Night's Omen

She got defensive, which wasn't exactly a huge surprise, but it was actually helpful.  It meant she was offering more information about how her power worked, which was important for him.  He needed that, because if something happened ever again, he needed to know what he was doing about it all.  Knowledge was power.  He didn't want to argue with her about it, however, so the defensive streak was just a little irritating.  "So you mean to tell me that every cat that ends up anywhere near you reacts to you?  They all just instantly love you?" 

God, he could actually see that getting annoying, once he got past the idea that he'd hated losing himself like he had.  Personally, he wanted to tell her to stay the fuck away from him because he hated not being in control, but there was just that something about her that made him like hearing her talk.  He was betting it was some kind of residual feel of her magic, but he was hoping it wouldn't last.  What if she'd done some kind of imprinting on him?  She said that she'd never had it happen that way before, which really didn't sound all that good.  He'd just have to be the exception, that was just his luck.  He was even okay just listening to her explain, until she turned it on him.

"What kind of question is that?  Why wouldn't I be pissed that I just got mindfucked by a vampire?" he asked, but it struck him that if she wasn't 'that kind of vampire', then maybe she really just sucked at survival issues.  "Control is survival, and you took it away.  How was I supposed to know that you weren't going to put a bullet in my brain?  I have enemies that could make a lot of people suffer if they had a power like yours on their hands, especially me."

He could just see one of them trying it.  Even he had to admit that it'd be perfect.  All they had to do was make sure that nobody knew they were involved, and the people who liked him in Midnight need never know they they'd been the ones to kill him.  If they got someone like this woman, they might even kill HER before she could rat them out.  It's what he'd do if he had to be sneaky about it.

 "I understand your concern, but I'm over six-hundred years old, and the only vampires I know that have ever had a problem with me are too busy tending to their obsessions to ever look me up," she said. "I'm in knee-deep with Bruja by association. If you want a troublemaker, that's my sister. I'm about as normal as it gets." She paused, and then added, "I promise."

  "And you didn't get... mindfucked, or however you said it. I didn't roll you, I just happen to have a... pheromone, I guess, that yes, cats tend to like. Some of them can wade through it, most of them just get a pleasant disposition and that's about it, unless I turn on the charm, but really, you were ripping out of your own skin. I know this is about me and my issues, and I'm overstepping my boundaries here, but you must repress a hell of a lot to react like that."

  She sat down on her couch and leaned back against a rose-coloured pillow, tucking the blanket around her. "Listen, I'm honestly sorry about how things happened like they did, but you put yourself more at risk on your own than I ever could have, and it's not fair for you to blame me. I'm a nice girl, but I'm not going to be told about the world when I've been in it about five-hundred and seventy years longer than you have."

  "I would never put you in danger. I don't even know you. I'm not sure I want to, given the small bit of information I've got. Maybe you should just stay away from me; forget I exist."

Concern?  Had he said he was concerned about her?  He didn't think he had, and that was for good reason, since he wasn't.  At least, he didn't think he was.  If there was some small part of him that gave a shit what happened to her, he wasn't listening to it.  It was what had gotten him into trouble already.  Knee-deep in Bruja, though?  By association?  That was intriguing on its own. 

He DID get mind-fucked, though.  That he wasn't budging on, and because he knew that what she'd done was the most completely he'd lost control since Rajz, and there was no denying what Rajz did.  It was a mindfuck, and he didn't like it coming from a woman who had absolutely no right to him.  She wasn't Rajz.

He actually almost laughed when she accused him of repressing, wondering if she was the only person in the world who would actually think that.  He didn't know why he'd reacted the way he did, and he couldn't compare because he'd never seen another cat react to her, but he knew that it wasn't his fault for repressing.  Frankly, he was sticking to his story about control.  He didn't like it, and he'd fought to keep her off of him.  What could he possibly be repressing there?

"This isn't about your issues, sweetheart, it's about me wanting to know how some random vampire that I've never even heard of could turn me into a giant blue house cat," he pointed out, and he should have just ended the conversation.  He knew that it would just go into circles, and under normal situations, he'd have ended the conversation a few minutes prior, when she'd started arguing.  They weren't a couple, they weren't friends, so why did he feel obligated to sit on the side of the road and argue with her over what had happened and why?  Because he liked the sound of her voice, dammit, and if he hung up the phone, he'd be giving up his reason to talk to her.  He almost wanted to ask how THAT worked, since it wasn't like he was in her presence and breathing in pheromones or whatever she'd said it was.  He wasn't being soaked in her power.  He was miles away, on the phone, and he wanted to turn around.  He just wasn't so sure he wanted to admit that to her.

