"Why do you… do that?" Barnabas broke the silence of Dr. Hoffman's office as they two sat opposite each other, the vampire hooked up to the blood transfusion machine and the doctor smoking a cigarette. It was midday. The sun was far too high in the sky for them to indulge in their little bedroom activities, so Julia had offered to help the strange man instead. Little conversation had taken place.

Actually, since their last sexual encounter, they'd rarely spoken to one another. The good doctor had taken to quarantining herself within her quarters to make sure those hazardous emotions about her bed-mate would vanish into thin air, but with each passing day, they only seemed to grow just that much more. That meant her portions of drink grew as well and so she was knackered out of her mind half the time. And that was no fun at all. No one would go near her. It was the unspoken hypocritical oath of the Collins family – don't interact with Dr. Julia Hoffman was she was drunk off her ass. Come one, she wasn't that terrible when she was wasted! She would just-

Wait – he had asked her something. Julia shook her head a bit to snap back to the present. Barnabas was staring at her intently, his eyes peering into her own.

"What?" She exhaled in a deadpan voice, flipping the page in her magazine and warily eyeing the man across her. Her legs were crossed underneath her floral skirt, her blazer thrown behind the chair. It was rather cold in the office – she didn't know why she took it off in the first place. Maybe it was her low cut shirt that she wanted to show off, but Barnabas was too much of a gentleman to look in the first place.

She cocked an eyebrow at him.

He gestured to her left hand – the cigarette between her delicate fingers. She looked at it for a moment, briefly admiring the gentle swirl of smoke that twirled about the air around her hand before inhaling once more. Ashen air was slightly clouding her view.

Julia shrugged. In all honesty, she had no idea why she smoked. She'd just picked up the habit in high school and it stuck with her.

"I like it," She answered tersely before squinting her eyes at him. "Why?"

Barnabas looked surprised for a moment at her not so terrible question of his motives, but he soon slid that perfectly chiseled mask back into place and looked away from her. Dr. Hoffman could physically feel her heart drop a bit at his cold shoulder. They'd been sleeping together for months and this is still how he acted sometimes?

"Never mind, Miss Hoffman. I was merely wondering. My curiosity has been sated."

The redhead nodded unsurely and went back to her magazine without a second thought. She guessed the only time they could really hold a decent conversation was during sex after all.

Okay, I've decided to make this into little Barnalia moments that do, in fact, contribute to a plot that I may or may not have come up with yet (;

As always, reviews are welcome. Please be kind.