy shit! I didn't know you were still up!" she said. "Why didn't you just call me?"
"Mainly because I'm starting to fear for my life with you around," Herbert retaliated, hobbling over to the counter. "Do you pull knives on everyone you know, Ms. Hack?"
"If they sneak up on me, I do!" said Cassie, yanking the glass out of his hand. "And by the way, I found your runaway eyeball."
He figured this could prove to be mildly interesting. "Oh?" he asked.
She turned and put the glass in the sink, going to the cupboard for a new one. "Yeah," she said. "I went to take a shower and there it was, circling the drain. I didn't know what to do with it, so I put it in an empty pill bottle. Now the fucking thing won't stop staring at me."
She gestured to the table, and sure enough, there it was, swishing itself around and trying hard to see something through the orange plastic. "Yes, well," he said, strangely unable to say anything else as she handed him the now full glass. "…Thank you, I suppose."
"Meh, no problem," said Cassie, going back to her apple and leaning against the counter as she shoved a piece of it in her mouth. "Although, I don't get it. What's the point of bringing separate parts of the body back to life? You're not the type who likes people, so why would you want to help them?"
The only words that filtered through his mind at the question were "oh crap." Of course, he couldn't say that out loud. That would be giving her the upper hand.
He turned to hobble back into the living room. "Don't ask questions that you aren't prepared to hear the answer to," he said darkly.
Instead of leaving it at that, she laughed. The crazy fucking bitch laughed and all Herbert could think of was how much he wanted to shut her up by any means necessary. "Okay, I'm sorry, but you don't honestly believe I'd go for that, do you?" she asked, grinning. "Because an answer like that just means that you don't know, either."
"I don't have time for this," said Herbert, continuing on his way, hoping that she'd get the message, but not Cassie Hack. Never Cassie Hack.
"Of course you don't!" she said, following after him. "You never do! It's a convenient way to get out of things, isn't it?"
"I have work to do, Cassie," Herbert shot back.
"At two in the morning?" she chided.
"No sense in asking me about that, you're the one that just had a shower," he replied, finally making it to the couch and after a bit of shifting around, managed to sit down again.
"What can I say, I'm used to it," said Cassie, shrugging and sitting down in her usual chair. "It's kinda weird for me to just be sitting in one place with no monsters to fight…hey, you don't think you could make me one to practice on, do you?"
Even though she was clearly joking with him, he chose to glare at her anyway. "Cross the line a little?" she asked quickly.
"Slightly," said Herbert, trying to return to his notes.
"What were you gonna do with that thing down there anyway?" Cassie asked, gesturing towards the basement door. "Satisfy some weird sexual urges or…"
"Seeing as we created her for Dan, I'd suggest you ask him," Herbert said coldly. "And I'm not sure – it was an opportunity to try something new. I had no…intentions towards her in any way except…"
"I dunno," said Cassie. "You look just as bummed out as Dan did when I asked him about her. What's the story?"
"Why do you care?" he asked, keeping his eyes on the ledger he was writing in, although the words wouldn't make sense to him in a couple of hours since he was only half-paying attention to them.
Cassie sighed. "It's almost three in the morning, and I'm still awake, talking to the only real mad scientist I know that doesn't wanna kill me or torture me by cutting my toes off or something…come on! Just tell me."
"Torture you by…" he began, somewhat intrigued.
"Never mind that," said Cassie, shaking her head. "The less I think about crazy skinless people with bone saws, the more warm and fuzzy my feelings get, so come on. What's the deal with the living dead girl?"
The mention of a bone saw brought a smirk to his face, but it disappeared as quickly as it had come, since she was now leaning forward on her knees and smiling at him like a skull. "Well, first of all, that heart you found used to belong to Dan's old girlfriend," said Herbert, looking back down at his notes.
"And she probably died because of you, right?" Cassie asked.
"Correct," said Herbert. "But through no fault of my own, seeing as I was busy fighting with what was left of Carl Hill. Anyway, Dan obviously never got over her."
"So you put the heart in another person's body?" Cassie asked.
"More or less seeing as I took only the parts I thought would…hold interest."
"His or yours?" Cassie asked. "Because, from what I saw…"
"Do you want me to finish or not?" Herbert snapped, quickly causing her to stifle. "Anyway, it didn't work out as planned – all hell broke loose and Dan decided he didn't want her, so she tore herself apart. The end."
"And somewhere in there a crypt caved in on you?" Cassie asked.
"Precisely," Herbert replied curtly, looking down at his notes and still hoping that she would get the message.
And for a while, it did seem like she had, but then she slid out of the chair onto her knees, leaning on the table and supporting herself on her arms. "So," she said hesitantly. "What've you been writing about?"
"You wouldn't understand," said Herbert, setting his jaw.
"Try me," said Cassie.
"Doing so would be pointless!" Herbert snapped.
"Why?" Cassie
asked with that dangerous amused look on her pale face. "Because
I'm not a scientist or just because I'm a girl?"
He slammed
his fists on the table in frustration. "Ms. Hack, as much as I
appreciate your assistance in lieu of Dan's, your welcome in
this house is growing thin. The longer you sit here and badger me
about…" he began.
"Oh, so it's Ms. Hack now?" she asked calmly, grinning. "Geez, Herbert, I thought we got past the whole surnames thing when you put your tongue in my mouth."
"You're the one that initiated it," he pointed out coldly.
"And I don't remember you being all that uncooperative," said Cassie.
"I didn't exactly have a choice!" said Herbert. "You're unusually strong for a human female your size and…"
She laughed. "Oh please!" she said. "It's okay to admit that you liked it, you know. No one's gonna get on your case about it."
"What, you're telling me you did?" he asked skeptically.
