FIC: Guilty Pleasures
Title: Guilty Pleasures
Author: Darkhorse99 for FreddyJoey! I hope you like it :D
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Connor/Abby, Matt/Emily, and Jess/Becker
Word Count: 7,403
Beta'd by the glorious grammar hound, Fredbassett, thank you! All other mistakes are my own 'cause I kept fiddleing with it.
Summary: When Becker institutes a self-defence class for the non-military people, Jess discovers that the camera in the workout room is angled just perfectly to check out the hawt men. Like a good friend, she shares her discovery with Abby and Emily, but when Becker, Matt, and Connor find out, well, the girls got some ‘splainin’ to do.
A/N: This is storybook style! There’s a couple of pictures near the end.
More A/N: This story was inspired by me moaning I had nothing and Anonyme1 just tossed out the comment, ‘What if Jess, Abby, and Emily watched the men workout over the cameras? Then they find out they’re being watched?’ So THANK YOU SO MUCH *major hugs*
And here we are.
o-o-o-o
Captain Becker put the finishing touches on his doodle of a T. rex toting a .50 machine gun and chasing insurgents whilst Connor droned on and on and on about computer security and his latest inventions and various other things that didn’t fall into the category of either ‘dinosaur chasing’ or ‘anomaly locking’. Abby looked over the hand he'd cupped protectively around the drawing and he suppress the primary school reflex of covering his paper. She rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair. Like him she was just waiting on the hell that was the weekly department briefing to be over.
Honestly, the only person that enjoyed the regularly scheduled sit down was James, because as he’d put it when he’d instituted this massive waste of time months ago, ‘It’s your big chance to ask permission for once, instead of begging my forgiveness. Tell me what insanity you’re up to so I’ll at least know what kind of lies to tell the ministers.’
Right now, even he didn’t seem to be interested in Connor’s grand plans for converting the CCTV net into a dinosaur-spotting system with modified facial recognition software. Normally he’d be all over a grand scheme like that, even if they did have to turn it all off around Halloween.
Connor, sensing he was losing his audience, brought his pitch to an end and Abby jumped in with her menagerie report. She wanted more space and a covered atrium for the pterosaurs. James said no. She wanted to move Monty from of his small pen to a private elephant preserve a few hours outside the city. James said no. They had this conversation every week and everyone present could probably recite it word for word. Abby still had a very out of place, happy gleam in her eye considering she’d just been told no to all her requests. Then she dropped a bombshell.
Casually, like she’d nearly forgotten, Abby said, “By the way, Sid and Nancy are going to be parents. Nancy laid 42 eggs last week and I just candled them, they’re viable and going to hatch.”
“What?” James screeched and sat straight up, nearly knocking over his ever-present cup of coffee. “Those two menaces are reproducing? Neuter them! Immediately! God knows what young ones will be like. I don’t think the planet can survive. They are extinct for a reason!”
Becker laughed while Connor whooped with joy and hugged Abby. Even Matt and Jess had a chuckle at James’s outrage and Abby’s sincere indifference to his demands that they be separated, neutered, spayed and then shipped to separate sides of country in steel containers.
“Can’t,” Abby finally answered him unsympathetically. “We’ve got no more room, I have to keep them in the same pen and besides, you just said we aren’t sending any of the creatures farther away, even if it was for their own good.”
James spluttered his outrage.
Becker sipped his water and looked back and forth between them like he was watching a tennis match. Abby had James well over a barrel and Becker got the feeling she’d been planning this for a while. He wondered what signs diictodons gave off when they were about to get busy. Nesting? Digging? Behavior changes? He felt a moment of pity if she’d found out by walking in on them expanding their population. Or maybe she'd encouraged them to do it on purpose.
Outmanouvered, James grudgingly agreed to review her proposal for the menagerie.
Abby slid a zip drive across table to him. “I have a proposal, plans, and tender document already written. Just print it and sign at the bottom.”
Becker and Matt almost choked themselves not laughing. Connor didn’t bother to suppress it.
James picked the zip drive up with a sour expression on his face. “For the good of the country, I’ll read it. No promises.” He sighed like he’d just agreed to give away his firstborn child. “Anything else I need to know about? Besides how in a hundred years our wikipedia entry is going to mark today as the day we bred the downfall of England?”
Smoothly, Becker covered his doodle with his arm. “Yes, actually. I do have something. I’m concerned for the basic fitness and self-defence ability of people that aren’t on the teams.”
“That’s why we have a national health department.” James replied. “Unfortunately for my blood pressure, I don’t work there. Although I wonder if they’re hiring?”
“My point is people that aren’t on the teams aren’t supposed to come in contact with the creatures. But they do. I want them to be able to defend themselves when that happens.”
Matt did his one shouldered shrug. “A little self-defence never hurt anybody.”
“Really?” James sounded surprised. “I thought that was the point?”
Becker interrupted before they could get into a one-liner contest. “I want to hold a class, an hour or so will be fine, once a week, for all the office people.” He pointed across the table. “Like Jess-”
“Hey! I’m more than office people!” she protested.
Becker ignored her. “Or Emily.”
“Don’t let her hear you call her office people,” Matt advised him with a grin.
“Well, whatever you want to designate them, people that aren’t on my security teams so I can’t make them learn but they don’t listen so they get into trouble anyway.” He glared at Matt and left the ‘like your girlfriend’ part of that statement unsaid. Matt picked up the hint. The future didn’t send stupid sleeper agents back in time.
“The idea does have some merit,” Matt conceded. “Creatures do escape, and sometimes things happen.”
“When do you want to hold this class?” James asked him, “I am not paying overtime for it and this isn’t Japan. Company-run work-out programmes aren’t popular. I’m not even sure if they’re legal.”
“During lunch. I could do a 40 minute class on the basics for eight weeks and if people wanted to continue they could join in with the security team drilling.” James was wavering over to his default setting of ‘no’, so Becker pressed his point and played his trump card. “It might save someone’s life.”
It was a low blow, but those were the facts.
James grumbled, “I suppose. I don’t think I can make it mandatory but I can write a strongly-worded memo to that effect. Are Tuesdays good for you?”
“Any day is fine.” Becker relaxed a little. “As long as we aren’t actively out on a call.”
“All right then. As long as I don’t have to bring my leg warmers.”
o-o-o-o-o
The first class went all right. About twenty people showed up, including Jess and Emily. Abby had already shammed her way out of it, jointly citing her need to care for the creatures and the fact that she already went three nights a week on the mat with Sgt. Haversham and Lt. Dawkins.
