Who: not!Vaughn & not!Christian(sort of) What: First chance meeting. Where: New York Public Library. When: After the moon. Warnings: UM. Some sexual connotations that fade to black.
Christian pulled his fedora down lower on his head and grinned. This was perfect. The blueprints The Megazord had gotten him were detailed and contained the access information unavailable to the public, and had been acquired without leaving either trace or trail. More importantly, even through all of the construction that had been taking place around the building, the rare book collection was intact, as were the ways he had been considering to get in and out of it. There were still several steps to go through before he could even consider making a move, but a distinctive plan was beginning to build in his head. This was completely possible; in fact, it seemed like one of the easier ones amongst the jobs he'd decided to pull.
He sat down at a table by the wall, out of sight of most of the large room. With the access routes cased, the only thing he had left to do today was observe: the habits of the librarians, the movements of the cameras, the general frequency of visitors. It would be several days before he'd have a clear picture of who was when where, but the only way to get through it was to put the hours in. So Christian pulled a book from his shelf, opened it to a random page, and began to observe.
The library was a bustle of movement today; finals were apparently close in coming, and many of the tables were cluttered with red-eyed students and mountains of books involving revolutions of the world or the lives and deaths of varying physicists. Despite the lack of population control, the library was quiet. Then again, libraries usually were. But this wasn't a peaceful quiet, the low volume of the room ached with discomfort and a sense of urgency. Nobody looked up from their books unless it was to whine or huff in dramatics.
She seemed separate from them in that way; the woman across the room, second table to the right. Where her table was nearly empty, the others around her were piled. Where the others anxiously pulled at their collars, she coolly shrugged out of a gray cardigan and settled back against her chair in the comfort of a rose-printed camisole. There was only one book in her possession, and she surveyed it's text with a level of distaste that radiated like Chernobyl from the dark swell of her eyes. She'd been there before he ever took his seat, yet wore no element of exhaustion, although maybe a bit of boredom. Even if it didn't look like it, being Jane was quite exhausting.
Finally, she shrank back against her chair with a jaguar's stretch, seeming to have read through most of the book that was on the table. She tilted the dark crown of her head, all that plain jane brown hair loosely held in a constellation of bobbypins -- some of it spilled into her eyes when her attention sliced past him. NYU sweatshirt, NYU sweatshirt, NYU sweatshirt, fedora.. wait.. those eyes doubled back, she could barely see him because of his position; table at the far corner of the room, half obscured by a wall of books. But still, she hiked an eyebrow at the hat, and ran up the charge of a self-amused smile that burned with dismissal when she dropped her eyes back to her own book. The library called all kinds, didn’t it?
Seeing as how his job at the moment was people-watching, it did not take long for Christian's eyes to settle on the pretty woman across the room, so obviously unlike everyone around her. She liked her subject material as little as the students studying for their finals did, but there was something about the determined way in which she tackled her task that made Christian's eyes draw back to her over and over again.
Christian should have been observing the room. But there was no way for him to focus on anything else, not when there was someone that fascinating sitting within view. Christian had made a career out of reading people for clues and analyzing them, and everything about the woman indicated that she was more than she seemed. The simple exterior did not go with the lithe movements, at least not to a trained eye. Surely, he was looking at a professional.
He watched her eyes travel across the room before stopping in his direction. So, she had noticed him too. Deciding that there was no point in delaying what he felt was inevitable, Christian shut his book and got to his feet. He moved across the room towards her table purposefully, dodging pushed-out chairs and haphazardly dropped backpacks with a cat's grace. "Hey," he said in an undertone, the corners of his lips twisting up into a small smile. "I was hoping you could tell me what you were reading, because I've never seen a beautiful woman read anything with that much determination." Clearly, Christian hadn't gotten where he was in life by being shy.
Tortuously consumed once more in the details of the thickly-bound volume, she didn't notice the man’s swift and graceful approach. It wasn't until he murmured, Hey, and his shadow was cast over her table that she even looked up. Her eyes were autumn mulch, a dizzying compound of so much chocolate and oak. Eyes like that should have been warm and friendly, but her gaze was warped with a keen interest that had everything to do with him and nothing to do with what he was actually saying. It was an appraising look, and she folded her slim fingers over the content of the open book to obscure it from his curiousity.