"Yeah!" said Cassie, shrugging. "It was just a kiss for crissakes! You know that's what normal people do. For people like us, it's a nice break from reality, believe me.
"So you just go around and spread disease, is that what you're telling me?" Herbert sneered.
"No," said Cassie, shaking her head. "That's not what I mean, but you know…every once in a while…little kiss with someone attractive doesn't hurt."
"I suppose for someone of lower intellect, it doesn't," he replied, noticing an error in one of the chemical formulas he'd scribbled down and hastily erasing it.
"It wouldn't hurt you, either," Cassie persisted. "And I'd say that you already know that, since you didn't exactly fake a coma back there."
"I'm not that much older than you, I've had…experiences," he admitted, although it made him even more uncomfortable.
A wide grin spread over her face. "Who was it?" she asked. "Old girlfriend, back in high school or something?"
"Some girl," he said simply, shrugging. "I don't know, I was fifteen; puerile and ridiculously hormonal. I can say it was one of my least intelligent decisions in life, that's for certain."
"As opposed to hacking off people's heads and reanimating their corpses?" Cassie asked dryly.
"Yes," he replied adamantly.
"Wow," said Cassie. "Sounds like she must have hurt you pretty bad."
"I simply found interest in more important things," said Herbert.
"She dumped you?" Cassie asked.
"We were never together," said Herbert.
"So you just slept with her?" said Cassie.
"No," said Herbert.
"You didn't sleep with her?" Cassie asked.
"This is any of your business how?" he replied curtly.
"You're the one that brought it up!" said Cassie.
"And I'm dropping it!" said Herbert. "Goodnight, Ms. Hack."
"I don't feel like going to bed yet," she protested, crossing her arms across her chest.
"Then I suggest you go find something to do elsewhere," he replied, finally coming up with a coherent thought that he could actually write down.
Unfortunately, it didn't deter Cassie. As he went about ignoring her, she only got up and came around to his side, sitting down next to him on the couch. "I don't think you mean that," she said.
He didn't answer her. "I think you're just feeling a little insecure because I got you to admit to things you wouldn't normally talk or think about," she continued. "Plus, you're still kinda stuck, so…"
He didn't know how to react or when to react when she turned his head towards her and placed a quick chaste kiss on his mouth. When she pulled away, she smiled again. "Would you believe that before you, I only kissed girls?" she asked.
"I would like for you to let go of my chin, please," Herbert said adamantly, vaguely aware of the fact that at least this time he didn't have any black lipstick smudges around his mouth to explain to Dan or anyone else.
She did as he wished, leaving him rather surprised that a snide comment hadn't followed. "Why did you do that?" he asked.
Cassie shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "It was there."
"Mm," he replied shortly, returning to his work.
And he again thought that that would be it, but unfortunately it wasn't. "…So you've never had sex, huh?" she asked suddenly.
"What?" he asked, his stomach turning at the very thought.
"It's okay, I'm not judging!" said Cassie, holding her hands up defensively. "I never have either. I just you know, was wondering."
"Again, that is none of your business," said Herbert.
"It explains a lot," said Cassie.
"How hypocritical of you," said Herbert.
"So you admit it!" said Cassie.
"I admit nothing," Herbert persisted. "And if I could effectively get off this couch, I assure you I wouldn't be having this conversation with…"
"Wanna try it?"
"…you, let alone…what?" he asked, her question sinking in.
"Do you wanna try it?" she asked again, staring at him as if she'd asked a simpler question, such as where the salt might be. "Might be a little awkward with your arm and your leg and all, but…"
"No, I don't want to try it!" he boomed, trying to move away from her on the couch, but failing miserably due to the state of his limbs. "What would ever possess you to ask me such a…!"
"Jesus, calm the fuck down!" said Cassie. "We're talking about sex, not missiles here, Doc. And it's fine if you don't want to. I just thought I'd ask."
"I think you should leave now," said Herbert.
"Fine," said Cassie, standing up and stepping away from the couch, seeing that she'd frightened the one person she thought was devoid of most human emotion. "I'll see you in the morning."
She turned to go upstairs, but a nagging question in his brain just had to force itself out of his mouth before the zone of safety could creep in on him. "I thought your sexual orientation was geared towards women," he said.
Cassie turned back around. "I think it is," she said, shrugging. "But, I dunno. I guess I should at least try it with a guy, just to see what it's like. With my job, I'd at least like to get laid once before some slasher decides to kill me."
"And you're asking me?" he asked flatly.
"Sure," she said. "Why not? I'm not insulted, if that's what you think. I'm not in love with you or anything, I just asked. Better to ask a friend than a stranger, you know? Sorry if I freaked you out or anything."
He mulled over the answer in his head a while. On one hand, he was still angry that she would even ask him such a ridiculous thing, seeing as it was obvious that she was being a nuisance to him already. Yet, on the other hand, it was oddly sweet in a juvenile way. Not that he would admit that in this lifetime or the next.
"No," he said finally. "That's…quite all right."
"Cool," said Cassie, smiling. "Now uh…do you need me to get you anything before I head up or are you…"
"I'm fine," he said quickly. "Just…please, go, and give me some time to work."
Most would have been deterred by his curt tone, but it only seemed to amuse Cassie even more. "G'night, Doc," she said, waving him off.
He sighed in exasperation before forcing out what would pass for a "Goodnight, Cassie," which well enough sent her on her way, but only after she turned around once again.
"Oh, and I meant to tell you – Vlad's coming to get me the day after tomorrow," she said. "You're all situated with your crutches and stuff now, and Dan still comes over during the day, so…just thought you'd like to know."
"Noted," he replied distantly, trying to block her out before she disappeared up the stairs again.
What he didn't know was that he'd be vaguely mulling over her proposition for the rest of the night, whether his rational self wanted to or not.