Who: Melinda Bobbin and Alec Harper Where: the Neep When: Saturday evening, 7pm What: A date! Warnings: none Status: complete
Alec had made the reservation for seven, so he arrived at quarter to in order to check in even though he knew Melinda wouldn’t be there. While the Neep was a bit...formal for a first date, the only other place Alec ever frequented was the Chinese restaurant, where you had to yell everything you said. Since his mission was primarily to get to know Melinda better, he decided that wasn’t the best place to do it. The Neep, on the other hand, while fancy (to a point where it was nearly excessive) was nice and quiet. So here we was, waiting, drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair. He hoped it wouldn’t appear too keen that he had shown up first, and he hoped Melinda wasn’t the type to be fashionably late, since he’d never been very good at waiting. He held off ordering a bottle of wine until Melinda got there so he knew her preferences, and instead was sipping idly on a glass of ice water, patiently waiting for her to arrive and hoping everything went over well. (and that she didn’t judge him too hard for his existence.)
Melinda was a little late, but all her hair and makeup charms were still having more dramatic effects than she wanted. She’d managed to make herself look not like a mannequin, though, and arrived, allowing the hostess to lead her to the table. “Hi,” she said, smiling a little as she sat down. She was not yet convinced on this. Alec had always come off as something of a goofy moron to her, and with no interest in her to boot. He sport-flirted the hell out of every other woman he spoke to, it seemed, but never her. Melinda might not be the most socially adept person on the planet, but she was observant, and the trend spanned the several years they’d both lived in Dunmoody. She was a little curious about the sudden asking out. If nothing else, she’d get free dinner, and if he was seriously as stupid as she feared, it wasn’t like she was the sort to shrink away from just walking out on him.
Alec smiled when Melinda sat down, surveying her outfit appreciatively. “Hi,” he replied. “You look wonderful.” While his track record was probably not the greatest in terms of serial flirting and dating, it wasn’t his fault that someone had misleadingly informed him, all those years ago, that Melinda was a lesbian. He was sort of hoping to avoid that conversation today, however. Possibly ever. “It’s good to see you,” he said warmly. “I haven’t ordered yet, if you want to have a look at the wine list. How was your week?” It was typical first-date conversation, but he was eager to learn more about her after she had captivated his attentions on the journal network and his idle conversations with her, so it was certain to progress as time wore on.
“Oh, fine. Not that exciting, once everything started working again,” she said. Being a pureblood who had avoided Muggle everything like the plague for most of her life, she’d been pretty helpless, but she’d at least had her sister-in-law to feed her. “Yours?” She picked up the wine list and glanced over it, picking what she wanted quickly and setting it down again. She wasn’t familiar with most of the wines and wasn’t interested in trying anything new tonight, so the decision was pretty easy.
“Ugh.” Alec nodded sympathetically. “It was fairly rubbish,” he agreed. “But it’s so good that things are back to the way they usually are. Takeaway only goes so far, and the lights were a problem. But we survived, and here we are!” He nodded his approval at her wine selection and perused the menu casually as he spoke to her. “Other than that it’s been all right, working and talking to Maximus, nothing too out of the ordinary. I think I need to try this steak. What are you thinking?”
Melinda looked at the menu. A lot of things seemed to have complicated names, although there were also descriptions from which she could figure out what she was looking at. “Oh, Merlin, erm...I think I might try the tortellini.” That looked like a fairly simple, basic dish from the description. Melinda had a pretty set range of foods she liked. Just the smell of shellfish made her gag, and it seemed to be present in distressingly high concentration on this menu. Tonight was not the night to go getting adventurous.
Alec nodded. “The tortellini is pretty good.” He had been a frequent patron of this restaurant, once upon a time, usually with a different woman every time, but he sort of hoped that this time it would be different, this time it was an opportunity for many more dates to come.
Eventually, food and wine were ordered and arrived and after a few more minutes of first date get-to-know-you conversation, Alec decided that they’d both had enough of that and paused cutting his steak (and trying to eat it as un-savagely as possible). “I’m really interested in your work,” he told her, hoping that didn’t sound too terribly creepy. “I mean, not only does it basically sound like the most interesting and satisfying thing ever, you also seem to really like it. What’s it like? Is every day thrilling and exciting or is it more normal? I imagine it gets a bit dangerous at times--is that a bonus or a down side? I promise I’m not going to write an article about this,” he added, laughing. “I just don’t know how to not speak journalist, I guess.”
Melinda smiled and looked down at her food at the onslaught of questions, resisting the urge to geek out completely. She took another bite of her food to let him finish, setting her fork down when he seemed done. “Well, it’s both, really,” she said. “It’s useful to think of it as two seperate jobs,” she said, gesturing as she settled into shop talk mode. “There’s investigations, which is one thing, and security, which is almost completely different. I was actually surprised how little the skills overlap, given how often they’re bundled together. Investigations are usually quite boring. Most of the dramatic stories you’ve heard on the wireless about private eyes are not true. I would say ninety-five percent of it is ‘prove my husband is cheating’ or ‘find me dirt to slander my neighbor.’ The most interesting thing I get on a regular basis is probably stalking cases, where someone doesn’t have enough evidence for the Ministry to investigate or arrest, but they know they’re being stalked. Stalking is incredibly hard to prosecute if the perpetrator has an ounce of sense,” she explained.
