[h3] Duke [/h3]

Duke continued the calming motion of his fingers in Esme’s hair, tempted to rock her as she seemed to be calming down. He completely ignored her ‘thank you’, expecting nothing from her other than taking his affection, taking a deep breath, and relaxing enough that Dean wouldn’t murder him for upsetting her. But as her body relaxed in his arms, Duke smirked over the side of her head, just taking in how it felt to have her arms around him. In a way, whether he would admit it to her or not, she was grounding him, too.

As she brought up trauma bonding, Duke laughed, and tilted his head in a bit of a shrug, “I mean, I’ve had worst first dates.”

After a moment, Duke chuckled again, and moved his hand down to Esme’s back, rubbing her shoulder blades, “I’m just kiddin’. I may look like a playboy dickhead, but I ain’t that much of one. And thank [I]you[/I] for takin’ a hug from a complete stranger who’s half naked and hasn’t even bought you a drink.”

And then Esme brought up the obvious, and Duke stilled for a moment, thinking about Dean coming out and finding them, but he tilted his head, “Oh yeah? What did he tell you about me?”

As if on cue, Dean’s voice called from about twenty feet away from them, “So, I see that shooting’s going well.”

Duke glanced up, and smiled, pulling back from the hug and straightening his hat, “Conversation got a little heavy at all. I’m a hugger. You know that.”

“Yeah. Yeah I know. I also know that your…friendliness gets you in trouble…a lot.” Dean scoffed, turning his eyes to Esme with a look that said ‘you didn’t hear anything I said, did you?’