Sarah Connor is cursed to be ever vigilant (ever_vigilant) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-06-19 03:39:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, neena thurman (domino), pete wisdom |
"You're not bleeding, are you?"
Who: Neena Thurman, Pete Wisdom
What: Dom checks her email, Pete almost catches her!
When: This morning or early afternoon sometime.
Where: Dom's place.
Rating: The usual warnings with these two, probably PG-13
Status: Complete!
It looked like someone's night was going to take a turn for the worse. Pete wasn't entirely certain why he'd even thought about meeting with Kitty again, but he supposed he could remain his stand-offish, abrupt, rude self, and not go around making a fool out of himself. One pint, talk, find out what it was she was talking about, leave. The conversation wouldn't take that long. The aftermath would probably be a real bitch to deal with. It was that part that Pete decided he'd simply drink himself stupid over, once he got...well it wasn't home, but back to where he was standing, right now. At Domino's. Only it was a lot less clean than it had been, and he was reminding himself that he should probably tell Thurman that he was leaving for a while.
It was odd telling anyone anything that he did, but with the times and tarot cards being what they were? It was better to let her know so she could be on guard and shoot anything that burst in on either her, or on Romany.
With that in mind, Pete lit a cigarette and shut his laptop off at kitchen table. He stood up and slowly walked toward the bedroom door, much resembling a man with an appointment for a lethal injection.
It may as well have been home, with the way it was already starting to resemble places Pete had lived in, in the past. In another week there'd probably even be a table constructed of Pizza boxes, that Domino would twitch repeatedly upon coming across. She knew what was awaiting her out there, which was why avoiding having to face that was on her short list of reasons why it was good to be sick in bed.
There weren't a lot of good reasons. Her gun shop was probably going to hell with her not there to watch over the staff, and her other job wasn't getting done, at all. Since Pete had spent almost every night there, most of them right there in bed with her, it had been impossible to even keep in touch with her various contacts.
It seemed like a good time, at the moment. The apartment was quiet enough that she felt comfortable with checking her email, at least.
Pete had almost made it to the bedroom door when he rolled his eyes, turned around, and went back to the kitchen. The least he could do after fouling up Dom's life, was bring her some damn apple juice that was cold, out of the fridge. So into the kitchen he went, the door was opened, he leaned in and puffed cigarette smoke into it, while rummaging.
The fridge was already it's own biohazard zone. Everything was in piles or shoved into mismatched sections, and some containers and packages were opened, so things had spilled out. There was a sad sausage just laying there drying up to a hard scab right next to a open carton of eggs, one of which had the top busted into so the egg innards were turning to glue, and no one had bothered to take it out. It's not like Romany could be arsed. She was too busy doing things that were legal in Amsterdam. Drug addled tart. If they weren't related, he would have arrested her by now.
He might still do it, anyway. Because she deserved it.
After dropping an apple juice container onto the floor, causing a slight leak, Pete picked it up, licked the side that was leaked on, and tightened the lid down a bit. As for what was left on the floor, he stared down at it, while smoking, and simply rubbed the sole of his shoe over the kitchen tile, to make sure that it was his version of mopped up.
What? It works. If someone's foot gets stuck to the floor, at least he can hear them complain or the sound of unsticking, which is as good a flooring alarm as creaking floorboards are!
Yup, it was pretty certain that one of these days, Domino would crawl out of her bedroom, and then her skin would crawl right up off of her body and head right back to the bedroom.
Right at the moment, though, she was paging through various emails pertaining to Very Important CIA things. Like department-wide memos about how prostitutes weren't supposed to be compensated for with the one form, and instead were supposed to be filed under x category. And a few anonymous tips that she mentally filed to look into, later. Then there was the message from the unknown address, which she hovered over a bit with her mouse before clicking on.
Mainly, because she was certain she knew what the message was going to be, even though the email alias had changed every single time that similar messages had been mailed to her. She took a deep breath in, and let it out, before willing herself to open the thing. Ignoring the message that went with the attachment. She already knew what it would say, though she'd check again in a minute or two. First she wanted to check the picture.
There was a sound somewhere in the house that startled her for a second, but it was so faint that she couldn't even be sure if her ears were playing tricks on her or not. She'd instantly minimized the window, but quickly opened it again, and saved the picture to her hard drive. Then she stared at it, tracing every single piece of the picture with her eye. Collecting details in her head of the boy in the picture, comparing them to those of the last picture. Trying to find anything that told her if the picture was actually current, or where it had been taken. It was a process, and she got very lost in it.
With the nudge of a knee, the fridge door was closed, and Pete began once more walking back toward the bedroom. He wasn't in any rush and, when he wanted to be, he could be very, very quiet. It wasn't all snark and snapping all of the time with him. He was, at the very least, being mindful that his cuddle buddy bed-mate was still getting over being ill and didn't need stomping in her home.