He should forget she existed, so that he didn't have to listen to her tell him how he put himself at risk, or deal with the idea that some part of him might actually like being around her, and get on with his life.  He should.  "Honestly, I think you just existing puts me in danger, and I wish we both knew less about each other than we already do.  I don't think I can forget about you, though," he finally admitted, and he didn't actually sound angry, but more disappointed, maybe in himself.  He couldn't describe it.  He didn't WANT any of this, but he didn't really have a choice. 

Just hang up the phone.

He didn't.  God, he was so confused.  It'd be so much easier if he just didn't care or outright hated her.  Then, he could ignore her or tear her to pieces.  This was just a headache.

Elke narrowed her eyes a little when he told her that her happening to be alive put him in danger. "You're welcomed to try and remedy the problem, but I've got a funny feeling it'll be harder than you think," she warned him. She genuinely did not want him to try, but the way he spoke made her want to antagonize the living shit out of him. Elke had never rubbed someone the wrong way before, and in turn she'd never really been irritated - was this what it felt like to meet someone who just made you want to punch things? She felt like how Sasha must feel all the time.

  "I'm going to hang up the phone, right now. If you want to find out more information about me, I have a feeling you know where you can ask around. I can assure you that I absolutely don't intend to ever hurt you, and I'm not easily bent to the will of someone else who might," she added, trying to squash the notion he had that she could be used as a tool for someone else's designs. No, Elke was a little too old for that, and she wasn't nearly temperamental enough. Sasha could easily be manipulated if you knew what to say, but Elke was a little harder to coax - or so she believed.

  "Hopefully, we never see eachother again. I could do without this conversation in repetition," she said. She hung up the phone and tossed it off of the couch and onto the love seat where it hit the pillow with a muffled thud. That was intense. She sat very quietly for a few minutes, mulling over what had been said. She was interested greatly to know who that man had been, and since he'd been a Maltese tiger - the only one of which, by the way, she'd ever seen (since they didn't technically exist, or so people believed), she wasn't so sure she'd have as hard a time finding information on him as he would on her. She got up and glided into her bedroom, intent on taking a shower and sleeping on the idea, giving herself ample time to cool down before she started digging. The more she'd dig, inevitably, the more she'd want to talk to him, and that just wasn't what he wanted - whether he said it or not. Elke could handle a request to go away.

"Thomas, slow down," Kimber said, sitting up in her seat. She reached over and slapped him in his chest with her forearm like people do when they see something that alerts or surprises them. Her legs uncrossed as she took off her seatbelt. Thomas slowed just enough for her to make out Xavier's car in a gravel lot not but two miles from her house, where he'd been meeting her like, thirty minutes ago. She'd tried to call to say she was running late, and it had gone straight to voicemail.

  "Dude, slow down more," she said. She knew he'd recognize the car and she knew he would do everything in his power to make this worse than it had to be, so when he dropped from forty-five to forty, Kimber looked at him square in the eye.

  "You know? Just stop," she said.

  She was met with a clearly defiant smile that faded as quickly as it had come up, and nearly smashed into the dash as Thomas mashed down on his brakes. Some instructions he could follow, that one.

  "Yeah, 'priece," she snapped, opening the door. She turned and looked at the car, and then back in to where Grimm sat. "I'll see you in a few hours. Thanks for the ride home," she said. She turned and walked at an interested pace to Xavier's car, where she could make a shape out inside of it. Hm, so he was there after all. She rapped on the window with her knuckles. Hard.

  "Oh, so you're on the phone? What are you, a woman? I've been calling for the last thirty minutes, or did you forget?"  she asked, neglecting to incriminate herself by admitting that she was hellishly late. Kimber wasn't on time for anything ever. When he held a finger up to her, her jaw dropped open, and she went for the door handle, flinging it open. She didn't really care if he was on an important phonecall, because... Kimber was Kimber, and there was a reason she didn't play well with others.

  When she saw his facial expression, she stopped short of all of the shit she was about to say, and held on to the door with one hand while her other rested atop the car. She just stood there, weight supported by the two steel objects, and watched in amazement as he seemed to have a serious internal conflict with putting his phone down.

