Sarah Connor is cursed to be ever vigilant (ever_vigilant) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-06-14 05:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, neena thurman (domino), pete wisdom |
"You could've found out last night..."
Who: Pete Wisdom, Neena Thurman(Dom, etc etc)
What: So many inappropriate Feels, ya'll.
When: Sometime today.
Where: Lucky Shot Guns. It's not a pub, but that's okay, because Pete brought Beer. To a Gun shop. I know, right?
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13, pretty sure. Language, Smutty talk, Drinking, Smoking, The Usual.
Status: Complete!
It was a strange twist of fate that he'd ended up in the same pub as Shepard and Domino last night. Not that he was going to complain, even if he woke up that day with aching lungs from smoke inhalation. It had been exciting. And any time that Pete could find to fuck with clowns? He was all over that, like salad cream on sandwiches.
Even so, he had been casually interested on how her night turned out with Shepard. Which was the precise reason he intended to show up at Dom's gun shop, with a take-out bag of chinese food and some bottled lager. Of course, he had to park by crashing the car into the corner of the neighboring business, next to Lucky Shot Guns. It warped his front fender, and cracked the headlight, but it was unsatisfyingly minimal damage, in Pete's book.
He strode toward the door, freshly lit cigarette clamped in his mouth. Hands full, he proceeded to knock on the door, with the toe of his shoe, mumble grouching loudly enough for the owner of the establishment to hopefully hear him, "Oi...you there....move yer arse an' open the bloody door, would you? I bring offerings."
If there was anyone less enthused with how the night with Shepard had gone after they'd cleared out, it was Domino. Instead of going home that night to sleep it off and patch her face up, she'd gone back to her shop to fire off her guns, repeatedly. Then she'd crashed in her office, and had only slipped out and headed back home to change clothes.
And fire off secret messages. Because her business computer was laughably secure.
She was working her inner fears off on a custom gun order when she heard the screech of tires and the crashing noises. She sighed, turned her machinery off, and headed for the door with safety goggles still on... to see Pete whacking his foot against her door and scowling at her. She hoped to god there was liquor in those bags, as she opened the door for him.
"...'ello, dear. Look at wot a wonderful provider I am," he said in an utterly snarky tone of voice, holding up the bags so she could see that it was like the trophies from a hunting expedition. Considering he'd killed his GPS off, it sort of was just like that, too. "If you're busy, I can take my provisions and bloody well leave."
While he was talking around the cigarette in his mouth, though, he appeared to be studying her at a closer distance than last night. Although, if it were pointed out, he wouldn't be able to say what for, other than a certain curiosity that will likely result, at some point, in a question or two. He also knew he probably wouldn't get an answer for those questions, fully, because of their jobs. But a tiny bone being thrown in his direction, where Dom was concerned, was better than none at all.
Besides that, he trusted her, from having worked with her before. But even Pete knew when to keep his own mouth shut.
"It's a small wonder that we havn't not-married yet, what with your ability to provide me with," And she paused to take the bags so she could peek into them and see what he'd brought her, "Chinese food and beer. Not a bad haul at all, Wisdom."
The shop was slow enough at this time of day that Domino figured it was probably safe to take the food into her office to eat, where there were chairs to sit in, and a table to eat off of that wasn't her very clean counters. So she motioned for him to follow her, "We'll eat in my office. Put that cigarette out, it's going to fuck my guns up."
He wouldn't, of course, but at least she could go on record as having told him to. Which was about as close to winning that battle as anyone, in the history of dealing with Pete and cigarettes, was ever going to get.
He didn't. He gave her a piercing staring at, the moment she dared say such a thing, and followed her in, 'merrily' puffing away the entire walk back to her office. No one was winning that battle. Except cigarettes, when they kill him in the end, and are sad because he can't suck on them anymore. Sad panda face.
But that's for the future and the future is not now. It is the present. And he is smoking his way through her shop, getting everything smoke covered and smokelicious, for he is Pete Wisdom, and he likes to spread the wealth that is him, all around, whenever possible.
"I'm so pleased you're still considering the fine offer of my hand in non-marriage," Pete quipped, looking around for a place to ash, before it landed on the floor. It was going to, if he exhaled out his nose, even only a teeny tiny bit. "I thought I'd check in, see how your night went."