Sure, someday, Romany might have one of her fucked up drum circle meetings in there, but that was for another time, and place. Something which he was sure Domino wouldn't enjoy, since they were going to be sharing a secure location, the three of them, to keep their eyes on each other's backs. Maybe by then, she'd find she really liked messes, beaded curtains, drum circle meetings, and patchouli oil. But somehow Pete knew that probably wouldn't be the case. It'd more than likely make Thurman want to spritz bleach all over the place and the home invaders, if she didn't outright shoot them.
Cigarette still clamped between his lips and apple juice in tow, Pete reached out with his free hand for the bedroom door handle. He turned it very quietly as to not disturb her, and started to peek in to see if she'd nodded off again or if she was awake.
His head wasn't around the corner of the door yet, since he was moving on pace with a sloth on valium.
She was sitting up in bed, laptop on her lap, with a look on her face that was very obviously the one of someone who was giving something intense scrutiny. Which she was. She couldn't tell if there was a trick of the light, or if there was some discoloration on the boy's skin. If it was a bruise, she was going to be extremely angry very deep inside, hopefully buried far enough down that her house mates wouldn't see.
Not at all noticing that Pete was creeping into the bedroom, she decided to pull up the last photo, by means of comparison, and had pulled the window over top of the email, so that the pictures were floating side by side. Then she pulled the laptop in a bit closer and squinted at it even more.
When Pete finally did peek around the door and saw that she was awake, he coughed once, in that rough sounding way that only a smoker could manage, to let her know he was nudging the door open the rest of the way.
Her face sort of mirrored his, when he was responding to Kitty and the whole Black Air mention, earlier. It was probably something work related, so he sort of stood his ground and stared at her, waiting to see if it was okay to enter the rest of the way. And, as a show that he was there with an offering to the gun goddess, he had the container of apple juice held out to show her he meant no harm.
The Goddess of Guns didn't respond to the cough, or the peace offerings of Apple Juice Containers, such was the level of attention she was giving to whatever she was staring at. She pulled up a third picture, just to make sure her eyes weren't playing tricks on her. At this point she also decided to start trying to spot any other differences between the three pictures that might give her any kind of clue.
She really wished, not for the first time, that she had better technological equipment than a laptop. If she had some more high tech things, she might be able to do more with them. Then she shook her head at that thought, because the IM was probably 18 steps ahead of her. These photos were probably already months old, or the location had already been switched or ... something.
If he knew, Pete would've offered some of his connections up to help with that. But he didn't know, and he was left standing in the doorway with his eyebrows raised up slightly, taking the last few drags off his cigarette, and the apple juice held out. He gave it a waggle, like maybe that would make it more tempting. Or maybe she'd notice the movement, since the cough didn't get her attention.
Pete might be quiet, but he could also be a little impatient sometimes. After a full minute of watching Thurman in workmode, Pete cleared his throat and said, "You hunch any closer t'that screen, Dommy, you're going t'take a tumble right into it."
The sound of Pete's voice DID startle her out of her obsessive scrutiny of the pictures, and not only did she jump back away from the laptop so hard that she whacked her head a bit on her headboard, but she snapped the laptop closed so quickly that if someone's hand were on it, they'd probably have it severed off.
Well probably not, since a laptop wasn't really sharp enough to do that, but it'd whap someone's hand pretty hard, at the very least.
"WARN someone when you're walking into their personal space, you!" Dom hissed, then rubbed at the back of her head.
"I've been in and out of your personal space for days now," Pete snapped back at her, still not moving an inch. He was still gracing the doorway with his presence, hadn't so much as took a step into the room, and one hand was still holding out the juice to her. Only now, he wasn't waggling it. And now, his eyes were narrowed. A lot.
After a tense few seconds of silence, Pete asked her a bit too casually, "Work related mess, is it? Because I'm about t'tell you t'get fecked with your accusations of walking into personal spaces, seeing as how I coughed a whole bunch at you and got no response. That's why I said summat t'get your attention."
Domino's mouth opened and a string of curse words came tumbling out of it, while she continued to rub the back of her head. Finally, she regained some composure, and held up her hands like she was trying to wave the white flag of surrender before they started shouting at each other over really stupid shit.
"I'm sorry. I just ... got lost in something. Work stuff. Yes. And I didn't hear you come in, or ... I was really zoned out. Don't keep looking at me like that, you're going to bore holes into my skull, and it doesn't need more holes than the ones it has."
Well, it was work related, at least she admitted it. That was why the glower faded down to a unwavering staring at, and he began to move closer to the bed. He didn't look at the laptop, as apparently it was personal stuff that only she could see on there.
"You're not bleeding, are you?" he asked, trying to get a closer look. "You sounded like you bashed your skull good and proper. Here, take your juice. Then I'll ask you to look at my hand and tell me how many fingers I have held up."