"I find that hard to believe. Isn't that why you come to the library, Humphrey Bogart?" She briefly gestured to his hat with a carnivore's smile. "To scope out women and their books?" Something in her tone said she sure as hell didn't believe he was here to read. "Too bad you don't have a trench coat, you could have come off as a first-class pervert." She tilted her chin, easily imagining him as one of those classic streakers that got arrested for exposing themselves at zoos or parades. Or libraries.
Christian shifted his weight onto his back leg and smiled. Being sized up was a daily occurrence for him, whether it was by someone deciding to invest in his latest scheme, other players who saw him as competition, or simply by members of the opposite sex. Of course, the last option was by far his favorite, and as such under the woman's scrutinizing gaze. As far as the world was concerned, he was simply Christian Spade, the kid born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and he had absolutely nothing to hide.
His grin widened at the brunette's remark. God he loved a girl with a sharp tongue, even if the one in front of him was decidedly not a girl. He took no offense to the bogey comment, since it wasn't the first time someone would assume a guy like him could only be around to pick up girls. It was a part of the package, he had learned early on. "A trench coat would hardly be surreptitious now, would it? Bogart was nothing if not a classy gentleman."
“Mm,” the woman murmured with a corrupt train of thought. The man didn’t seem dissuaded by the shallow shark pool of her tone, in fact, he might have even been encouraged by it. Was he actually grinning? She leaned back in her chair, making no small show of the way her eyes clawed over the little details of his clothing, his face, his eyes. But it was difficult to tell if she was more interested in him, or where to slip the first knife.
“Classy, perhaps, but I don’t know about gentleman.” Was she talking about Bogart or the man before her? “I bet he smoked cigars in church and made all sorts of pretty girls cry.” The plague fringe of her lashes rose in inquiry. Yes or no?
And then, just when she should have ripped him into a couple new pieces, or cut the legs out from under him, there was a concession. A minor one, really. So minor, that she might have even played it off as being forgotten coincidence and nothing more. She shut the book, and the cover blazed in gold filigree, giving up it’s only secret. The title read, “An Analysis of Classic Romance and Literature."
Christian stood his ground under her scrutiny. The glint in her eye belay something more than idle curiosity, but instead of alarming him, it only seemed to make him calmer. His first analysis had been spot on so far. As good as Christian was at his job, he still took pleasure in doing it well. It was when things became to easy that he would begin to panic.
"Possibly also drank his weight in scotch. But men back then were expected to act that way. Men today..." He put a hand on the table, leaning slightly forward - enough to emphasize his point but not quite encroaching on the woman's personal bubble - and dropped his voice even lower, "men today act in ways exactly the opposite of what you might expect." He was laying it out there for her to pick up; how she took it would be on her.
He blinked twice at the title on the cover. Romance and Literature? That really did not fit with the woman he thought she was. Had he read her completely wrong? "I can see why you had to force yourself to get through it," he finally said. "Research?" Christian was even more curious now than he was before; he'd be damned if he didn't figure out what kind of player she was.
"Sure," she answered, dropping the bare curve of her shoulder in a subtle shrug. Research, that sounded nice and safe. Hell, it was actually pretty spot on. It wasn't that Vaughn wasn't capable or intelligent, she just found certain subject matters daunting, boring, and disagreeable. She'd always been more interested in chemicals and numbers. You pushed a button and something happened, it was all cause and effect. It was hypotheses, it was boiling compounds, it was even explosions. But reading was so.. sedentary. Where was the smoke? The potential fire? The hazmat suits?
Despite her disinterest, Vaughn was very able. She'd read through some six hundred and fifty pages since the library opened that day, and hadn't taken a single note. She knew the importance lie only in the feeling that came off of the page, and not the page itself. This snake could be a very good faker when it mattered.
But it didn't matter now. Which is why, although the dark chocolate of her eyes belonged to Jane, the gaze it held was wholly Vaughn. A little dismissive, and a little rabid when she said, "Men today are supposed to be full of surprises, is that it?"
She leaned into the table's edge, nudging the book out of her reach with the petulance of a child. The rosewater honey flush of her cheek rested on the tabletop, a bit of stray mahogany fanning over the lacquered study space. She watched him like a doe-eyed jackal, "So surprise me. Pull a rabbit out of your hat."