Anyone who thought women couldn’t match men in hand to hand had obviously never met either of those two and wouldn’t have good odds of surviving if they were careless enough to voice that opinion. It was all about technique and a certain amount of rip-your-throat-out aggression. Which they both possessed in spades. Abby was their padawan learner in the mysterious ways of combatives. After almost a year under their tutelage, Abby had even managed to drop Becker to the ground and lock him up with an arm hold until he tapped out.
Jess was at the class... for about fifteen minutes. Then an alarm went off and she had to deal with the computer. Emily lasted about halfway through and seemed to be enjoying herself, but then she had to help restrain an injured creature when Abby needed a second pair of hands. She was notionally on the books as Abby’s assistant, after all.
James never actually had any intention of showing up, conveniently citing a standing appointment at Whitehall... at Tuesday lunch. But for the group he had, Connor, his lab minions, some of Jess’s computer people, they weren’t too bad. He led them through some calisthentics to warm up. He was gratified to see that Connor wasn’t huffing and puffing through the jump up toe touches and lunges the way some of the desk jockeys were. Matt popped in to help him teach, which came in handy when they split off into pairs to practice simple grabs and falls.
Becker accomplished what he wanted to accomplish and felt quite pleased with himself when the class ended. Matt clapped him on the shoulder once everyone left.
“This was a good idea. Even if they only come a few more times, they’ll have a better idea what to do, or at least how to hit the deck and get out of our way!”
Laughing, Becker followed him out of the room.
Completely unnoticed behind them, the security camera in one corner reset itself to its default position.
o-o-o-o-o
Next week’s classes started exactly like the first, except this time Jess was up to her ears in a detector upgrade and Emily was nowhere in sight. Becker sighed and promised himself he’d talk Jess into some sort of one on one training some evening. Maybe on the weekends.
He eyed his pudgy cubicle residents and suppressed the urge to hum the, ‘I’ll make a man out of you,’ song that his neighbor’s kid listened to fifty times in a row last time he babysat her. But if ever an exercise room had a theme song, that would be it. Even if they weren’t going to defeat the Huns.
“Let’s get started then. Squat, then jump up and touch your toes.” Becker demonstrated. “Twenty times. Go!”
In another part of the ARC, in an office that was vacant save for three giggling woman and a bowl of popcorn, another kind of exercise was going on.
“My God, he’s flexible.” Abby blatantly checked out Becker’s lithe form as he led his class through the warm up. “When exactly are you going to jump him again? I’m nearly positive he’s straight.”
“Abby!” Horrified, Jess pulled the popcorn closer to herself. “I didn’t invite you just so you could interrogate me on my nonexistent sex life.”
“It needs to exist. That’s what I’m saying. Ask him out.”
“No! It would be weird.”
“And this isn’t?” Emily chimed in as her eye roved over Matt’s shoulders, flexing in a push up. “They all have nice arms.”
“Yeah...”
Even Connor managed to keep up with the slow pace that Becker set. Matt and Becker grinned at each other and when the rest of the class, except Connor and one other man, had collapsed panting on the mats, they each executed another twenty or thirty push-ups. Because they each had the same middle name. Competitive.
Abby, Jess, and Emily were too busy ogling to really count the reps.
The best part came when Connor dropped out from the impromptu push up contest.. He raised himself up in an almost perfect example of downward dog, sticking his arse in the air with a wiggle to stretch his back before he dropped in a sweaty sprawl.
“Abby, you lucky woman.” Jess said with a sigh. “Your boyfriend is fit.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“So’s yours, Emily.” Matt was on camera now doing some sort of sideways stretch that involved leaning over impossibly far and then reaching for the ground. It had the happy side effect of pulling his jeans tight around his arse and hitching the bottom hem of his shirt up, exposing the tiniest flash of skin. Emily bit her lower lip and then blushed when Jess looked over at her.
“I like him,” Emily replied with a smirk.
Finally the warm up was over and the class paired off to practice kicks. Jess reached over and shut off the monitor. “Show’s over, girls. Same time next week?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Abby giggled. “This is my favorite fifteen minutes of work this week. Hot men and tight uniforms. It’s gonna be a good day.”
Laughing, they left the office and went back to their regularly scheduled lives, leaving only the scent of popcorn behind.
o-o-o-o
Four weeks later it had become a definite thing for the woman to gather in the empty office and watch the eye-candy, otherwise known as Connor, Becker, Matt, and Bill from accounting, flex, twist, contort and otherwise engage in warm up aerobics. There was a lot of bending at the waist. There were a lot of arses in the air and after the second week Jess upgraded the camera so there was also a zoom.
A good time was had by all.
Abby and Emily tended to go home on Tuesdays and shag the brains out of their boyfriends. Jess, alas, was left to her own devices. Literally. But sometimes a girl just had to check out a nice arse and watch it bounce.
Things would have continued in this manner with no one the wiser if Connor hadn’t been chasing buggy code for the security software and looking for suspicious access attempts in an effort to improve the program. He was trying to program it to sort out all the false alarms, of which there were legion, everything from ‘Oh damn, I swiped my card backwards’ or ‘Oh damn, my credit card won’t open the security door’ to someone actually tinkering with the system and not just using their Tesco card on accident.
That was how it came to his attention that the monitor in an unassigned office was being activated once a week during lunchtime. Well then. Connor felt giddy that he might have caught a spy before he stopped himself. It was probably someone sneaking off to watch porn and wank during lunch, or a pair of someones sexing each other up and watching porn while they did it, maybe. The act was even called a 'nooner'. Except porn was blocked by the firewall and he was positive that program worked flawlessly.
Connor logged out of the system and then accessed it again using his super secret back door that nobody knew about. He reviewed the footage from a camera in the corridor just before records show the monitor was turned on. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. A clone of someone he knew was dead, maybe. Helen Cutter.
Abby walked down the hallway with a sandwich in one hand and a coke in the other. He smiled a little at how adorable she looked, nibbling on the crust. Then she made an abrupt right turn and walked into the office he had under surveillance.
Okay, that was weird. Maybe she was doing some research for the menagerie that she didn’t want anyone to know about? No. She had a computer in her office, and besides, that was her job. Jess and Emily walked into sight, and Emily had a large bag of popcorn. Jess was carrying two sodas. He wasn’t even surprised when they ducked into the office.
What the hell were they doing?
He sped the camera up and ignored the random people that walked right past the closed door. Twenty minutes later, they walked out together, giggling and grinning at each other. Emily did a weird shuffle step and twist in the hallway, almost like she was demonstrating a dance move and the other two burst out laughing. Even with no sound, there was no mistaking that.
