Gaby Teller (gaby_teller) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-10-29 17:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, gaby teller |
Who: Gaby Teller-Mason [narrative]
What: Dreams, dreams, dreams
When: 28 October, morning
Where: Her apartment/her garage
Rating: PG
Gaby jerked awake and sucked in a breath, feeling like she’d just run a marathon. The dream hadn’t been that intense, she’d relived the mugging incident and then, what had followed, was a drunken dance with a very irritated Russian, that had turned into a sort of fight where she’d passed out on top of him, or at least, the world had gone dark and she’d been straddling his hips. She hadn’t thought too much about it in the dream, liquid courage coursing through her veins but in hindsight it was strange, the desire she’d had to just get some kind of reaction out of Illya. She supposed if Solo had been there she would have been tempted to poke him, too, the two of them so snarky and repressed it was killing her not to be able to elicit anything other than an arched eyebrow or a snide remark. It was slightly different here, though they were both repressed as anything, they were frustratingly quiet and exceptionally good at deflecting anything shot at them, questions and enquiries bouncing off them like bullets off Kevlar. She felt like she was getting to know each of them in turn, though it was difficult and they did not make it easy in the slightest. Illya was soft underneath his hard exterior, wobbly edges that came out when they were eating lunch - or dinner - and sharing a drink or two. Napoleon was gentle beneath the prickles of his armour, curves and smiles that reach his eyes instead of snark and sarcasm when they were sharing a drink and a story - his, of course, heavily filtered.
She ached with the frustration of not being able to get through to them properly and was trying to remind herself that it wasn’t a personal failure on her part. Getting to know people was difficult, getting to know people who made a living being difficult to know was an art form that she was definitely not very well acquainted with. But she did her best, and that was all she could do. She hoped, since they were all catching up with each other in the dreams, these shared experiences would help them trust her a little more, would help them open up and let her get to know the real them, not the ones in the dreams, but she wasn’t holding out much hope.
Getting dressed and grabbing a coffee from the shop on the corner, Gaby headed into work early. It didn’t hurt to get through some of the paperwork she’d left outstanding. That was one of the things she hated the most about being a business owner; the endless, endless paperwork that came with it. Give her a car to fix and she’d be perfectly happy just moving from engine to engine, chassis to chassis, but no. Invoices and insurance, quotes and emails and endless endless other paperwork that made her want to tear her hair out were the bane of her life. And, apparently ‘a necessity if you want to run a successful business, Gaby’.
Her trip to the garage didn’t take long, she lived relatively close by and had chosen her apartment for that exact reason. She liked being within a stone’s throw of her workplace. It meant that she could get home quickly in the dark and didn’t have to get up too early. Mornings had never been kind to her, nor she to them.
As she walked, she spotted a grey sedan that had been there the day before, as well. She couldn’t see much of the driver, only that he was tall with dark hair and a non-remarkable profile. She was quite sure she’d seen him a few times, now, always within view of the shop but never coming in. His car was a rental, too, so even if he had decided that he wanted help with it, she wasn’t completely sure she’d be able to assist. After all, rental cars tended to have their own agreements and didn’t take well to others charging them for works requested by the client. The clients never paid. She learned that the hard way.
Tossing her coffee in the trash can, Gaby took another glance at the car and ignored the shiver down her back. It was probably nothing.
No need to be paranoid, not when there was paperwork to be done.
She unlocked the garage and slipped inside, but just to be on the safe side she bolted the door behind her.