He took a deep breath and dropped his hands into his pocket. His stance was still open, confident, but it carried more determination than before. He laughed at the suggestion. "Stage tricks are hardly surprising." Christian had spent the better part of a week learning card and coin tricks when he was fourteen, and could even pull a few out if she insisted. But that was not the game they were getting at here. "There's only one way to find out exactly what surprises a man has in store."
Christian paused for a moment, his blue eyes catching her brown ones with a spark she had to have felt. “So, mysterious woman with an interest in romantic lit and a penchant for magic, do you have a name?”
Oh, she felt it. There was something almost disorienting about the level of intensity in his blue eyes when they seemed so calm. She actually straightened from her poised slump against the table, and managed to barely keep the supersonic flare of curiosity off of her face. Vaughn had brushed him off as just somebody blessed with the solid charm of an accomplished skirt chaser minutes ago, but now.. she almost wondered if he was selling something. The idea felt at once legitimate and ridiculous. There was just something about his carefree stance, and the solid weight of his smile that reminded her(if only for a split second) of the kind of pitch her father could put on.
"Jane," she answered vaguely. There was something off about the way she said it, and it might take him time to realize exactly what made it that way. But she said the name like it was just any other word, like it meant anything she wanted, or like it meant nothing at all. There was almost no possession in it; no pride, or hesitant ownership. It just was. Jane.
But he was in a run of bad luck now, because he actually had her interest. It wasn't a very safe position to be in. A fresh canary dropped into the serpent’s basket. "And what about you? Or would you prefer to stick with Bogey?"
Christian felt a small sense of accomplishment when the woman sat up. She had honed into something about him the way he had her, and the interest in her eyes was definitely more than a fleeting one now. He fought the urge to grin when she said her name was 'Jane'. Christian had spent the better part of a decade using aliases and being around people who changed their name with every passing wind, and could have picked-up on the tell-tale signs of a fake name being given to him in his sleep. Only the best of con artists realized that owning the name - saying it with the conviction and possession of someone who had been going by it for decades - was as a big a part of the game as a thorough back-story was. But then again, he noted to himself with a hint of pride, only the best of con artists could tell the difference.
"Dominic," he said with without hesitation, pulling up one of his go-to identities. Dominic Burton: artist, grew up in the midwest, had been traveling for most of his adult life.
What a con artist might have failed to realize was that Vaughn had no particular reason to try and convince this man that she was Jane. Who was he? Dominic nobody, no concern to her fate at Bellum Letale. So she wore her illusion like a loose scarf, and if he didn't buy it for a second, that was his problem.
Daniel bought it. Ella bought it. Everyone in the building would buy it in spades, because she made it so real for them. Besides, they wanted to believe it. They wanted the misery Jane's return brought them. Wasn't the first order of a good con to convince your mark they needed what you were selling? Make it seem like their idea, their punishment, all them.
"Well, Dom, why don't you tell me what it is that brought you over to my table.. Ooo," her eyes lit up suddenly with a psychotic's verve, "Or should I guess?" Guessing games were always such fun!
The glint in Jane's eye made it obvious what answer she wanted to hear. "I think guessing might make things a little more... entertaining for both of us." ‘Dominic’ was genuinely interested in what the woman was going to say, mostly because most of the things she said were contradictory to what he had been expecting. She was fascinating, and he wanted more.
"May I?" he asked, gesturing to the chair in front of him before pulling it out. Once he was seated, he relaxed into the back cushion, not taking his eyes from hers as he awaited judgment.
Jane settled back in her own chair, eyeing him with the first shine of amusement in her eyes during the course of their conversation. “You lost a bet?” Why else would somebody with any sense of preservation approach her?
Although, before he could even answer, she rose her fingers in a frivolous display of erasure. “No, you’re probably not a man that loses regularly.. So that leaves, you either came over here because you really care what I’m reading up on, or you wanted to see if I’d screw you in the records room.” The only two feasible options, really.
Dominic did not respond verbally to the first guess, instead just twisted his face into a look that said don’t be ridiculous. Why would I need external incentive to come talk to you? He kept a straight face when she said he was not a man that lost regularly, for as true as it was, it wasn’t something he bragged about. Confidence was attractive, cockiness was not.