“What are you three up to?” Connor murmured before deciding on a plan of action. He cleared himself for that office and computer and wandered down the hallway. Like a proper undercover agent, he fiddled with his shoelaces until no one was in the hallway before he slipped inside. It smelled like popcorn.
Connor flicked the computer on and brought up the history. It had been deleted and he wasn’t surprised at all to see the random string of numbers that was Jess’s security code. It was as good as a big cursive ‘Jess’ signature with a tiny heart inside the ‘e’.
What would Sherlock do? Connor settled down in the chair to deduce his way to a solution that didn’t involve just asking Abby why they were cornering themselves in an empty office for twenty minutes once a week. If one of them was male, the answer would be obvious - Connor felt himself start to react to that little thought. Ooh, that’d be hot. Even if they only let him watch-
No. No. If there ever was a hot lesbian threesome between them - well, bisexual threesome since all three were straightish for a given value of ish, it would happen with lots of sweet red wine and a big soft bed. He knew Abby’s longing for a nice cozy bed when there was potential for that sort of thing. It would not happen in a smallish office with popcorn and easily-carried lunches.
So they weren’t sexing each other up. Pity. He could always dream. What were they doing?
Popcorn implied they were watching something. What was there to watch for a few minutes? Like lightening, Connor realised what was going on, but he kept his theory to himself until he had confirmed it. That didn’t take long, he could stand in the doorway of their workout room and see the camera on the opposite corner had been modified with a completely non-standard zoom lens.
A zoom lens. Aimed directly at their backsides! Connor blushed as he remembered some of the more outrageous poses Becker had contorted them through. Yeah, his back really liked all the stretching, and he could definitely do things with his hips that he couldn’t before, but that was before he knew that he was being checked out! Connor wavered between flattered and fuming all the way back to his office.
He wiped his access to their little den of female villainy, or would it be lechery? Lechery was better, he decided. He covered his tracks so Jess wouldn’t notice he’d been in their den of lechery and then he contemplated how exactly he was going to spring the knowledge they were caught with their perfectly-manicured hands in the cookie jar.
o-o-o-o
Next Tuesday the girls were gathered in the office waiting on the show to start. Attendance had been dwindling and with this being the last class, it was down to just Matt, Becker, and Connor. Even Bill from accounting, who could do a perfect backward bridge, hadn’t shown up. Oh well, the hottest three were there.
“Come on, jump up toe touches!” Abby crowed at the screen and laughed as her wish was granted.
“Don’t be greedy,” Emily chided her. “The push ups. The arms, that’s really the highlight.”
“I like all the back stretches,” Jess added as she grabbed another handful of popcorn. “Such a pity this is the last time we get to see this.”
“I don’t know about that.” Matt’s voice drifted in from the doorway. “If you want to watch us work out, something could always be arranged.”
All of the woman whirled around to see Matt, flanked by Becker and Connor, standing in the doorway watching them watch them-. Jess choked on her popcorn and tried to avoid spewing it everywhere when Abby thumped on her back.
“How?” Emily looked back and forth from the computer and the doorway. “How did you do that?” She blanked the screen anyway.
“Recorded it last night in the clothes we’d wear today. Then just set it to play at noon,” Connor answered her question with a cheeky grin. “So what’s all this about?”
“That’s why you were so smug this morning!” Abby exclaimed, her face glowed crimson. “You didn’t just wake up in a good mood, you were planning this!”
“Too right!” Connor giggled. “Red-handed. There is no possible way you can deny that you gathered here in your den of debauchery.”
“Debauchery!” Now it was Emily’s turn to yell. “We were only watching! That's not debauched!”
“There’s names for people that only like to watch.” Matt’s accent was coming out more, but by the grin creeping over his face, he wasn’t angry. No, it was worse. He was amused. They were never ever going to live this down. Ever.
Now Becker threw his two pennorth in. “Abby, I can’t believe you got Jess involved in this creepy peeping tom scheme.” He crossed his arms and tried to look severe. He was only moderately successful. Abby gaped at him anyway and defended herself.
“Peeping... it’s a public exercise room, not the locker room and anyway she invited me!”
“Thanks a lot!” Jess snapped. “For throwing me under the bus!”
“Your idea?” Becker replied and like a laser all the men focused in on Jess. She squirmed. "You?"
“It was an accident-”
“A zoom lens accidentally tripped and installed itself on the camera?” Connor snorted and tossed that out there.
“No, that was deliberate, but I mean it started on accident.” Jess buried her face in her hands and groaned.
James stepped into the office. “What’s going on? Why are you eating in here? Is that popcorn?”
Abby offered him the bag. He took it, and took in the strange energy that was flowing between the smug men and the red-faced women. Thankfully Emily had blanked the computer when they were interrupted. Still, it was obvious something was up, and nobody was volunteering any information to him.
“I’m sure I don’t want to know. Send me an email about it later if you must.” James swooped out of the room, munching on his newly-acquired snack. The silence only lasted a few seconds before Emily broke it.
“He took my popcorn,” she said to the room in general.
“How did this start?” Becker wasn’t going to let it drop.
“Remember how I had to leave that first class?" Jess came out from behind her hands and explained. "Well, I thought I could watch the rest of it while I was dealing with the detector, so I wouldn’t be behind-”
“Funny choice of words.”
Becker nudged Connor with his shoulder, “Shut up, I want to hear this.”
“And I noticed... the angles were... handy.” Jess shrugged and tried to ignore the bright red blush that was crawling over her face. “I didn’t mean for it to become a regular event! Um... so... sorry? Any chance you can forgive us and we can move on, putting this whole sad event in the past?”
Matt almost doubled over with laughter. “No, no I don’t think so.”
“Yeah.” Connor added. “I’m going to have to bring this up for a while.”
“A long while.” Becker added, finally grinning. “A very long while.”
“Some of us have a work-out to finish. In a camera free room. Ladies?” Matt stepped out the door followed by Becker. Connor even tipped his hat at them before shutting the door behind himself. He winked at Abby and licked his lips just before it closed.
“God, we are in so much trouble.” Jess moaned and buried her face in her hands again. “I’m going to get fired, I know it.”
“No you’re not.” Abby rubbed her back. “We were all supposed to be in that class and see that in person. At the most you’ll get lectured and if Lester gives you too much trouble tell me and I’ll name a baby diictodon after him and give it the Queen.”
o-o-o-o
Despite what they told the ladies, they had no intention of finishing their workout. Instead they were crowded into Matt’s office, rehashing the incident.
“Did you see Jess’s face when Abby instantly tossed all the blame on her?” Connor wheezed and chuckled. “That’s my girl.”