There. He made it clear as day, before even sitting down. Pete even went as far as to sullenly watch her, waiting to see how much she was willing to say. It was far from the abrupt treatment he would've given anyone else, where he wanted answers and he wanted them now, damn it. He was, for once, showing a small glimmer of patience.
"I didn't get laid, if that's what you're asking," Dom snerked, and picked up a nearby coffee mug, then handed it to Pete as if to say 'use this as an ashtray before you get that crap all over my floor'. Which she didn't need to physically say, because he knew her well enough by now.
She opened up one of the nearby windows to let the smoke out, then plopped down into her desk chair, looking about as cranky as she felt. The night was mixed blessings, but she was still pissed at the entire situation. ILM had told her not to do any theatrics and to keep watching the situation, but what she really wanted to do was drop the case entirely. She obviously wasn't capable of doing her job.
"The clowns were the highlight of my night," she added grumpily, while taking out a beer and popping it open, "The rest of it just sucked."
After tapping the ash into the cup, Pete dragged a chair over toward the open window more, so he didn't smoke her out, entirely. Someone was in a mood and oh how the tables had turned, because it was usually him in a mood. He was still in a mood. He'd always be in a mood. He wasn't going to delude himself, thinking otherwise. But Domino being in a mood that wasn't quirky, means something probably happened to rub her in several different wrong directions.
He leaned out, taking a beer for himself and sat back with it in hand. A well aimed plume of smoke was blown out of the corner of his mouth, toward the window.
"It's things that you can't talk about, pertaining to an assignment. Isn't it," he surmised, not expecting any details, since he tended to not give any himself, unless they were explicitly working on a case together. He gave it a stab at trying to lighten her mood just a smidge, by mentioning the sleeping with Shepard part, "And I was wondering a little if you did get laid. Is that so wrong? I'm not feckin' dead, after all. Still have a pulse. Unfortunately."
Beer carefully in hand, Dom leaned back in her chair and put her boots up on the desk. She'd clean it later, whatever. She took a long swig, and shrugged her shoulders, while going a few rounds in her head over how she ought to proceed with this.
"Oh there was action of a sort, but not the kind I was expecting. I'm not sure I would have followed through on the other kind anyway, but. She held me at gunpoint over our ale glasses. It was all kinds of awkward questions, you know? I hate those."
"Gunpoint. Really," Pete replied, in the sort of way that someone had told him it was about to rain during the first week of February, in London.
It was Shepard after all, sort of like it was Domino, and that meant some sort of firearms were going to be involved, somehow. Though he had thought maybe there was some serious flirting there between them. Guess not. He shrugged a shoulder after opening his beer and taking a drink off it, glancing over at her every so often.
"I know you didn't want your cover blown, Dommy," he said after a long moment, after he'd put the cigarette out. "So you don't need t'fill in the blanks. There's things I can't share as well, at present."
"So I had to reveal that the Agency had me tailing her. She wasn't happy about THAT at all, and my handlers will be pissed. Also, I apparently gave off all the wrong signals, and her best friend is better at this than I am." She hadn't meant to say that last bit, but there it was, coming right on out of her mouth like a runaway train. She appreciated the fact that Wisdom kept telling her not to tell him anything, though. Whatever else you could say about him - and there was a lot - he was a professional in the end.
So she nodded at him in appreciation of that fact, "There isn't much to say or not say anymore. She knows, you might as well know, too."
"Shite, Dom, ya didn't need to say it," Pete said, one eyebrow arched much, much higher than the other. However, at the same time, he didn’t stop her. He simply slouched down, the beer resting against his leg, fingers around the neck of it, and mulled over what she was saying. That was right before one shoulder twitched up into a shrug.
"I know you've got t'do what you've got t'do. But you're not fecking inept at this. Shepard is simply biased. We all think we know someone that's good at tailing people. I get by, but I know you're better than I am. I'm only sneaky if it involved getting the bloody drop on someone, crime in progress, blah blah blah, oh no, don't shoot, too late, blah."
Pete took out a pack of cigarettes, drew one out, and tossed the pack onto her desk if she wanted one. She might need one, they way it sounded. You simply didn't insult a professional, without them taking it personally. Then again, sometimes, shit happens.