While Pete stubbed out his cigarette into whatever excuse for a bedside ashtray he'd chose to use lately, he held up one hands with his fingers extended in such a way as to properly flip her off. Two fingers. Because that's how they really roll, back home.
The scalding look Domino gave him in return for the two-finger salute could well have burned his fingers off completely. It simmered down until it was just a bit dry, and she sighed, then took her hand away from her head to look at it, "No, I'm not bleeding. I'll probably have a goose egg later, that you can poke and laugh at when we go to sleep."
She took the juice and took a long sip off of it, while trying not to glance back at her laptop, to make sure it really was shut. He knew it was work stuff though, that was a great excuse, and he'd probably avoid even looking in the vague direction of the laptop until she said it was safe, now.
Part of her just wanted to show him, anyway. She told that part of her the many ways in which the Illusive Man could kill her brother and then her, to shut it up. While smiling cheerfully at Pete, and drinking juice.
She was acting oddly, and he knew it. But, true to form, he didn't even so much as glance at the laptop, even if there was the nagging beginnings of a warning signal going off in the back of his mind, somewhere. He ignored it, because it was Domino, and he believed he had a very good grasp on her quirks, after so many times they'd crossed paths, or drank together over the course of the last few years.
"You know, last night, how you said I was being more antisocial than usual," asked Pete, very casually, like he was talking about how the sky was blue. "You're acting rather odd right now. So it must be summat pants, wotever it is you're working on. Uhh..pants, meaning bad. It must be very bad. Right, that. You going t'be all right, there?"
Pete wasn't the only one with warning signals going off in his head a bit. It was like the picture had reminded her of all of the things at stake if she failed at this, and having Pete and Romany in her day to day life was going to make failure almost assured. The entire thing was a trainwreck of secrets and lies, that was going to end badly at some point for one or all of them, and she had no idea how to vocalise that. Worse, pushing them away at this juncture would just make things very obvious that something was wrong on her end. She tried to put all of that out of her mind, though, and focus on the now.
"Oh yeah, this? This mission, it's nothing. Piece of cake. I'll probably have it wrapped in another month, maybe even less. Go shoot some bad guys, like you know I like to do. Boom, on to the next one. Really, you worry too much. You just startled me, that's all."
Then she twisted her lips a bit, like she was confused about something, "How in the world does the word 'pants' suddenly mean 'bad'?"
"If you say so, Thurman," Pete dryly responded, in that working tone of voice he got, when he was being given facts, but he wasn't entirely convinced until everything was wrapped up with a nice pretty bow on top. However, he didn't have much choice but to believe her, and he didn't have any reasons or evidence to question her, either. After all, it was her, and she was one of lone, single handful of people among the living, that he trusted. Enough so, that he trusted not only that she'd have his back, but also his sister's, if worse came to worse.
"Pants. Like, that's pants? It means it's bad because it's underpants, and it'd be like throwing your underpants on summat. No one else would want t'touch them, because they know where it's been. Means it's nonsense, rubbish, no good." He stopped talking and shrugged all of a sudden. "I was just going t'bring you the juice, and tell you that I'm going to go meet Kitty, because she needs t'talk about some things. So I'll be out for a bit. Anything you'd want me t'bring back for you?"
"Besides her head on a silver platter?" Dom joked, then frowned when she realised it was a really mean joke, and Pete didn't seem to think it was all that funny, either, "Sorry. Uhm. No, that's alright. Unless you get hungry on the way back. Maybe Romany wants something, but I'm pretty much okay for now. I have my trusty apple juice."
She waggled the container like 'see, the apple juice is right here, and I have it', then grinned a bit. The grin soon relaxed into a more normal expression, and she eyed him, "Are you sure going to talk to her alone is a good idea? Maybe I should go with you."
The look he gave her at the silver platter comment was pretty much, yeah, not amused. Though he could understand where she was coming from, and had been asking himself the same things. It took a lot of deliberation on his part, to even ask, but it seemed like Kitty needed someone to talk to. His own curiosity over her asking about Black Air of all things, or talking about giant bullets and world saving, was enough to rouse his curiosity. And the more rational side of himself wanted to know if she had any leads to get closer to implicating Harper in anyway. In case Fury wasn't sharing all of his intel to the interpol contact person, which was him. He didn't to entertain that prospect, however, so it was better to talk to Kitty, find out, and try to talk her out of nosing around or pretending to be a ninja superhero.
Pete drew in a very deep breath and let it out very slowly, before he spoke again.
"It's probably not," he admitted, "but I'm going to go do it anyway. Public place. People there. Less chance of a ruckus. No personal talk. One pint and it's done. I'm only warning you, because I might be in a mood, after. But I'll be out of your hair, until then. You can go back to your work things and if things pop up, I'll message you and let you know."