“I guess there isn’t any honour among thieves, or honour among horny woman with security cameras. I’m going to be checking myself just walking down the hallway from now on,” Matt added. “I had noticed a definite Tuesday evening perk and wondered why.”
“I hadn’t got any perks,” Becker groused, then met Connor’s eyes and chuckled. “But that was the most fun I’ve had in months. I can tease Jess about this for years. I'll just have to look at her and poof!” He mimed her cheeks blowing up in flaming red. "Blushing really is a good look on her."
“You might have some other perks if you’d do more than tease her,” Connor said. “I’m the last person to tell anyone to man up, but seriously, man up.” He deftly twisted to avoid the halfhearted elbow Becker threw at him. “See? I wouldn’t’ve been able to do that seven weeks ago. Besides, did anyone else notice how it was the woman that isn't getting some that started it? Purely a coincidence, I know.”
"Yeah Becker," Matt chimed in. "In a way this is all your fault. Ask her out before she comes up with some other idiotic plan."
Becker threw a pen at his head. Matt caught it and dropped it on his desk. "Thanks mate, I can always use more pens." He only laughed when Becker flipped him off with both hands before answering his question.
“I don't think she would. Dating someone you work with is a bad idea."
"How could that possibly be a bad idea?" Connor asked, exuding innocence.
Becker just pointed at him and Matt. They laughed at him and Becker relaxed, dropping his arms.
"We’ll see,” he finally conceded. It was the same thing he always said when Connor tried to push him into the same happily in love bliss that he was afflicted with. "We'll see."
o-o-o-o
Jess was grateful to get through the rest of the day without being summoned to Lester’s office for a dressing down for misuse of equipment and possibly dismissed for sexual harassment and, oh, there was probably something about abusing her clearance to ogle people. On the balance, just sexual harassment sounded tame in comparison.
But either nobody made a complaint or Lester hadn’t checked his email. She was able to grab her bag and escape at five with nearly everyone else. Jess saw Matt and Emily walking across the garage away from her, his hand resting possessively on the small of her back as they went towards Matt’s car. He didn’t seem angry over the stunt she had pulled.
Connor wouldn't be a problem. She knew he thought the whole thing was hilarious. That afternoon he’d texted her to check a random camera in a rarely used area of the ARC and when she did, she saw he was doing a ridiculously over the top mock stripper dance in the corridor. One thing was sure, he was taking advantage of his newly-found flexibility. She expected she’d better get used to being stripper-danced at through the cameras until he got bored or something else caught his attention.
Becker, on the other hand, did seem to have some mild annoyance mixed in with his bemusement. That wasn’t good. Even if she still had a faint hope they could maybe go out, he was the type to bring this up forever and ever amen.
For her own peace of mind, she was going to have to take steps to ensure he didn't. There was only one thing to do. Yeah, she’d done something stupid, but so had he, at some point, sometime in his life. All she had to do was find it and fight fire with fire. Otherwise she’d better just get used to going around blushing red as a tomato and listening to people hum that song from ‘The Full Monty’ when she passed them in the hallways.
At home she set to work. Hilary J. Becker. At least there weren’t very many of them. Stubbornly, she stuck to legally available records. She was already in hot water for abusing her security clearance, she didn’t want to make it worse.
He didn’t have a Myspace page. Connor had nagged him into setting up a Facebook page but she’d friended him instantly and he’d never posted anything remotely embarrassing. He wasn’t on Twitter, Pintrest, Google circles or Linked In.
He’d liked a few popular TV shows, but if he was sqeeing on a fansite he certainly wasn’t using his own name. That would be supremely awkward if it came up during a random spot check. She had no idea what he’d pick for a username. Jess went by PurpleButterFly87 on the manga sites she hung out at. What would he pick? BlueSteel? ActionMan69? Dinoboy? Connor was more likely to name himself Dinoboy.
This was stupid. Dispirited, Jess returned to his Facebook page. He’d liked a lot of bands. Mostly thrash metal or heavy rock. That wasn’t her thing so she didn’t pay much attention to them but maybe there was something there. She noticed one of his friends had liked some of the same bands and, unlike nearly all the people Becker was friends with, this guy had all his info set to public.
After Facebook stalking him to the max she learned three important things about Tyson Davvy (Sex God). He’d gone to school with Becker. He was a sexist twat. He had been in a band with Becker when they were both teenagers, which made up for all the rude jokes and pictures she’d waded through to find out that information. A teenage rock band was exactly the kind of leverage she was after.
Tyson Davvy (Sex God), had created a helpful note of all the bands he’d been in and all the people in those bands with him. Near the bottom of the list, she struck gold. Trashcan Junkies - Drums - Ken McDonald, Guitar - Adrian Mitchell, Lead Singer - Hils Becker.
Hils. He went by Hils instead of James, his middle name. That felt oddly intimate to know whilst she ransacked the internet for a photo. It was not scientifically possible to be seventeen and in a thrash band called Trashcan Junkies without some really bad nineties fashion. As much as Jess hated bad fashion, she was hoping it was epically bad.
A few minutes later, she found something even better than a photo. She found a video.
She couldn’t believe her luck when she hit play. Becker was rocking out on stage with his lips pressed to the mike, wailing about licking ashtrays and the balls of life. The sound wasn’t very good, lyrics were worse, and the instruments were much too loud, probably to cover up the fact that they weren’t very good either. She winced when they hit an especially bad combination of chords. His shirt was open halfway down the front, and the striped trousers he wore had never been in style in any country in any year ever in the entire history of the world.
That didn’t draw her attention nearly as much as his ridiculously poofy, curly hair. She hoped it was a wig and at the same time, hoped it wasn't. It was enormous and just kept going and going, it looked like he’d escaped from an 80s shampoo commercial. Then he tossed his head and she was certain.
This was perfect.
Jess saved the video and printed a few choice moments as screenshots before heading over to Becker’s house to beg forgiveness and plead for her dignity back.
As she pulled up outside his house she wondered if knowing where he lived counted as creepy behavior. Resolutely, Jess decided it didn’t because she knew where everyone lived, in case there was an anomaly in their neighborhood. Anyway it was too late now. Moving her car or calling him under a pretense was overthinking the situation.
Jess clutched the screenshots in her hand, crumpling them briefly before she folded them and shoved them down in her back pocket. She tried to achieve something approaching casual in her body language as she ambled up the walkway. He lived in a maisonnette, and it seemed that his neighbours had kids, based on all the finger painting in their windows and the chalk drawings on both pavements.