Alec nodded enthusiastically as she basically just geeked the fuck out about her job, smiling a little bit (although not as much as he was smiling internally). “How do you even do an investigation on stalking? Stalk the stalker?” he wondered, taking another bite of his steak and a swallow of his wine, hoping that she would continue talking for as long as she wanted, because not only was he riveted, it was also adorable as fuck. Fact. He never would have thought that a woman who loved her job would be so attractive, but, much like everything else about Melinda, it was rather a pleasant surprise, and he loved every second of it.
“It depends. If they’ve laid some kind of surveillance charm, I can try to trace the magical signature of the person, or at least the wand, that set it. If there’s equipment involved I can try to figure out where they bought it, which is another clue. I don’t always catch the stalker myself, but all I usually need is to gather enough evidence to justify the Ministry using resources. Sometimes I can’t even do that,” she said, shrugging. “But the victim taking that action and letting it be known that someone is looking for them is often enough to discourage the stalker. And if not, I’m also there to be hired as personal security if someone’s concerned for their safety,” she said, spreading her hands and maybe smiling a little. It had pleased her unreasonably the first time she realized how easily these jobs could become much more lucrative security jobs.
Alec nodded. “That’s really interesting, and of course, always a bonus when it has heaps of options so you’re not limited by your skill set. You’ll never be bored!” Done with his food, he was able to focus more intently on what Melinda was saying. “Besides kick arse and catch bad guys, what else does the ever-enigmatic Melinda Bobbin do in her spare time? Knit socks? Help homeless kittens out of trees? Read to orphans? Vigilante work? Inquiring minds want to know.” He poured another glass of wine, and then tilted the bottle toward Melinda, offering.
Melinda rolled her eyes a little, adding a smirk to perhaps soften it as she let him pour. He hadn’t done much to discredit the “dweeby moron” perception, although she had to admit it was a little cute how fascinated he clearly was by her work. At least he didn’t pull the pureblood nonsense of how unbecoming it was. Melinda could fake the proper Lady thing with the best of them, when the time came, just as easily as she could swap remedies for the hiding of awkward sex bruises with Brielle. None of that involved not doing what she loved. “I’m not very interesting,” she admitted, picking up her wine glass. “I mostly read, work, and get bothered by my brother. You might like him actually, you seem like the sibling-harassment type,” she said with a smirk, lifting her wine to take a sip.
Alec was a dweeby moron. Underneath all of the suave and the sexy, he was actually a big dweeb, and it was pretty telling that he didn’t try to hide that from her. When she brought up her brother, he shook his head. “Nah, I’m pretty close to my siblings. It’s a product of being motherless or some shit. I think that my relationship with them is why most people think that I’m a nice guy or some sort of humanitarian or something. If I’m nice to them, I must be nice to everyone.”
Melinda cocked an eyebrow, setting her glass down with a smirk. “Then we might as well end this date right now, because nice guys don’t last long around me.” Melinda had dated a few guys who could be described as nice. She tended to call them puppies, and she tended to rip them apart and leave them in the dust without really meaning to. She supposed no one should really be surprised that she could be a maneater, given what she did with most of her life.
Alec smirked, eyeing her and shaking his head, sipping his wine. “That’s not exactly what I said,” he told her. “I said they think I’m a nice guy. Not that I actually was one.” No, he could certainly handle Melinda, given the chance, and it was definitely a misleading implication that he was a nice guy. He was goofy and dorky and a little bit daft at times, but he could also be smooth and charming and dominating, too.
Whoa. Hello. Suddenly, he seemed to transform completely in front of her eyes. That was...Melinda didn’t even have a word for what that was. Intriguing? Unexpected? Fucking hot? He’d been giving her this look while he said it...oh sweet Merlin, she was having a sudden desire to fan herself. She was probably blushing, or had a stupid expression on her face, or both, and she couldn’t think of anything to say. Not anything coherent, anyway. She shook her head slightly and took a sip of her wine to buy time, trying to come up with a response that involved words. She continued to watch Alec over the rim. Okay, so maybe the evening so far hadn’t been a complete waste.
Alec smirked at her unexpected (and quite endearing) response, watching her as she struggled for words. That had gone over well, he thought, and made a mental note that he needed more of the suave and charming, apparently. “Cat got your tongue?” he asked coyly, smiling his patented Alec-Harper-panty-removing smile at her. This was going better than he had expected, that was for sure.
Something about that cocky smirk and coy tone sparked Melinda to action again, and she raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps you ought to mind yours a touch better,” she said, finally setting her wine glass down. “Don’t you know it’s cruel to strike a woman speechless?” She batted her eyelashes exaggeratedly. Oh yes. Definitely not a waste.