------continued from here.

HE'D HEARD EVERYTHING that had to do with what he was a thousand times before . sometime between now and when he finally hit the grave he'd probably hear it at least a thousand times more , but lee rolled easy with the punches . he always did . life was too fucking difficult to take so seriously ( and he'd had enough seriousness in those first few decades to last him the rest of however fucking long he was stuck here , anyway ) . for now he'd settle for the brisk laugh of a beautiful woman , despite how self - deprecating his joke was . it was the little things .

as far as léon antonio sepúlveda castillo went , he was nothing but a red flag . scars that told of his misgivings , sad eyes that covered themselves with glittering mischief in hopes nobody would notice , smiles that were all teeth --- the better to grip with , my dear ... he smelled of leather and gun oil , looked like the nightmare man of any suburban mom's greatest fear for their daughters to date ( while secretly hoping he'd whisk them away instead ) . one big , red flag . he was all right with it .

moe herself wasn't the beacon of a good girl , either . it's what he liked about her - the tattoos , the piercings , the dark lipstick and eyeliner . the goth phase she never seemed to grow out of , the way she smelled like bad ideas and smoke . it'd been a long time since he'd acted on a bad idea . he was overdue .

------HE REALLY ENJOYED these little hang-outs with molly. tucked up on her sofa, shoes shucked by the door as to be polite and mismatched tones of purple and argyle patterns half under his butt (he looked like some sort of long noodle man) with conversation shooting rapidly from one topic to the next. if he rambled it didn't seem like she minded (and if she did, she kept it to herself) and he listened aptly when she spoke of her work or her art. he watched the color of gummy bear that left the bag and slipped between the shape of her lips to disappear into a void with brethren while his own fingers fished in a box of sour patch kids. he had a fondness for sweets.

the question gave him pause. wide eyes, doe-like in nature and the purest shade of hazel one could ever conjure, froze on her face to measure the expression that might follow the words. he could be naive about a great many things, but he understood the inference this time. it had been so very blunt, after all.