She rang the bell. Becker answered and Jess’s train of thought was instantly derailed, plunging off the tracks into a heap of wreckage that promptly burst into flames in the canyon that was her professionalism.
“Yes?” he said pleasantly, cradling a wine glass by the stem, completely at ease with the fact he was wearing nothing but a jet black dressing gown belted at the waist, leaving a nice thatch of chest visible. His hair was still dripping slow droplets of water down his neck.
“Guh.”
He raised one perfect eyebrow.
Jess got a grip on herself. “I mean, can I come in?”
“Sure? Want something to drink? I just opened this bottle.” He led the way back towards where he was engaged in cooking dinner. “Actually would you like to stay for dinner? I always make more than I need so I’ll have leftovers.”
“Sure,” Jess answered before she considered how awkward things might get. She felt the blush trailing up her cheeks and swiftly looked away from him, taking a moment to look around his house. It was tidy, which she was expecting, but it was also cozy, with a knitted throw on the back of the couch and tucked away in the corner he had an overstuffed chair with a footstool positioned under a lamp, just the perfect spot for some reading.
Jess picked up well loved copy of ‘The Cat in the Hat’ off an end table. Someone that hadn't entirely mastered the fine art of colouring inside the lines had helpfully filled in all the white in the cat’s hat. She held it up curiously when Becker walked back in the room. He answered her unasked question easily.
“My neighbour’s kid, Heather, left it over here. She’s six. I watch her sometimes to give her parents a break.”
“That’s sweet of you.” Jess stubbornly suppressed the wibbly feeling that gave her.
“She’s fun. Sometimes I think she's six going on sixty-five. For a child she can be quite cynical. She has a very unique outlook on the world. Loves dinosaurs.”
“I bet you’re popular then.”
“She says I tell the best stories and make all the dinosaurs sound real.” He shrugged. “I can’t imagine why.”
He handed her with a glass of dark red wine and grinned when he noticed her reading his bookcases from across the room. “Make yourself at home,” he said with a wave. “I’ve just got to turn the lamb chops.”
“It smells delicious.” Jess commented, following after him to sit at the table and firmly resisting her urge to pilfer his reading materials.
“Ought to. It’s my great-grandmothers secret family recipe.” Becker called from the narrow galley style kitchen. Jess watched him deftly flip the seasoned chops and adjust the heat.
She was impressed despite herself. “Really?”
He flashed a grin at her. “No, I found it an hour ago.” Becker pointed at his laptop, which was set up on the counter opposite the stove and open to a recipe website.
“You joker!” Jess walked over to swat at him. “I believed you!”
Becker laughed as he dodged away.
“So, what brings you here tonight?”
Jess abruptly remembered the papers in her back pocket. “Well... I wanted to talk about what happened today.”
“Really? What’s to talk about? You’ve got a voyeur side. Nothing wrong with that, really. It’s not my kink but whatever floats your boat.” He shrugged and peered at her out of the corner of his eye, chuckling when she protested.
“It’s not a kink!”
“Oh really? Then what was it?”
Jess took a few deep breathes. “It was rude and I’m sorry.” She took a big gulp of her wine. “I came over to ask if you’d mind not saying any more about it at work.”
He pretended to consider that. “Hum... no, no I don’t think so. I think this joke is going to roll for years.”
She sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Besides, if you wanted to stare at my arse, why didn’t you just ask?”
“Because that’d be weird?” She offered up shyly. “I can’t just say, ‘You’re really hot, can I just stare at you for a while because you give me pantsfeels?”
Becker let out a deep rolicking laugh and almost doubled over with the force of it. “Pantsfeels? Who says pantsfeels?”
Jess sniffed and refused to be baited. “How else would you say it?
Still chuckling, he seized on that and caught her eyes with an intense stare. “How would I say it? I would say, ‘You’re really beautiful, and funny and clever, despite some of the harebrained schemes you come up with. Would you have dinner with me?” He didn’t stop when Jess gasped. “Then you would say yes and look-” he raised his glass to encompass the room. “Here we are.”
She sputtered and set her wine down before she could spill it. “But you didn’t say that.”
Becker set his wine down next to hers and then reached out and caught her hand, tugging her towards him so he could rest his arms loosely around her waist. She slid her hands up to clutch his shoulders, letting the silky fabric bunch up under her fingers. He looked into her eyes.
“You’re very beautiful, and funny, and clever. Will you have dinner with me?” He leaned his head down so that the last words were a whispered request against her lips.
“Yes,” Jess whispered back and leaned up to meet him in a gentle kiss. It was only gentle for half a second before his arms tightened around her and he deepened the contact, coaxing her mouth open taking control of the kiss. She let him, content to melt against his chest. She reached up with one hand to wind her fingers through his damp hair.
Eventually they had to stop and breathe.
“So,” Becker murmured against her mouth. “On the whole I’m glad you’ve got a voyeuristic side.”
“I have not,” Jess insisted while they separated themselves to finish cooking dinner. He turned down her offer of help and so Jess was left sitting at the table watching him dish up two plates. She topped off their wine just for something to do.
Jess waited until they had polished off the delicious lamb chops and veggies before she brought up the subject again. By then they had moved to the couch and it was just as cozy as it looked from the doorway. Becker was on one end and she was snuggled into his side, taking a brief break from the thorough kissing and caressing they had been doing. Right now he was running his thumb around the edge of her shirt, up her neck and into her hair before repeating the slow pattern, content just to touch her lightly with his hand.
Jess pushed herself up slightly. It wouldn't do to try her first attempt at blackmail whilst resembling a well stroked cat. “I was serious about convincing you to at least not tease me about this at work where anyone could hear.”
He shook his head. “Yeah, I can’t let this go. You understand? This has to be the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever been caught doing. As your... friend... boyfriend... whatever I am, it is my solemn duty to bring this up again. Besides you look so cute when you blush. ”
“Yes, I thought you might say that.” Jess eased a hand down and pulled the papers out of her pockets. “So I found this to try to convince you.”
Becker looked at the photos uncomprehendingly for a moment before he realised what they were. When he did, he snatched the pictures from her. “How did you find these? I didn’t think any pictures existed of us!”
“There’s more where that came from.” Jess tried to sound threatening but completely failed because she’d just been kissed into oblivion. “There’s even a video. So you might rethink your plan to bring this up constantly for eternity.”
“Are you kidding? There’s a video? Where? I want to see it!” Becker bounced up and retrieved his laptop from the kitchen counter. “C’mon, show me. That shitty band was the most fun I had as a teenager. Right after we broke up I was off to Sandhurst and that was the end of my partying for a long while.”
