She’s much more beautiful in person. The LinkedIn picture didn’t quite do her any justice it it’s 240p, pixelated form. Kieran takes a table a good few meters away but just well enough so that he can spy the blue hem of her fluttering dress and the small, curling coifs of her soft brown hair. It disappoints him a little to know that she will have to die, but Kieran feels reassured in the fact that she will be sent to the grave in most fashionable attire.

And to think Elvis Presley had to go in the strangest of ways, Kieran wrinkles his nose in mild disgust. Pun intended.

Selena orders a lobster steak. Kieran’s eyes draw towards her just slightly above his held up menu as he watches her order - the man sitting opposite laughs at something he can’t be bothered to listen to before vigorously swirling his glass of wine and downing it. Somehow it all plays out like the start of a movie, background music tinkling some uninteresting melody that only enhances the dialogue of a two-character conversation. That’s all they are, Kieran supposes with an air of distaste. Characters. It will do him good to listen less and look more.

Something blocks his view in a flash of blue and grey leather- Kieran nearly jolts in his seat, blinking rapidly, the menu dropped in stunned surprise. It isn’t until the figure takes a seat beside him that Kieran has to swallow the bile rising up in his throat and furiously choke on it instead. He reaches for a glass of water, just as that bastard Kilgrave does the same, fingers curling over Kieran’s. His hands are colder than the ice that floats between them.

“Kilgrave?” Kieran says sharply.

His presence here. It’s unwanted. Kieran feels himself spit the word with so much malice he nearly doubles over - his oxfords dig themselves into the ground before they have a chance to leap forward and impale Kilgrave on a steak knife. Some part of his screams for death. Another turns frantically for Bovy. His body eventually comes to the unanimous agreement that he is incredibly hungry and wants to order a Pink lobster and eat the entire thing.

“How are you sirs on this fine evening?” A server sidles up to them, eyes bright and welcoming, hair slicked back with gel and holding a mini clipboard in his hand.

“So excited.” Kilgrave returns the smile, dotted with malice, hands curled tightly around Kieran’s now as they both clutch the cooling glass. Water sluices between their fingers. The glass itself trembles under the pressure of Kieran’s clenched hand. He wants it shattered - a fine murder weapon for such a disastrous occasion.

The waiter beams, oblivious. “Romantic night out, huh? Just you two fine gentlemen?”

“Two year anniversary,” Kilgrave replies smoothly, fingernails digging into Kieran’s knuckles. He feels the beginnings of a bruise begin to form. “Or should I say...” and he leans in - he dares to lean in, the bastard - “two hundred? We’ve had our ups and downs.”

“Indeed, my darling.” Kieran does his best not to seethe, and the tone of his voice reaches something dangerously passive-aggressive. “But I couldn’t possibly imagine my life with anyone else but you.”

“How sweet!” The waiter’s eyes grow round, the buffoon, his ears tune out the dripping sarcasm in Kieran’s voice as he brings a hand to his chest and sighs. “Taking like an old married couple without the arguing-“

“Plenty of arguing.” Kieran chirps.

“Not enough.” Kilgrave grins.

“You’d like more?” He bites back a growl, and Kilgrave releases his grip on the glass cup, hand reaching for the back of Kieran’s neck before drawing him in.

“Indubitably.” He whispers, sharply in his ear. He smells awful.

“We’ll have a lobster. The big one. I’m so terribly hungry today.” Kieran snaps, drawing away in disgust.

“Of course. That’s the only thing we recommend.” The waiter notes enthusiastically before he’s gone in a swish of coattails and footfalls.

As soon as he’s gone Kieran turns to Kilgrave, whose folded his hands so arrogantly one would think him a spoiled brat getting a stupid, gaudy toy for his magnificent kingdom of gaudy goods. Kieran folds his own arms in retaliation.

“Payback,” Kilgrave says curtly. “For what you did to me.”

“I barely scratched you, Kilgrave.”

“You shot me in the spine.”

Kieran rolls his eyes. “I had the decency to not aim at your head. You have the indecency to interrupt my hit.”

Kilgrave sneers, leaning in to close their distance as the same waiter returns with some wine- “on the house, gentlemen!” And curls his fingers around the slender stem of his glass.

“There’s no such thing as decency in the world you live in, Kieran. We all broke the rules a long time ago.”

“Then what are we still doing, sitting here?” Kieran drawls. “I should kill you right now.”

“Yet you don’t.” Kilgrave cocks his head. “I certainly can. I have the years to pay it off and nothing to lose. Why do we hold back?”

Underneath the table Kieran feels Kilgrave’s foot trace his shin, slowly, taunting a reaction. He jabs. Kilgrave jolts forward and the table shakes, foot retreating. A surge of triumph fills Kieran’s chest.

“Because I’m a gentleman.” He answers.

“Because you’re a fool.” Kilgrave hisses. “I know why you started killing and why you haven’t stopped, and it’s for all the wrong and twisted reasons.”

Wrong? Certainly. But Kieran isn’t so sure that they’re twisted. Judas always counted him as a romantic.

Selena Bovy picks up her knife and Kieran’s head turns sharply to his right. It’s nine. Their lobster arrives in a timely fashion and smoke dances between his eyes. Kilgrave picks up a knife, dangled precariously between two fingers, before piercing the hide with precision. With a flick of his wrist, the shell rips under the sharp edge of the knife’s blade - juice pools out from under the glistening lobster flesh and seafood aroma wafts towards Kieran’s nose.

“I won’t give you a chance to kill her.” Kilgrave murmurs, picking apart Pink lobster - lobster that was meant for Kieran alone - and biting into the crunchy shell. “Consider today a failure.”

“I will,” Kieran replies curtly. It stings to admit it, but Selena will not die today. Alta would be... proud. Sort of. 

He isn’t sure what she would think.

“While we’re on the subject of love,” Kilgrave starts-

“We were never.” Kieran interrupts, shredding white meat with his hands. It parts in elegant halves and he wolfs it down.

“You implied.” Kilgrave smirks. “And she must have been so beautiful.”

Kieran pauses, with a frown, hands hesitating over his next selection of meat and shell before taking a portion substantially larger than the last.

“She was.” He lies. It wouldn’t matter whether he told the truth if it was Kilgrave. “Lovely.”

“A Helen of Troy, I’m presuming.” Kilgrave swings his fork. “So beautiful you massacred every man who so much as saw her.”

“I removed a specific section of the population.” Kieran corrects smoothly. “Like you said. Vengeance.”

“Vengeance.” Kilgrave coos. “But is there no thrill in seeing people perish?”

“I only thrill in knowing that the species who’ve murdered her will die.” Kieran shrugs casually.

“That’s a pathetic excuse.”

He stares into his lobster. Red stripes curl at the side of his fork, white meat strewn across his plate.

“It is, isn’t it?” He says.

Kieran’s phone vibrates. An SOS. It’s such perfect timing that he couldn’t possibly refuse to answer.

“This is Oculus.” He murmurs, locking eyes with Kilgrave as he answers.

“Please pick me up.” Kieran nearly drops the phone.

“What?”

“I wanna go home. I’m sorry. My friend’s drunk and she won’t take me. I-“ the babbling breaks into a crackled sob. “I hate it. I hate parties. I want to leave now.”

Somehow her voice, strained and on the verge of shattering, doesn’t break his heart like it would to any other person. But it does indeed, lift a weight off his chest he didn’t know was there. Looking to Kilgrave with the softest of smiles, which he responds to with a look of confusion, Kieran replies.

“I couldn’t agree with you more.”