Archer grinned as he watched Rin dress, enjoying the view then lamenting the fact she was fully dressed. He eyed the white slacks and said, "Be careful. I hate getting stains out of white fabric."
"Of course I'll be careful. The Tohsakas are all about elegance. I wouldn't betray that by staining my nice white slacks."
Then he smiled and said, "Not as nice as the skirt, but it works."
She blushed at that and couldn't help beaming in response. Now ready to meet her awaiting public, she offered her arm to him.
***
"Well, you'll just wait until she gets here."
Tom was taken aback by the near growl in the Irishman's voice. He walked a bit closer to his new adversary, and their eyes locked, the violet eyes staring into Lancer's own with a rather feline glare.
Tom wasn't certain why, but the man before him drummed up a certain instinctive hatred. A growl tinged his own voice as he replied, "That I shall."
***
Ryoko suddenly noticed the aggressive sounding voices of the two men in the other room. She was a bit mortified to note that both were quite familiar...
Lancer and... Tom?! What's he doing here? She sighed and turned to Kiyoshi.
"Go ahead and start cooking the soup. I'm going over to make sure I don't have to do any damage control over here..."
Forest raised her eyebrow as she heard the near snarl in Lancer's voice. It was worse than the tone he took when he spoke about Archer and his diabolical counterpart. She walked into the kitchen to see Lancer glaring at a rather gorgeous man. White hair, violet eyes, and oddly enough glasses. There was Kiyoshi and Ryoko on the phone, ordering pizza from the Brick House knowing Lancer and his fondness for it.
She looked at Ryoko and said, "Let me pay for it when the driver gets here, or I can pay you back if you already paid with a card."
Forest's question stopped Ryoko mid-walk. She grinned and shook her head. "Don't worry about it. If I hadn't come here, my taint wouldn't be gone. I haven't paid yet, but it's no biggie. I don't mind."
Tom heard Ryoko speak and turned to her. "Ah, Ryoko. ...Wait, what do you mean your taint is gone?"
The redheaded magus sighed. "Long story." She looked pointedly at the two men. "But I think it can wait for now."
Then Forest walked over to Lancer, gently pushed him back, and said, "Okay, what's going on here that you've got my Hound of Ulster so excited?"
Ryoko walked over to Lancer's side, ready to grab his arm if need be to restrain him. She looked between the two men once more and considered the situation carefully.
Tom took her pause as an opportunity to speak. "So you must be Law Unto Herself then. To be quite honest with you, I don't quite know what I said to get your Hound to start barking at me. He's been quite aggressive towards me since the beginning."
Ryoko sighed and shook her head. "I think I'll handle this one, Tom." The psychic looked at her quizzically as she turned to Forest. "From what I can tell, your Hound has sniffed himself out a Tom Cat. Cats hate dogs. Dogs hate cats. Plus Tom's social skills aren't that great to begin with. Oh, he says some pretty words, but he's not so good at using those words to not come off like an arrogant asshole,
sorry Tom, but you do. And since that comes off as a worse version of my dad, well... it was natural antagonism waiting to happen."
The magus grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of her neck. "Well... at least I
think that's about how it is."