Bemused, Jess pulled up the video and didn’t mention she’d found it by cyber stalking his Facebook friends. He watched it with his mouth curved open in delight. “Look at my hair! I’d forgotten about my hair, my parents hated it. My dad once said he’d give me a hundred quid if I cut it and I sneered at him and told him I was an artist. Oh, this is brilliant!”
When the video ended he played it again, and hummed along with the melody line. “I can’t believe this still exists. We were shit, but we expected to get discovered any moment, get a record deal, get wined and dined on tour, be rich and famous and the biggest concern in our life would be to pick out the hottest groupies... God, we were young.”
He hugged her tight. “I can’t believe you found this.”
“I am so confused.”
“This is awesome.” He sighed. “If it bothers you that much, I won’t bring up you organizing a party to stare at my arse. I wasn’t actually going to anyway, but making you squirm was too much fun.”
She squealed and flung her arms around his neck. “Thank you.” Jess was so relieved she didn’t notice immediately that he was still messing with the computer. When she looked back she saw he had just finished posting the video to his Facebook with the comment, ‘Bow before the mighty HAIR!’
She was absolutely gobsmacked. “I can’t believe you shared that.”
“It’s brilliant.” He hugged her again. “Shall we get back to what we were doing before?” Becker leaned in and nibbled along the line of her neck. “I do believe you have expressed interest in watching me flex?”
She giggled and let him carry her to the bedroom.
The End.
That rock video really does exist. It's here: http://velvetswag.tumblr.com/post/27051173192/short-hell-bent-for-leather-2006-dir-james. Ben doesn't turn up until about four minutes in.
Author: Darkhorse99 for FreddyJoey! I hope you like it :D
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Connor/Abby, Matt/Emily, and Jess/Becker
Word Count: 7,403
Beta'd by the glorious grammar hound, Fredbassett, thank you! All other mistakes are my own 'cause I kept fiddleing with it.
Summary: When Becker institutes a self-defence class for the non-military people, Jess discovers that the camera in the workout room is angled just perfectly to check out the hawt men. Like a good friend, she shares her discovery with Abby and Emily, but when Becker, Matt, and Connor find out, well, the girls got some ‘splainin’ to do.
A/N: This is storybook style! There’s a couple of pictures near the end.
More A/N: This story was inspired by me moaning I had nothing and Anonyme1 just tossed out the comment, ‘What if Jess, Abby, and Emily watched the men workout over the cameras? Then they find out they’re being watched?’ So THANK YOU SO MUCH *major hugs*
And here we are.
o-o-o-o
Captain Becker put the finishing touches on his doodle of a T. rex toting a .50 machine gun and chasing insurgents whilst Connor droned on and on and on about computer security and his latest inventions and various other things that didn’t fall into the category of either ‘dinosaur chasing’ or ‘anomaly locking’. Abby looked over the hand he'd cupped protectively around the drawing and he suppress the primary school reflex of covering his paper. She rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair. Like him she was just waiting on the hell that was the weekly department briefing to be over.
Honestly, the only person that enjoyed the regularly scheduled sit down was James, because as he’d put it when he’d instituted this massive waste of time months ago, ‘It’s your big chance to ask permission for once, instead of begging my forgiveness. Tell me what insanity you’re up to so I’ll at least know what kind of lies to tell the ministers.’
Right now, even he didn’t seem to be interested in Connor’s grand plans for converting the CCTV net into a dinosaur-spotting system with modified facial recognition software. Normally he’d be all over a grand scheme like that, even if they did have to turn it all off around Halloween.
Connor, sensing he was losing his audience, brought his pitch to an end and Abby jumped in with her menagerie report. She wanted more space and a covered atrium for the pterosaurs. James said no. She wanted to move Monty from of his small pen to a private elephant preserve a few hours outside the city. James said no. They had this conversation every week and everyone present could probably recite it word for word. Abby still had a very out of place, happy gleam in her eye considering she’d just been told no to all her requests. Then she dropped a bombshell.
Casually, like she’d nearly forgotten, Abby said, “By the way, Sid and Nancy are going to be parents. Nancy laid 42 eggs last week and I just candled them, they’re viable and going to hatch.”
“What?” James screeched and sat straight up, nearly knocking over his ever-present cup of coffee. “Those two menaces are reproducing? Neuter them! Immediately! God knows what young ones will be like. I don’t think the planet can survive. They are extinct for a reason!”
Becker laughed while Connor whooped with joy and hugged Abby. Even Matt and Jess had a chuckle at James’s outrage and Abby’s sincere indifference to his demands that they be separated, neutered, spayed and then shipped to separate sides of country in steel containers.
“Can’t,” Abby finally answered him unsympathetically. “We’ve got no more room, I have to keep them in the same pen and besides, you just said we aren’t sending any of the creatures farther away, even if it was for their own good.”
James spluttered his outrage.
Becker sipped his water and looked back and forth between them like he was watching a tennis match. Abby had James well over a barrel and Becker got the feeling she’d been planning this for a while. He wondered what signs diictodons gave off when they were about to get busy. Nesting? Digging? Behavior changes? He felt a moment of pity if she’d found out by walking in on them expanding their population. Or maybe she'd encouraged them to do it on purpose.
Outmanouvered, James grudgingly agreed to review her proposal for the menagerie.
Abby slid a zip drive across table to him. “I have a proposal, plans, and tender document already written. Just print it and sign at the bottom.”
Becker and Matt almost choked themselves not laughing. Connor didn’t bother to suppress it.
James picked the zip drive up with a sour expression on his face. “For the good of the country, I’ll read it. No promises.” He sighed like he’d just agreed to give away his firstborn child. “Anything else I need to know about? Besides how in a hundred years our wikipedia entry is going to mark today as the day we bred the downfall of England?”
Smoothly, Becker covered his doodle with his arm. “Yes, actually. I do have something. I’m concerned for the basic fitness and self-defence ability of people that aren’t on the teams.”
“That’s why we have a national health department.” James replied. “Unfortunately for my blood pressure, I don’t work there. Although I wonder if they’re hiring?”
“My point is people that aren’t on the teams aren’t supposed to come in contact with the creatures. But they do. I want them to be able to defend themselves when that happens.”
Matt did his one shouldered shrug. “A little self-defence never hurt anybody.”
“Really?” James sounded surprised. “I thought that was the point?”
Becker interrupted before they could get into a one-liner contest. “I want to hold a class, an hour or so will be fine, once a week, for all the office people.” He pointed across the table. “Like Jess-”
“Hey! I’m more than office people!” she protested.
