Crash, - Ginny -

[Marcel LaCroix]

Marcel could lack a little common sense from time to time, but he wasn't completely in the dark about his own psychology. Mostly - but not completely. He knew things weren't always...right with him. It was part of why he was still so resistant to seeing Jeremy. He suspected sometimes that there were more issues at work than he would have been entirely keen on admitting. He didn't really want to talk about it with Ginny, though, especially since she had this horrible delusion she was stuck on that he was a good person.

Right.

"Don't say that. Becoming better has nothing to do with who you are right now. It has everything do with with who you want to be."

She looked at him and tried to smile. He tried to smile back, wanting to make her happy. There weren't a lot of people in the world for whom he cared if they were happy or not. Ginny, he cared about, a lot. When she was sad, she looked so damn sad. He wanted her to smile for him.

"You weren't born pre-packaged and set in stone. You choose what about yourself you want to better." His skin warmed and tingled as she laid a small, burning trail of kisses along his chest. "You're a smart man, Marcel LaCroix. You should know these things."

His mouth turned up in a small half-smile. "All I know," he began, gently pushing Ginnny up so he could shift and pull himself upright, "is that my back is killing me. And I'll tell you what else I know..." He curled his arms snugly around Ginny's waist and pulled her close, wrapping his body around hers. "You..." He kissed her on the cheek. "Are absolutely..." And again. "The sweetest fucking thing..." And one last time. "I have ever seen."

Well, "ever" was pushing it, he'd seen a lot of sweet fucking things, but there was no harm in saying so, was there? And if it changed the subject, why not...

[Genevieve]

There was a time, years ago, when Ginny couldn't have given a rat's ass about what others thought about themselves. Even the people she cared about. She encouraged Sofia's low self-esteem to drop even lower, for heaven's sake! Well...she wouldn't do that now, but when she first met her? How she used to be? When she was so selfish... She was still selfish now, but now, she did care. The way Marcel looked down on himself was positively infuriating and it made her so sad. It made her pity him, and she hardly believed he wanted to be pitied. She tried to tell him, for the nth time since they'd been together, about change. Everyone had the same amount of potential to change, it was all a matter of putting that potential to use.

He smiled at her, pushing her, and she sat up easily on her knees. She bit back a little grin when he pulled her close so his legs flanked her hips. "All I know is that my back is killing me. And I'll tell you what else I know... You...are absolutely...the sweetest fucking thing...I have ever seen." Each kiss left a heated tingling sensation on her cheeks.

She did notice his tactful avoidance of what she'd said just before, but she didn't point it out. She didn't want to be pushy, not again. Not tonight. Not right now. Maybe later. She was inevitably disappointed, but she didn't let it show. Instead she gave him a coy little grin and leaned forward to nip his nose. "I know I am," she said in a bit of a cheeky tone. She was quiet for a moment, but her hands moved along his shoulders, down to his biceps, his forearms, his hands. She grasped them and pulled them up to her breasts, biting her lip again and tilting her head. She leaned into him with curious eyes. "Does this mean you want to keep the key?"

[Marcel LaCroix]

His change of subject wasn't exactly subtle, but he hoped Ginny got the hint that he didn't really want to talk about this anymore. Indeed, she seemed to get it well enough, and she just smiled at him with that coy little grin of hers that never failed to make him want to kiss her.

"I know I am." Ginny dragged her fingers down his arms and to his hands, while he looked shamelessly up and down her body now that she was kneeling upright in front of him. She brought his hands up to her chest and he responded with a small, hungry smile, fondling them almost lovingly while he pulled her closer for a quick kiss. "Does this mean you want to keep the key?"

The key... What key? Oh, that key. He'd almost forgotten about that little...episode. Ginny apparently hadn't. He was trying to decide whether there was some kind of snide little barb in there somewhere (there would have been if he said it, he knew), but he decided there probably wasn't. She really did want to know...and it wasn't a hard answer. Maybe he had sounded a little harsh. After all, all he had meant was that she could keep it if she couldn't find hers, but he certainly hadn't made any effort to make it very obvious... He cuddled her close in a kind of vague apology, kissing the side of her head.

"Of course I want it back," he said simply. "How else am I going to barge into your apartment uninvited?" He kissed her again, this time on the cheek, nuzzling her soft skin a little bit. "Now...are you tired, lamb? I'm getting there... And there's a bed in the other room with our names on it - a bed that won't, incidentally, wreak havoc on my spine."