"I think if you keep a further distance, you can do your job, and your handlers won't have any further complaints. I can't ask why you need to tail her, but if the CIA believes there's a reason and she knows, but let you go? Then no harm, no foul. Do your job and get on with it."
"It might be a boon in disguise," Dom shrugged a shoulder, too, and reached over to grab the pack of cigarettes off of his desk. She'd sworn she wasn't going to smoke as much this year, but with Wisdom in her life it was nearly impossible. There was a long quiet moment after she lit hers up and tossed him the pack, where she mulled over everything he was saying to her.
"We can't tell eachother more, I know. But I'll keep my distance for now. I know for a fact she's still in trouble, and she might need me." She held up a hand before he could complain about how much more she was telling him, "That's all I'm saying, I promise. The less you know the better, I know. Fuck, I just hate being caught is all."
That said, she reached into the chinese takeout bag, pulled out a container and chopsticks, and dug in. She didn't even bother to check and see what it was.
"We all get caught with our trousers down sooner or later, Thurman," Pete said with the utmost seriousness, having caught the pack with the swipe of one hand. He'd already shoveled food in his face the precise moment that the old tea drinker on the internet had given him the address, and the sweet and sour pork was so good, that he didn't think it would hurt to bring some to Dom.
And she knew him pretty well, he realized, because his mouth had fallen open to start moaning at her to stop, but her hand had given him the halt signal and he'd snapped his jaw shut, to let her finish.
"Don't let it eat at you. Simply eat your ruddy food, and I understand all too bloody well what you're getting at. Still, I'd wonder how she's in trouble. But I know her relatively well, and I know she can take care of 'erself, just as well as you can."
For all of Dom's quirkiness when it came to staying neat and clean and keeping everything organized, Dom wasn't at all a clean eater. She was shoveling that sweet and sour pork into her mouth with all of the fervour of someone who had starved to death for days. Come to think of it, when was the last time she'd eaten? It wasn't like beer counted.
It really didn't. It was not a food group at all. Neither is Coffee, for that matter.
She listened to Wisdom as she ate, though she wondered why he had to go asking questions like that. It was like he wanted her to talk more, when she knew damn well he didn't. So she squinted at him, chopsticks still raised in the air with a piece of pork in them, "Why are you saying that? You know damn well you don't want me to keep telling you things."
Alcohol and cigarette smoke are a food group. It's right there as the base parts of Pete's food pyramid. The other parts are red meat, potatoes, and miscellaneous ethnic cuisines (curry, pizza, noodle bowls, et cetera).
"Feck off, I'm bein' supportive is all," Pete grumped back at her, with a scoffing sound under his breath. "You don't have to t'tell me a bloody thing further, if you don't want to. I'm trying t'do...that thing...that you do for people you know that you don't want t'get shot up or the likes...where it makes them...think things are better somehow. By using words. That don't include saying 'feck' or the likes, every ten fecking seconds."
"That and I want t'sleep in the grips of evil again, so I'm staying overnight with you," he added, as a final capstone, like there was no debate. And he cleaned himself up and everything. Even the boxers are new. With double rainbows on them. What does it mean? It means he's clean. Dammit.
"How is yelling at me being supportive you--" Dom cut herself off and rolled her eyes, then tossed the chinese food container at her desk unceremoniously, "You're trying to make me feel better with words that aren't the word Feck, that's cute. But I don't want to put YOU in a bad place by telling you more than you need to know. So... we're just going to have to deal with not telling each other things. Which, as professionals, we're qualified to do. At least I used to be one, before I was told otherwise."
Her lips thinned into a very thin line then, like she just really wasn't able to let that go at all, and probably wouldn't let that go for the rest of the century at least. Then the other thing he said registered, and she blinked her eyes at him, "and... wait. Fuck. How is sleeping in my bed the Grips of Evil?"
It was like her entire conversation with him about Ikea had been completely forgotten.
"Wot're you on about?! Why're you angry with me, for trying t'be supportive for once! Feck it! It was weirding me out as it was!" Pete was now smoking a cigarette with a vengeance, ashing out the window wildly, to put emphasis on what he was saying. "I didn't want t'know in the first place. And another thing. You're not inept, so stop acting like you are before I get good an' hacked off, and give you a thorough tongue lashing of the verbal variety! You won't like it. I can guarantee it."
