It had been weeks since the incident with Azrael, and his nails had healed quite nicely, if he said so himself. He had them filed to perfection, not one of them longer than the other and all of them curved just so.

Atlas was smiling.

He hadn't stopped smiling since the day he did, the day Azrael took advantage of his sanity by making him want everything perfect. In consequence, it had also been a very, very long time since he had wanted everything perfect again. In fact, it seemed as if his goal, lately, was to create utter chaos, and in the strangest ways possible.

He had switched the price tags on every article of clothing in an expensive store—Prada, was it?
He greased the bottom of a pair of shoes that was bought by a curious young man—when the man tried to walk across the tiles, he had been sent sliding to the other side of the mall.
He let out the air in all the tires of cars that were the hardest to get to by a tow truck.

They were just simple, inane pranks, but what he loved was watching the chain of events that happened because of it. The anger, the surprise, the anxiety.

It was all a kick, really.

He reclined on one of the benches, hands in his pockets and that easygoing smile just touching his lips.

Jeff, on the other hand, was not a happy camper. His old sneakers, which had lasted him through five cities and ten years, had finally fallen apart. Literally fallen apart, soles falling off and everything. Anything else, he could have and had patched, but this was beyond even his skills at cobblery.

So he went to the mall, to buy a new pair. This was a major undertaking, as until that point he hadn't known the mall existed.

It was okay. The food was awful, but he wasn't here to eat.

He was here to buy shoes. That someone had sabotaged.

You did not mess with the shoes.

Jeff couldn't manage stalking like an angry cat, but he could certainly move angrily when the mood took him. Jeff was easygoing about everything but shoes. This went back a long time, back to a bored afternoon thinking about the intricacies of the phrase 'walk a mile in someone else's shoes' and a bit of childish reasoning. It had stuck, even when the reason was forgetting.

You did not mess with a man's sole.

Jeff himself was looking better, by most standards, than usual. He'd lost some weight (not all of it, though), washed his coat, was wearing the aforementioned new sneakers, and a nice blue sweater that set off his eyes. He looked like a respectable traveller, rather than a tramp. Big change.

Of course, the mess his hair was couldn't be changed. Hair that had looked like straw for the last ten years wasn't going to change overnight.

Jeff was feeling positive, after a couple of months spook-free. Not encountering vampires nightly was nice. Positive enough to be aggressive, even.

Shoe-boy was stalking towards Atlas with his hackles up and rarin' t' go, man.

Atlas was unimpressed by Shoe-boy's sense of style and imperfection, and he let it show in his eyes. That damn smile twisted at the edges, forming something a bit more sadistic. He watched as the boy stalked towards him not-like-an-angry-cat-would with his angry smile and mocking eyes.

You gonna make something of it?

Atlas was decidedly less easy-going these days. Paranoia at everything made him surly—attractively surly, mind you. Atlas would always look good, with his straight, perfect hair, white teeth and his great sense of style. He planned to even look good when he was old, but he never planned to get old. It was a rather viscious cycle.

You wanna fight?

"Can I help you?" he asked when the boy came close enough to hear him. His voice was smooth and slippery as oil, and dangerous as it could be.

Jeff eyed the man. Not warily, no, but with some weary cynicism. Whoever this guy was, he was scarily perfect looking. Jeff didn't trust perfect. Perfect had a habit of being dead....

Except this guy was breathing and outside during the day. Telling himself to stop being paranoid, Jeff summoned up some kind of smile of his own. It failed miserably as an attempt at 'chipper'.

"Yeah. You see anyone mess with these shoes?" Skip the small talk, eh? Well, yeah. In Jeff's experience, it payed to be direct. Less chance someone would take small talk literally.

Jeff wasn't sure it was this guy. Wasn't sure who it had been. But this guy had been around, and Jeff hadn't gotten where he was by being lacksidazical.

Or less than paranoid. Despite the denials he'd put forth if someone accused him of paranoia, of course.

Atlas grinned.

"Shoes? Why, those are very nice shoes. I couldn't imagine why someone would want to 'mess with them'. Perhaps someone with a shoe fetish?"

There was a mocking lilt to his voice, just a little edge that brought back his rusty Greek accent. It wasn't that he was making fun of the boy, it was just that...well, he was making fun of him.

His grin widened.