  "Uh... I'm gonna go ahead and say that you're canceling on me again," she ventured. There was something in her voice that was harsh, but it was mostly because she didn't sound surprised. Having Kimber disappointed in you, to most people, wasn't anything new - but to people who knew her, who liked her and who found themselves friends with her, it was a dirty and bad feeling. Of course Xavier was already feeling pretty bad, so this just added to it. Kimber was all about forward progress.

He was still torn on the issue, and even more pissed than he'd told her anything at all by the end, when she hung up, but it wasn't like she'd given him a real chance to react before she hung up.  She'd also taken what he'd said the wrong way.  See?  This was why he generally didn't give a shit, because people were stupid and they irritated him.  What was even more irritated was that there was part of him that wished she hadn't hung up on him, which made zero sense and would have only meant that he was on the phone longer.

Really, he didn't expect her to go digging for information on him, but it wouldn't have surprised him if she did.  It would have been interesting to think about, had he cared enough to consider that she'd do it, how she'd react to knowing who and what he was.  What he was known for and what he'd done.  He thought he might have liked to see the look on her face, personally.

Having Kimber show up at the tail end of the conversation really didn't help.  Yeah, he'd been planning on meeting up with her at her house, and with a quick flick of his eyes towards the clock in his car, he knew he was about half an hour late, but Kimber was always late.  She had no room to bitch. 

She'd been standing there just long enough to see him mentally weighing whether or not he wanted to hang up, which didn't require much speaking out of him after he'd given her the 'hold up a second' finger, and then Elke had hung up on him, which didn't draw an immediate response other than him staring at his phone for a second while he steamed, then saving the number under the contact name 'vampire bitch'.  He didn't actually HAVE her name.

Only after the number was saved did he turn his eyes up at Kimber, completely unaware that Elke had managed to keep them gold just through the phone call.  He didn't understand it, so why should he expect it?  "Actually, no, I'm not," he snapped, his accent more clipped than usual due to irritation as he gestured for her to hop in.  "I feel more like shooting shit up than usual."

Since they'd been planning on going to the firing range, he was cool with it.  Besides, what else was he going to do?  Go home and dwell on the evening?  Fuck that shit, that was for bitches.

 Kimber frowned for a second, and then reached out and put a hand on his jaw, tilting his face up. It wasn't an aggressive movement, but it could be seen as invasive, though Kimber... was just an invasive kind of person. That and she'd never had a problem putting her hands on Xavier before - he wasn't a wolf, which was a big point in his favour, which means he didn't have that stupid hierarchy thing to get over, and two, he was every bit as much of a bad-ass as his resume suggested. Not that Kimber was attached, or anything, but she did make time for him, and she didn't for others.

  "What's going on?" she asked, and it was clear from her cautious but curious tone that she saw his eyes - even more so because obviously she'd taken the liberty of getting a closer look. She let go of his face before he could shift away, which he might have done anyways.

  "We can still go shooting, but only if you give me info," she said, folding her arms.

He frowned and narrowed his eyes when she tilted his head up, but it didn't take a rocket surgeon to know what she was looking at.  She'd looked very directly at his eyes, and though he made eye contact, he knew it wasn't just the eye contact she was looking for.  It bothered him, not that she'd touched him (because he really didn't mind, and actually liked that she was ballsy enough to invade his space, even knowing what his resume looked like) or that she'd wanted eye contact, but that he knew there was a reason for it.  He could assume that something was wrong with them, and that it was that vampire's fault.  The question about what was going on only made it more obvious, but he wasn't going to spill right there on the side of the road.

"Fine, get in," he told her, giving her a moment to move before shutting his door, and then pulling the visor down to see what she'd been looking at.  Finding his eyes that brilliant gold color, when they normally ranged between brown and green like any good set of hazel eyes, was less than pleasant.  No wonder Kimber was asking questions.  He just hoped it didn't last long, because wearing sunglasses around normal people would really piss him off.

He waited until she was in her seat and he'd had a second to turn around towards the firing range, taking that time to decide exactly what he was telling her.  He wasn't in the mood for a drawn-out story.  "I had an errand to run before I dropped by here, held the elevator door open for a woman in the building, and found out she was a vampire after I was stuck in it with her," he told Kimber, and really, that could have been the whole story.  Nobody liked being stuck in an elevator with a strange vampire, and hell, Xavier didn't really like being stuck in elevators with most of the vampires that weren't strangers. 