He sat there, in fuming silence, smoking and drinking, for a few additional tense seconds. That was to let his words sink in with her. Then he dutifully informed and reminded her, "Your bed is the grips of evil, because you told me it was an Ikea bed. I need to study it, so that I know better how t'destroy it, later on."
Sadly, he was telling the truth.
Pete Wisdom was kind of sexy when he went off like that, which was a thought that Domino wished she hadn't had, the second that it was spawned in her brain. She rubbed her hands into her eye sockets as he kept talking, as if maybe grinding her eyeballs back into her brain would remove the thought. Thankfully, she was soon too overcome by the irrational need to slap him repeatedly to really think about anything else. Wisdom had that effect on her, especially when he was scolding her. Even worse, when he was right.
She filled the fuming silence with her own fuming, smoking, and drinking, then glared at him as he threatened to destroy her bed, "Oh no. You are NOT destroying my bed. I love my bed. It's my baby. You can't destroy it just because of Ikea."
"Well I'm bloody well sleeping in it tonight," he sourly said with a obstinate glare right back at her, "and I'll destroy the rest of the beds when the great Ikeapocalypse hits. That's just before hamster cages and the actual zombie apocalypse to cull the population down to a sustainable fucking level t'support life on the planet again, only compartmentalized!"
Back to sullen boiling grawrr smoking again. It was another nearly full minute of drinking and smoking, before Pete grudgingly admitted, "It's more comfortable than the lawnchair or the floor. But if you e'er repeat that, I'll 'ave t'shoot you."
"Well FINE, Bloody well SLEEP in it tonight, then." Dom threw her hands up, because honestly there was no arguing with this man when he got like this. She opened up a third beer and pointed at him with one finger, while the rest of her hand still rested on the bottle, "And I won't tell a living soul that you secretly sleep comfortably on the Demon Bed."
She crossed her heart with her finger like she really meant it!
"Brilliant, because if you told anyone they'd never believe you anyway!" he said thunderously, like that was that, and he was a British god, decreeing that from up on high. He smited snuffed out that cigarette and promptly lit another. Then he polished off that beer, dropped the bottle over the arm of the chair onto the floor - just like home! - and took a flask out of his trench coat pocket, so he could begin drinking the good stuff. His liver demanded more toxins to filter out!
Also, just so it was out there, since he already had a tipsy buzz going before his foot met her business door, Pete was certain to add in a sullen, low voice, "And I demand spooning. And eggs in the morning. With scotch. Because it amuses me."
And maybe because he thinks he can at least try to get away with that, before he meets the grim reaper.
That there was one of those things that made Domino wonder why it was she tolerated being friends with this great slob of a man. She sat in the chair with one eye twitching for precisely 30 seconds, which was probably a record for her, before she swung her legs down off her desk and got up to pick the bottle up off the floor. She glared at him as she did so, then decided to make a game of the whole thing by showing him her ass nicely up in the air while she did so.
Why? Because Wisdom was fun to fuck with, that's why. And maybe because she wasn't really sure she cared about professional distance anymore, at least not today. The moment of teasing-with-nice-behind was soon over, however, and she was sure to grumble at him for copping a feel or staring, at some point in the process.
Bottle now picked up, she lobbed it into her trash can, and took a seat on her desk, "You'll have to settle for Jim Beam with your eggs, it's all I have." She didn't feel like arguing about the spooning.
Wisdom stared. He looked as though he was reading a particularly interesting news article. It was highly involved, to the extent he had both eyebrows in the slightly elevated position, his eyelids half-closed, and his mouth a straight line around a cigarette, held deadcenter between his lips.
Why'd she have to go do that, then? He swore it was on purpose. He also swore if he didn't stop watching her like that, he was going to wake up filled with several bullets, or get a fine telling off. It helped she mentioned alcohol and eggs, because that sounded grand, and got his mind off certain assets she had flaunted around to distract him. Well it wasn't working. Eggs. Alcohol. Brilliant.
"I'll settle," he said, trying to sound reluctant. "For once."