"Well, I appreciate the warning," Domino sounded more concerned than was really healthy for either of them, and she frowned a bit more. She really didn't think this was a good idea, and not just because she'd have to deal with his mood afterward, either. Him coming into contact with Kitty just seemed to make him even more suicidal the more of it he had.
She was pretty damn selfish, and she wanted her former-co-worker-who-she-didn't-want-to-s
And her brain really didn't need to have that thought about what to do with the handcuffs. She poked at it with a mental pointy-stick of 'stop that, we need to focus now'. Because she did. Alarming warning bells in her head. Etc,etc.
"I'll prepare the brain bleach of 2 parts whiskey to 2 parts whiskey and have the cheesy kung fu movies ready?"
Well the walk off the pier was due to happen with him anyway, since he already had the figurative versions of that covered in his life, so he was simply looking for the correct situation to let the literal portion run its course, without brakes being applied. Though given Romany's predictions, he was pretty certain that something was going to run afoul, and he wouldn't have to do anything, other than make sure he killed his liver and lungs, in either order. Things would simply take care of themselves.
"Definitely. Because the alternative is off until you're well again, so it's drinking meself senseless later. Then prostitutes, or me lips are going t'find their way to your neck like a lamprey. And we know we both don't need that," he pointed out, very matter of factly. Because last night had been drunkenly awkward enough that he packed that guilt into it's own little carry-on case, and threw it onto the big pile of emotional guilt-ridden luggage mountain that he dragged along with him, like so many metric ton weights. He was getting very, very tired of the dragging. "I'll bring you back some take away or drive thru. Care for a happy meal with a toy? I'll get you one of those, with a sippy drink."
"Oh it wasn't all that bad," Dom replied with a cheeky tone, because cheekiness always kicked the ass of awkwardness if you applied it enough times, "You left a lovely little red mark on my neck, and if things were different I'd definitely subscribe to your newsletter."
Whatever that meant. It had sounded better in her head. She waved a hand to imply that he really shouldn't pay any attention to how weird that sounded, "Anyway, it's so cute when you take care of me like this. I most certainly would enjoy a happy meal with a toy and a sippy drink. Make sure it's a boy toy and not a girl toy, though, because the girls only get barbies and my little ponies."
As to the rest of it, Dom never wanted that day to come. She suspected if it did come, she'd finally succumb to the burnout herself, and join him. So she tried not to think about that too often. Being cheeky and cheerful might not chase away drunken awkwardness, but it at least kept her from feeling too depressed.
"Shooty boy toy, no pink, no ribbons. Got it." He leaned in and gave her a split second kiss on the cheek. "Wotever this rubbish is that had you glued to your screen like that? You'll get it sorted and it'll pass. We're professionals, after all."
He tapped one very warm fingertip under her chin, in a 'chin up!' gesture, and turned away to get his coat and things, so he could leave. Then it occurred to him that Romany was probably still out shagging hippies for drugs and to get her jollies off.
"Feck it! I hate doing this, but I need t'borrow your car. I promise, nothing will be missing off it, when I return it. No bullet holes, no scratches, no broken windows." He held one hand up, like he was making a solemn vow. "One piece. Entirely. And I'll be straight away home, after the pub and your happy meal."
He'll be good to it! He won't even park it in the hedges or against a wall!
There were a few seconds of hesitation, wherein Domino stared at him like she wasn't sure if he was trolling or serious, and then another few where she realised he was serious, and said a little prayer to the car gods that her car really would come back without having been crashed into anything at all.
She tried to look reassured about the rest of it though, especially with the chin's up gesture having been applied.
"You're promising and I'm trusting you... The keys are near my wallet on that little table by the door. Assuming no one touched anything and everything is exactly where I left it, and that wild animals or hippies haven't somehow been rampaging through the place."
"Not yet they haven't, but I'm dreading that as much as you are," he admitted, giving her a smile. That was his coworker, coming through for him like this and trusting him so much. She's so brilliant. "One piece, no troubles. I might even go the speed limit. Fancy that."
Really, he might. Maybe. We hope. He is a notoriously bad driver, and the only reason he still had a license, anywhere, was because his parking tickets were rendered null and void.
Pete ran the fingers of his hands back through his hair and pulled his coat on, straightened his tie, and shoved every little thing he thought he needed into his pockets. Then there were the guns, because it was like an American Express commercials. He didn't leave home without them.
"No reason t'clean meself up, is there. Heh." He shrugged and started heading out, one hand raised up in a farewell. "I'll be back shortly."
"Drive safely, for the love of ... cigarettes." Dom shouted at his back, as he walked out.
She might have even sounded worried about HIM, instead of her CAR. It was impossible to tell.
She actually muttered some kind of half-assed prayer to the God she rarely talked to, that he'd get home in one piece. Then? It was back to staring at her photos and drinking her apple juice.