Fucking vampires.  There were so few of them that he really liked.

 Very nearly any other opportunity Kimber would have had to dig her proverbial heels into something making Xavier this uncomfortable, she would have done it without a second thought. She, luckily, was feeling less mean today than normal, and so instead of giving him a quip and not moving out of the way of the door, she wordlessly walked around to the side of the car and got in, tossing the bag she'd been carrying into the back seat. It landed with a thud and slid down into the floorboard where she would ignore it for the rest of the drive.

  When he started talking, she stared straight ahead, the only indication that she was listening the constant motion of her eyes, something she did when people were talking. It was an odd trait, and it constantly made her look like she wasn't paying attention, but in truth if Kimber had stared directly at him, she wouldn't have been able to not say something. She was keen on interjecting her two cents into everything, and this wasn't the time.

  "So..." she said, tracing her fingers over her palm as she finally looked over at him. "You got into the elevator and realized your ride-mate was a vampire. And this has your eyes all feline-i-fied because..." She was unable to hide the confusion in her voice. Had she missed something? Xavier was around vampires every day, why should a random one in an elevator be different? He didn't look hurt, and even with his skill, a tussle in an elevator would have gotten him at least a little bloodied. He was fine.

  She raised her eyebrows at his silence, now looking directly at him. Kimber had that sort of expectant stare a dog would have, which always made it hard for people not to tell her things. She just compelled them to.

Apparently, he was no different than everyone else in being compelled to tell Kimber what had happened, though it made him feel better that he DID have a choice.  It wasn't like before, with Elke, where there hadn't really been any choice involved in what was happening.  Kimber was way more awesome, just for that. 

What made Kimber less than awesome was that it was Elke she was asking about, and if it was anyone else, he probably would have refused outright.  There weren't many people he would admit a weakness to, especially one like this, but he figured that he spent enough time with her already.  If she wanted him dead, she could have laid a trap any one of the times they'd been planning on meeting up.  His paranoia level had dropped considerably with her over time.  Her wolf friend, the Brit, was another story.

Even so, his jaw clenched as she called him on the information he was leaving out, his gold eyes still on the road for a few breaths before flicking over to take in her expectant look and returning to the road.  "She rolled me.  On 'accident'."

He even released the wheel for half of a second to make air quotes, even though that wasn't QUITE an accurate quote.  She'd said she hadn't rolled him, which he disagreed with, but she'd essentially called it an accident.  She'd apologized and told him that she hadn't meant to.  Thus, accident.  Figuring she was only going to pump him for more information, he continued, answering what seemed to be the obvious questions.  "Bad enough that she force-changed me, and at the time, I didn't mind.  Hurt like hell after."

He'd sure as hell minded then.

 "Whoa," Kimber said, waving her hands as he was speaking. She made the 't' motion. "Time the fuck out. There's only one vampire I know that can force-change and he's in Midnight. You said she, did you not?" she asked, sitting in her seat so that she contorted her body to face him more fully. Wouldn't be like she'd die if they got into a wreck.

  "Now, as far as I know, and as a member of Bruja I have access to a wicked smart council of people who go to school to keep me up to date on vampires... And I don't know of anyone else besides that one homie that can do it. So either someone lied to me, or this is a new thing," she said, wrenching around in the seatbelt until she finally flung it off of her.

  "I'm not sure what you mean accident. How do you "accidentally" do that? Is that like accidentally the whole thing?" she asked, her facial expression mirroring her lack of grasp on the information he'd told her. It also bothered her that it had happened, because Kimber wasn't interested in being kibble any more than Xavier was.

  The irony was that she knew Elke; Elke watched Connor's daughter from time to time. She just didn't put the malevolent vampire that Xavier was rabid about next to the vampire that she knew.

He let her lose her shit, his jaw tightening again when she mentioned Kiyoshi.  That vampire and Xavier didn't have much history together, mostly because Xavier avoided him and Kiyoshi didn't go out of his way to fuck with the tiger, either.  Xavier happened to be a hothead sometimes, especially around people that creeped him out, and the vampire was creepy, so he didn't bother with him, and Xavier was a little too friendly with Verity for vampires to want to fuck with him if they didn't have a damn good explanation.  He and Victoria had fucked each other up, and he'd definitely struck first, but there hadn't really been many consequences.  He still thought he'd won that round.

