Or maybe his head didn't feel right. He knit his brow when the latter's thumb brushed against his lip, and it didn't take a dolt to know that the touch was prolonged when it neared the tip of his tongue. Probably it was now that his "classy gentlemen" instincts kicked in and warned him that this was a dangerous scene—dangerous, which meant that everyone could see this cursed moment: see how his eyes widened behind his lenses, the Vans that lightly slid over his Converse, the heat that forced him to breathe deeply, the sudden nearness of both of them. He tried to pull out of that hold, but found that he couldn't, and all he could do was sit still as that thumb played over his mouth, ran over it in a way that could only be tagged as obsessive.

"Desmond—"

"You had some salt on your lip," the assassin stated, though his tone was laced with a guttural note that prevented it from being normal. "Some salt … Shit."

"What are you—"

"I'm not stupid, Shaun." A breath. "I see the way you wrap your lips around that beer bottle. I see that clearly, the whole fucking time."

What the he didn't even—

"You left that salt there on purpose?" There was that laugh again. "Yeah, you probably did. You always had those damn D.S.L's, anyway."

What.

The.

Fuck?

The restaurant then seemed much too quiet, much too hushed, as it everyone was watching this Twilight Zone cinema with all the zeal they could muster. Shaun could find no words to throw at that hooded gaze and wicked voice, the thumb that swept one last time over his lips before it made its way to its owner's tongue; he couldn't shake himself, nor could he rebuke this entire diner for this closed moment under the microscope. It was truly a moment where the scaled tipped completely in favor of raw confusion and mortification over that inner conscience that strummed its lyre as fast as it could for some much needed attention.

Was the apocalypse over now?

"I already paid the bill."

No, it was just beginning.

"So lick those pretty lips of yours."