Becker ignored her. “Or Emily.”
“Don’t let her hear you call her office people,” Matt advised him with a grin.
“Well, whatever you want to designate them, people that aren’t on my security teams so I can’t make them learn but they don’t listen so they get into trouble anyway.” He glared at Matt and left the ‘like your girlfriend’ part of that statement unsaid. Matt picked up the hint. The future didn’t send stupid sleeper agents back in time.
“The idea does have some merit,” Matt conceded. “Creatures do escape, and sometimes things happen.”
“When do you want to hold this class?” James asked him, “I am not paying overtime for it and this isn’t Japan. Company-run work-out programmes aren’t popular. I’m not even sure if they’re legal.”
“During lunch. I could do a 40 minute class on the basics for eight weeks and if people wanted to continue they could join in with the security team drilling.” James was wavering over to his default setting of ‘no’, so Becker pressed his point and played his trump card. “It might save someone’s life.”
It was a low blow, but those were the facts.
James grumbled, “I suppose. I don’t think I can make it mandatory but I can write a strongly-worded memo to that effect. Are Tuesdays good for you?”
“Any day is fine.” Becker relaxed a little. “As long as we aren’t actively out on a call.”
“All right then. As long as I don’t have to bring my leg warmers.”
o-o-o-o-o
The first class went all right. About twenty people showed up, including Jess and Emily. Abby had already shammed her way out of it, jointly citing her need to care for the creatures and the fact that she already went three nights a week on the mat with Sgt. Haversham and Lt. Dawkins.
Anyone who thought women couldn’t match men in hand to hand had obviously never met either of those two and wouldn’t have good odds of surviving if they were careless enough to voice that opinion. It was all about technique and a certain amount of rip-your-throat-out aggression. Which they both possessed in spades. Abby was their padawan learner in the mysterious ways of combatives. After almost a year under their tutelage, Abby had even managed to drop Becker to the ground and lock him up with an arm hold until he tapped out.
Jess was at the class... for about fifteen minutes. Then an alarm went off and she had to deal with the computer. Emily lasted about halfway through and seemed to be enjoying herself, but then she had to help restrain an injured creature when Abby needed a second pair of hands. She was notionally on the books as Abby’s assistant, after all.
James never actually had any intention of showing up, conveniently citing a standing appointment at Whitehall... at Tuesday lunch. But for the group he had, Connor, his lab minions, some of Jess’s computer people, they weren’t too bad. He led them through some calisthentics to warm up. He was gratified to see that Connor wasn’t huffing and puffing through the jump up toe touches and lunges the way some of the desk jockeys were. Matt popped in to help him teach, which came in handy when they split off into pairs to practice simple grabs and falls.
Becker accomplished what he wanted to accomplish and felt quite pleased with himself when the class ended. Matt clapped him on the shoulder once everyone left.
“This was a good idea. Even if they only come a few more times, they’ll have a better idea what to do, or at least how to hit the deck and get out of our way!”
Laughing, Becker followed him out of the room.
Completely unnoticed behind them, the security camera in one corner reset itself to its default position.
o-o-o-o-o
Next week’s classes started exactly like the first, except this time Jess was up to her ears in a detector upgrade and Emily was nowhere in sight. Becker sighed and promised himself he’d talk Jess into some sort of one on one training some evening. Maybe on the weekends.
He eyed his pudgy cubicle residents and suppressed the urge to hum the, ‘I’ll make a man out of you,’ song that his neighbor’s kid listened to fifty times in a row last time he babysat her. But if ever an exercise room had a theme song, that would be it. Even if they weren’t going to defeat the Huns.
“Let’s get started then. Squat, then jump up and touch your toes.” Becker demonstrated. “Twenty times. Go!”
In another part of the ARC, in an office that was vacant save for three giggling woman and a bowl of popcorn, another kind of exercise was going on.
“My God, he’s flexible.” Abby blatantly checked out Becker’s lithe form as he led his class through the warm up. “When exactly are you going to jump him again? I’m nearly positive he’s straight.”
“Abby!” Horrified, Jess pulled the popcorn closer to herself. “I didn’t invite you just so you could interrogate me on my nonexistent sex life.”
“It needs to exist. That’s what I’m saying. Ask him out.”
“No! It would be weird.”
“And this isn’t?” Emily chimed in as her eye roved over Matt’s shoulders, flexing in a push up. “They all have nice arms.”
“Yeah...”
Even Connor managed to keep up with the slow pace that Becker set. Matt and Becker grinned at each other and when the rest of the class, except Connor and one other man, had collapsed panting on the mats, they each executed another twenty or thirty push-ups. Because they each had the same middle name. Competitive.
Abby, Jess, and Emily were too busy ogling to really count the reps.
The best part came when Connor dropped out from the impromptu push up contest.. He raised himself up in an almost perfect example of downward dog, sticking his arse in the air with a wiggle to stretch his back before he dropped in a sweaty sprawl.
“Abby, you lucky woman.” Jess said with a sigh. “Your boyfriend is fit.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“So’s yours, Emily.” Matt was on camera now doing some sort of sideways stretch that involved leaning over impossibly far and then reaching for the ground. It had the happy side effect of pulling his jeans tight around his arse and hitching the bottom hem of his shirt up, exposing the tiniest flash of skin. Emily bit her lower lip and then blushed when Jess looked over at her.
“I like him,” Emily replied with a smirk.
Finally the warm up was over and the class paired off to practice kicks. Jess reached over and shut off the monitor. “Show’s over, girls. Same time next week?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Abby giggled. “This is my favorite fifteen minutes of work this week. Hot men and tight uniforms. It’s gonna be a good day.”
Laughing, they left the office and went back to their regularly scheduled lives, leaving only the scent of popcorn behind.
o-o-o-o
Four weeks later it had become a definite thing for the woman to gather in the empty office and watch the eye-candy, otherwise known as Connor, Becker, Matt, and Bill from accounting, flex, twist, contort and otherwise engage in warm up aerobics. There was a lot of bending at the waist. There were a lot of arses in the air and after the second week Jess upgraded the camera so there was also a zoom.
A good time was had by all.
Abby and Emily tended to go home on Tuesdays and shag the brains out of their boyfriends. Jess, alas, was left to her own devices. Literally. But sometimes a girl just had to check out a nice arse and watch it bounce.
Things would have continued in this manner with no one the wiser if Connor hadn’t been chasing buggy code for the security software and looking for suspicious access attempts in an effort to improve the program. He was trying to program it to sort out all the false alarms, of which there were legion, everything from ‘Oh damn, I swiped my card backwards’ or ‘Oh damn, my credit card won’t open the security door’ to someone actually tinkering with the system and not just using their Tesco card on accident.