"It wasn't him, and she wasn't Midnight, that I know for sure," he told her, and it was one thing he wasn't budging on.  This woman wasn't Midnight material, not a single ounce of her.  If he'd met her sister instead, he might have had some doubts, but not Elke.  Of course, he could have just been biased because of whatever she'd done, but he didn't think so.  Just because he didn't like what she could do didn't make her a liar or a con-artist. 

He hesitated a moment, trying to decide how to possibly describe something that wasn't verbal or physical.  He'd never had it happen like that before.  "She said it was an accident at first, and I might believe her just because of how freaked out she got.  If I didn't know she was a vampire, she'd have fooled me with her body language," he explained, but that still didn't explain HOW.  "It was...something in her aura, or whatever you want to call it.  It bothered me as soon as she got close, like she was my best friend in the world.  The more upset she got, the stronger whatever it was got, the more I resisted, and it all stopped when I shifted.  She said it has something to do with cats."

He certainly remembered her saying she was involved in Bruja 'by association', but it never occurred to him that Kimber might know the woman.  Why would it?  He didn't really know what the comment out of Elke had meant, or what her name was, either.

 Kimber slapped her hand down on the dash so hard it might have broken if Xavier had a cheaper taste in automobiles. "Jesus, she was telling the truth!" she exclaimed. Her hands flew up to ruffle her thick, dark hair, mostly in disbelief at how this was turning out. Her eyes were absolutely wide as she looked at Xavier, a mixture of shock and seriousness playing out.

  "Do you know who that was? That was Elke von Jungingen - or just Elke, as we all know her. She's around Crimson pretty frequently, and she's harmless," she said. She held up her hand in an "I don't know" motion, and then began listing what she knew before he could interrupt her.

  "She's fifteenth century old, direct from Theron, and has a fucking nightmare bitch of a sister who could be Midnight if she, like, tried. She isn't into the whole group thing, though, but yeah, Elke, I've met her. She's nice as shit - which begs the question, what the hell did you do to get her to hurt you?" she asked incredulously, still shocked. She knew Xavier, knew his mouth, and knew he instigated shit without admitting it.

"She's got this proximity thing with cats. I've seen it work, Xavier. She's been sitting down playing with Connor's kid and they'll just... come over and want to stand around her. As far as I know, she can't just turn it off. I know for a fact her sister can't, and doesn't, because that bitch tried to roll a guild leader and succeeded for quite a while. And they say humans aren't fit for the job," she said with a small quiver of her lips. Christian and Connor were way, way above Lucien by her standard.

  "Look, I don't mean to jump to her defense, so don't give me that fucked up look like I'm trying to campaign for her, I'm just saying that I think you've been really misinformed."

His golden eyes flicked to her hand smashing down on his dashboard for an instant, but he didn't say anything about it because he didn't have cheap taste in cars.  He was more interested in the reason for her outburst than the manner in which it had happened.  She hadn't really explained much when she said someone was telling the truth, especially if she was talking about the vampire.  He wasn't believing her until he knew why she was jumping into Elke's corner.

"Harmless?" he repeated with a snort, but she mostly ignored him to continue explaining, so he let her finish.  He used watching the road as his excuse to sit and absorb her facts, though it wasn't like he was in great need of such an explanation.  He was a good listener when it suited his purposes.  She went on to ask what he'd done to get her to hurt him, which should have gotten an immediate indignant response, but he opened his mouth ever so slightly, and she continued explaining Elke and her power.  Important information.

She also mentioned Connor, and his kid, which was also valuable information.  One never knew when they might need to know the particulars about important people, and Xavier was smart.  He stored it all away and puzzled it out later, after he'd collected a few pieces. 

"It would be really hard to be misinformed when I hadn't really been informed," he pointed out dryly, glancing her way with a pissy look.  He didn't like that Kimber didn't seem bothered by this.  He could bet that if a vampire showed up that could roll wolves with no effort like that, she'd be shitting herself.  "I didn't do anything, why's it always my fault?  I held the fucking door open for her.  As soon as she was in the elevator, it started rubbing at me."

He didn't know how to explain it, and not knowing how it usually felt for OTHER cats, he didn't know the difference.  He didn't like it, and didn't like that it made him feel warm and fuzzy.  He didn't like fuzzy.  He also thought she was delusional about preferring humans to shifters as her guild leaders, but he didn't personally know the three she was thinking about.  Being who he was, he wouldn't have appreciated Cobriana, either.  He probably wouldn't have cared much for Connor or Christian either, though.  Humans just didn't impress him, and part of that was truly just the fact that they were fragile.  They broke easily, if not mentally, then physically. 