"So nice to discover you know how to be reasonable, Wisdom," Dom quipped, her mood much improved. She took a look at the time and decided that now was as good a time as any to close up shop. Rarely did she get customers in this late at night, though she always liked to stay open past nightfall in case she got in the kind of crowd that needed bullets for evening activities.
Activities, of course, that she never, ever asked about. Just merrily sold the bullets for, while counting her money. She needed to advertise more, but that could wait. It wasn't like this shop wasn't privately funded, anyway.
"So I guess that's the plan, then? Go back to my place, spoon on the Demon Bed, pray it doesn't somehow eat your soul or turn you into a hamster, wake up, Eat Eggs?"
She said that like she was almost certain he had something else in mind in between that, like more pub crawling, or perhaps staking out more biker clowns to rough up.
"That's the bloody plan. Is there a problem with it? I think not. Take me to your demon bed, you glorious tart! And tell me more about the whole shoving of faces between things, while you're at it."
He might be joking. He's probably joking. We think he's joking.
Pete stared at her, angrily and seriously. That didn't last long before he snerked under his breath and stood up, giving her rubbish bin a kick with one foot, so the bottle rattled around in it.
"I almost expected you t'say summat about the sucking cock mention, last evening," he admitted, in full snarky humor about the entire thing. "Surprised you didn't. It was amusing though, pretending we didn't know each other, so we could get flirty. If only that were the real case, eh, Dommy?"
That's right, Wisdom. Diffuse the fact you just stared fixedly at her arse. Diffuse it, entirely.
"Oh I was going to, but then the biker clown got in the way, you see," Dom said, all flirty like. She chucked the remains of the chinese food and beer bottles into the trash can he'd just kicked, grabbed her keys, and started heading to the door, "But what I was going to say, is that I'm a lady. And a lady always swallows."
She looked at him over her shoulder and grinned back at him, "It was fun getting to flirt with you, though. Maybe I could explain that whole thigh-face-shoving thing to you over a glass of something when we get back to my apartment."
Why was she flirting so heavily with him? Maybe because she thought it was funny. Maybe because she felt like he was somehow, in his way, calling her bluff. She didn't like it when people called her bluff. If Shepard had gotten her back to her place and called her bluff there, she'd probably have just gone through with it.
That would have been interesting, and she wondered aloud about it, "What would two girls DO anyway? Fingers? Scissoring somehow? Attachments? I bet she's an attachments kind of woman."
Why was she flirting? Why would she do that? He almost didn't follow, but realized that he was moving along, as though on autopilot, spurred on by thoughts of attachments and blow jobs dancing through his head like sugar plums.
"So, you're a lady, are you," he asked, his voice taking on a softer 'o reeeeeeely' tone to it. "However did I not see this before. It must've been when we were too busy shooting at baddies an' trying not to be shot at, ourselves."
Oh he should not be going there. It could be very messy, following through with anything, and not only for him, but for her. It wasn't something he really wanted to do, yet he couldn't really stop the discussion without it seeming abruptly awkward, could he?
"You forgot tongues, luv. Fingers an' tongues," he judiciously pointed out, like she shouldn't forget that. "You could've found out last night, if the option was there for the taking." He caught up just in time to whisper in her ear, "Or are you saving yourself for me?"
The brakes screeched to a halt in Dom's brain with an almost audible crash. If it could be heard, it would have sounded like every single parking job Pete Wisdom had ever tried to do, that's the kind of crashing that was happening here.
She turned a bit, to face him, lips close enough that he could probably feel the breath on his face. She looked deeply into his eyes and leaned in a bit, like she was threatening him with kissing - which with the state they were in really was threat- then stopped and pecked him on his scruffy cheek instead.
They were by the door leading out by now, and she pointed behind her at it for emphasis, "I don't think we should have such personal discussions in front of the door. We'll hurt its feelings, since you gave it such great sex the other night and never called it back."
Truth be told, they had been close enough that he felt her breath on his face, the moment their eyes met and it seemed as though she was going to kiss him. The reason for that, would be that his own breath had expired. It had ceased to be. It was an ex-breath.
Sure, his eyes followed where she was pointing, to the door.