He grinned and drummed his fingers once on the table. “I didn’t know the second half was an option,” he said slowly, his eyebrows rising in question, “in retrospect, clearly I was aiming far too low.”
“You don’t think people actually come to the library to study, do you?” Jane dropped the words into a low hush, as if sharing some great secret with him. Didn’t he know? These walls of books were ideal for sleeping with strangers and hiding dead bodies.
Dominic’s brows remained up, now joined with a conspiratorial grin. “I seem to have been living in a delusion all this time.” He leaned forward, grabbing the edge of the table with one hand. “Would you be so kind as to tell exactly what it is that goes on in these places?”
Jane didn't offer an answer as she leaned into the table once more, an extension of her deceptively slim arm brought a grace of stone cold fingers to the back of Dominic's hand. She rose from her seat, detailed in the rose pattern of her camisole, the cheap corduroy flounce of her thriftstore skirt, and the dark seam of classic stockings while she moved for one of the aisles that were titled with a sign that read HISTORY/WORLD WARS. Jane contently abandoned the book she'd been reading and the dark comfort of that cardigan sweater slung over the back of her chair, and that might have been the only clue that she wanted him to follow her. She wasn't escaping, but this wasn't exactly a game a chase, either. She stalked slow and determined through the aisle of books, turning only once to give him a drop of dark lashes from over her shoulder.
Come along, little rabbit.. the slaughterhouse is just ahead. At the end of the aisle was a single wooden door with a plaque that's golden engraving read Records and Newsprint. There was a small window, it's interior boasted a darkness that bordered on ominous.
Dominic needed no other invitation. He followed Jane through the stacks at a leisurely pace, giving Jane some distance without losing her. He trailed his hand along the spines of the battered History tomes as he passed, inhaling the tell-tale scent of age-worn paper. Books had always been a solace for Christian, their solid presence one of the few things he could rely on being consistent no matter where he lived. But today wasn’t about the books or the research. Today he was playing a different game altogether: one tinged with excitement and possibly a hint of danger, a combination which worked like catnip on Christian.
He reached the door moments after Jane went in. After checking around one last time to make sure they were alone, Dominic turned the handle and slipped inside.
Of course they were alone. Jane was leading him into no trap other than that of her own venomous kiss. Her motives were as much about corruption as boredom, and Dominic proved a pleasant distraction from all her hours of Shakespearean quotes and anecdotes on Wuthering Heights. The tacky sweetness of those printed words was something she wanted to scald away, to rub raw with the sandpaper grit of a witch's affection.
When he came through the door of the record’s room, she was there. The distant algae glow of a computer screen in the corner illuminated them in blues and greens. Tinted her skin to something more befitting of a witch when her palm found his chest and eased him against the door he'd just come through. She pressed Dominic solidly against it, and tilted her eyes up to him. Eyes that should have been a dark and comforting brown.. in these shadows looked like a haunted, steely gray. Pale as an iced over gravestone.
She slid cool fingers around his side and locked the door.
Dominic’s eyes never left hers, even as she moved lithely towards him. She had the grace of a jungle cat, powerful yet delicate, and he was transfixed where he stood, unable to move away even if he tried. The viridian glow of the computer screen cast otherworldly shadows on Jane’s skin, and Dominic caught a glimpse of what he was here to see, the dynamic woman behind the simple facade. Everything about her was mesmerizing, and Dominic wanted nothing more than to be her willing prey.
His hand caught hers as it wrapped its way back around him. There was no question in his blue eyes as he pulled her towards him and covered her lips with his own.
The kiss was pleasant, but the last thing she really had in mind at this point. It was broken with a craven gnash of her teeth against his lip and a murmured sound that bordered on displeasure when she drew him from the door. After spending her day with all of that text; Pride & Predjudice, Jane Eyre, Gone with the Wind.. a dizzying kiss wasn't in order. She pressed Dominic down into the floor with hands that intended to do nothing but take. Fingers that looked too much like baby claws in the sallow light broke a couple of buttons and dug into the supple flesh of his wrists as she drew them above his head.
"Relax," she murmured as her mouth found it's way up his throat, as she pulled at their respective clothes and settled into the comfort of darkness. "There's nothing to be afraid of.."