 Kimber took his tone of voice into consideration and sighed. "It's not supposed to hurt!" was all she could reply, her tone one of genuine confusion. "The cat-people love this bitch. She's like their fucking personal Jesus or something, Xavier," she said, brows furrowed. "I don't know why you don't feel it. Look, I'm not complaining - I love that you don't turn into one of her fanboys - but it's just such a weird... such a fucking weird situation."

  She twisted in the seat more to face him, drawing a knee up on the seat and resting her arm on it. "If this was different and I ran into some wolfman who ripped my animal right out of me I'd probably be just as pissed off as you are, too," she said finally. "It's just weird because you're right, I don't know how it feels. I do know that she's not Midnight and she didn't do it on purpose, so at least you know someone didn't like, send her after you or something. You're fine now, anyways. Nothing a little Kimber can't fix, I think," she said, reaching out to rub his shoulder lightly. Kimber added that last part almost supportively, lightly, and her touch wasn't the usual demanding or rough that she was so known for, so Xavier could take that to the bank - or be an asshole about it, in which case Kimber'd cut his ass off for a few weeks and see how his attitude was the next time she was genuine about anything that was a big deal to him.

  She tried to smile, but she knew that the more she thought about it, the more mad she'd be. "I'll corner her and try to find out what the fuck happened. I'll just... tell her to stay away from you," she offered. "I'm sure she will, and if she doesn't, I'll fucking light her face on fire. 'kay?"

This was where he was stuck.  He could either grunt and accept what she was saying without any further explanation, which would have been his general reaction with anyone else.  He didn't owe anyone anything, let alone a description of whatever he was feeling at a given time, but Kimber did happen to be different.  He liked her, whether he actually loved her or not, and liking someone when you really just didn't give a shit about other people made it matter.  He was tempted to tell her, to explain, but he didn't like opening up like that.  That would be showing off what he saw as a weakness, and he didn't know if there was anyone he'd offer that to.  Maybe not even Verity, and he liked her.  A lot.  Verity had probably the closest he ever gave to the reaction that Katya should have received.  Verity had earned it since he was a very small child, though.  She was different, he was damaged goods, and it just worked. 

The problem he was having, exactly what he was considering telling her, was that he was confused.  He didn't like admitting confusion, but this was worse because it DID involve him liking Katya.  He wasn't the fanboy sort, not ever, but he still wasn't sure if telling her to stay away was what he wanted.  He HAD given her his number, hadn't he?  He wouldn't have, not if he didn't want to talk to her.  It was easier to talk to her when she wasn't putting out that overwhelming LOVE ME vibe, but he couldn't deny that she still had some pull just in her voice.  Damn it.  He couldn't tell if he only liked her because of that cat power, as much as he HATED that control it threatened over him, and he hated himself for that subconscious desire for contact with her.  How could he be so weak?

He could he ADMIT to it?

That was most of the battle right here and now.  He wasn't the type of guy to dwell on a solved problem, not any more than Kimber was the kind of woman to do it, but this wasn't solved.  Not really, not at all.  She could tell Katya to step off, but what if he caved and couldn't keep his distance?  He was so torn. 

It was easier for her to just think he was pissed, though.  He was, so it wasn't a stretch, but confusion just wasn't something he thought he could admit to.  That he actually wanted to go see Katya, like he'd gotten a taste of a drug he wanted more of, didn't sit well with him.  He'd just ignore it and hope it went away.  Right, that was a good idea.  Kimber had a point in thinking she could fix it, too.  She may not totally eliminate it, but she could help him ignore it.  He was all for that.

He didn't think that a grin would look convincing (he didn't feel fun, so he sure as hell didn't think he'd look like he did), but he did nod at her explanations and promise.  It would have to do.  "Alright, let me know what you hear," he requested, tone surprisingly simple for how he felt, but he actually wasn't going to be an asshole to her.  He reached out and settled his hand on her thigh, exactly where he felt it belonged, and he squeezed lightly without actually trying for a grope or anything stupid.  He wasn't going to fake a smile or get mushy, he wasn't really any good at accepting comfort, but he made the attempt.  He'd show her he appreciated it later, in other ways.  Less sentimental, potentially cutesy ways. 

Xavier wasn't cute.