One eyebrow quirked, and he muttered darkly at the door, "Feck you, door, you were a tart anyway, opening for anyone who's passing through. Besides, it's cold and hard and has metally mechanisms inside it that lock it up. Reminds me of me ex."
One arm suddenly slipped around her waist, so his hand was pressed against the small of her back. Pete had apparently forgotten all about the door, since it was right back to gazing into her eyes, and smirking in such a way, that it could be taken as self-assurance, or simply him screwing with her to get on her nerves.
That would've worked, if he hadn't kept talking, but he did, "I think you're much warmer. I'd even phone you, afterward."
This was getting serious. It was getting serious, and was going to fuck everything up if they didn't handle it right. But Wisdom and her were professionals, so maybe they could handle it right, which is to say that they could maybe just do this once, pretend it was because they were curious and to get it sorted out, then go back to eating eggs and jim beam and coffee and snarking at each other the next day. Potentially even like nothing had happened.
Which was the highest form of wishful thinking, but she couldn't even remember to breathe while he was staring at her like that. And the hand on her back felt reassuring somehow, which might not even have been the way he'd intended it.
"Well," She finally gasped, while still maintaining eye contact, "I am still a tart, though, so you should probably be warned about that."
"It's all right, b'cos I'm still a bastard," he murmured, and moved in to just lightly brush his lips over hers, a mere grazing of lower lips, before he moved and placed a kiss against her cheek, like she'd done to him. And his hand slipped right down to her ass, for a bum grab of massive proportions. To make it even worse and to break the sexual tension there, he made sure to honk honk his hand on her left asscheek, to add insult to injury.
It wasn't fair to her to keep it going, and ruin things between them. As much as he was incredibly tempted, there was the fact that, afterward, there would be massive amounts of awkward that could potentially drive them apart. When one had so few reliable and trustworthy...coworkers...in the world, a mere handful at times, amongst the living...it was worth it to keep them close and not rock the boat too much.
Though the boat did feel very topsy turvy throughout, and he did stare at a little helplessly and regretfully for a split second. It was enough of a hint that he was concerned about causing a mess, also. And the mess wasn't worth risking losing her over.
It was expected he was going to get thwapped really well, because Pete decided to give her one last butt pit pat with his hand. In case it wasn't clear he was pulling a fast one on her to lighten the unresolved sexual tension that seemed to be bitch slapping them both.
She'd been expecting him to kiss her, fully, in the kind of way she'd almost been begging him with her eyes to do. And when it hadn't gone quite the way she thought it would, and he'd proceeded to get in a bit of a butt pat in, she realised that she'd been holding her breath.
It didn't seem fair and it didn't seem right, all of a sudden, and she felt irrationally emotional. Rejected, despite the obvious sexual tension there, and despite all of the many reasons they had to never act on it. And she understood - probably as well, if not a bit more than he did - why it was there was concern over messing it up. After all, she had secrets deep enough to lose him over, and that was without adding complicated emotional bullshit to it. He'd been through enough, too. She didn't need to make everything worse by letting this get out of hand.
A few more seconds passed and he was pit-patting her butt again, and she was actually relieved that he was an asshole enough to take one for the team and BE the asshole in this situation. It was the sort of thing not everyone would have been man enough to do.
She broke away a bit and turned back to the door, using locking it up as an excuse not to look at him and reign her emotions in. When she was done she nodded at him, "Let's take your car."
"Wait." He hooked a finger into the back of her shirt or jacket or...whatever she had on at the time, a warm fingertip slipping down to stop her for a moment. He at least owed her some sort of...something. "I don't want t'hurt you. That's all."
The unsaid thing in his his voice, was that he would have gone for it, otherwise. But for all those reasons they knew too well, it would probably be pretty doomed from the get go, like most of his relationships were. The point was, that Pete valued her too much to do that. They could have some clandestine closet cuddles, but he was aware of the fact that they were basically eye-fucking each other in the gun shop, and he was going to have to tread carefully. Losing Neena was not an option he wanted to entertain.
He leaned in, pressing a kiss to the back of her head, into her hair. Then he drew away, drawing out his pack of cigarettes and saying under his breath, "You just want the danger driving t'distract you. Fine then. I'm eating all your eggs in the morning."