That was how it came to his attention that the monitor in an unassigned office was being activated once a week during lunchtime. Well then. Connor felt giddy that he might have caught a spy before he stopped himself. It was probably someone sneaking off to watch porn and wank during lunch, or a pair of someones sexing each other up and watching porn while they did it, maybe. The act was even called a 'nooner'. Except porn was blocked by the firewall and he was positive that program worked flawlessly.
Connor logged out of the system and then accessed it again using his super secret back door that nobody knew about. He reviewed the footage from a camera in the corridor just before records show the monitor was turned on. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. A clone of someone he knew was dead, maybe. Helen Cutter.
Abby walked down the hallway with a sandwich in one hand and a coke in the other. He smiled a little at how adorable she looked, nibbling on the crust. Then she made an abrupt right turn and walked into the office he had under surveillance.
Okay, that was weird. Maybe she was doing some research for the menagerie that she didn’t want anyone to know about? No. She had a computer in her office, and besides, that was her job. Jess and Emily walked into sight, and Emily had a large bag of popcorn. Jess was carrying two sodas. He wasn’t even surprised when they ducked into the office.
What the hell were they doing?
He sped the camera up and ignored the random people that walked right past the closed door. Twenty minutes later, they walked out together, giggling and grinning at each other. Emily did a weird shuffle step and twist in the hallway, almost like she was demonstrating a dance move and the other two burst out laughing. Even with no sound, there was no mistaking that.
“What are you three up to?” Connor murmured before deciding on a plan of action. He cleared himself for that office and computer and wandered down the hallway. Like a proper undercover agent, he fiddled with his shoelaces until no one was in the hallway before he slipped inside. It smelled like popcorn.
Connor flicked the computer on and brought up the history. It had been deleted and he wasn’t surprised at all to see the random string of numbers that was Jess’s security code. It was as good as a big cursive ‘Jess’ signature with a tiny heart inside the ‘e’.
What would Sherlock do? Connor settled down in the chair to deduce his way to a solution that didn’t involve just asking Abby why they were cornering themselves in an empty office for twenty minutes once a week. If one of them was male, the answer would be obvious - Connor felt himself start to react to that little thought. Ooh, that’d be hot. Even if they only let him watch-
No. No. If there ever was a hot lesbian threesome between them - well, bisexual threesome since all three were straightish for a given value of ish, it would happen with lots of sweet red wine and a big soft bed. He knew Abby’s longing for a nice cozy bed when there was potential for that sort of thing. It would not happen in a smallish office with popcorn and easily-carried lunches.
So they weren’t sexing each other up. Pity. He could always dream. What were they doing?
Popcorn implied they were watching something. What was there to watch for a few minutes? Like lightening, Connor realised what was going on, but he kept his theory to himself until he had confirmed it. That didn’t take long, he could stand in the doorway of their workout room and see the camera on the opposite corner had been modified with a completely non-standard zoom lens.
A zoom lens. Aimed directly at their backsides! Connor blushed as he remembered some of the more outrageous poses Becker had contorted them through. Yeah, his back really liked all the stretching, and he could definitely do things with his hips that he couldn’t before, but that was before he knew that he was being checked out! Connor wavered between flattered and fuming all the way back to his office.
He wiped his access to their little den of female villainy, or would it be lechery? Lechery was better, he decided. He covered his tracks so Jess wouldn’t notice he’d been in their den of lechery and then he contemplated how exactly he was going to spring the knowledge they were caught with their perfectly-manicured hands in the cookie jar.
o-o-o-o
Next Tuesday the girls were gathered in the office waiting on the show to start. Attendance had been dwindling and with this being the last class, it was down to just Matt, Becker, and Connor. Even Bill from accounting, who could do a perfect backward bridge, hadn’t shown up. Oh well, the hottest three were there.
“Come on, jump up toe touches!” Abby crowed at the screen and laughed as her wish was granted.
“Don’t be greedy,” Emily chided her. “The push ups. The arms, that’s really the highlight.”
“I like all the back stretches,” Jess added as she grabbed another handful of popcorn. “Such a pity this is the last time we get to see this.”
“I don’t know about that.” Matt’s voice drifted in from the doorway. “If you want to watch us work out, something could always be arranged.”
All of the woman whirled around to see Matt, flanked by Becker and Connor, standing in the doorway watching them watch them-. Jess choked on her popcorn and tried to avoid spewing it everywhere when Abby thumped on her back.
“How?” Emily looked back and forth from the computer and the doorway. “How did you do that?” She blanked the screen anyway.
“Recorded it last night in the clothes we’d wear today. Then just set it to play at noon,” Connor answered her question with a cheeky grin. “So what’s all this about?”
“That’s why you were so smug this morning!” Abby exclaimed, her face glowed crimson. “You didn’t just wake up in a good mood, you were planning this!”
“Too right!” Connor giggled. “Red-handed. There is no possible way you can deny that you gathered here in your den of debauchery.”
“Debauchery!” Now it was Emily’s turn to yell. “We were only watching! That's not debauched!”
“There’s names for people that only like to watch.” Matt’s accent was coming out more, but by the grin creeping over his face, he wasn’t angry. No, it was worse. He was amused. They were never ever going to live this down. Ever.
Now Becker threw his two pennorth in. “Abby, I can’t believe you got Jess involved in this creepy peeping tom scheme.” He crossed his arms and tried to look severe. He was only moderately successful. Abby gaped at him anyway and defended herself.
“Peeping... it’s a public exercise room, not the locker room and anyway she invited me!”
“Thanks a lot!” Jess snapped. “For throwing me under the bus!”
“Your idea?” Becker replied and like a laser all the men focused in on Jess. She squirmed. "You?"
“It was an accident-”
“A zoom lens accidentally tripped and installed itself on the camera?” Connor snorted and tossed that out there.
“No, that was deliberate, but I mean it started on accident.” Jess buried her face in her hands and groaned.
James stepped into the office. “What’s going on? Why are you eating in here? Is that popcorn?”
Abby offered him the bag. He took it, and took in the strange energy that was flowing between the smug men and the red-faced women. Thankfully Emily had blanked the computer when they were interrupted. Still, it was obvious something was up, and nobody was volunteering any information to him.
“I’m sure I don’t want to know. Send me an email about it later if you must.” James swooped out of the room, munching on his newly-acquired snack. The silence only lasted a few seconds before Emily broke it.
“He took my popcorn,” she said to the room in general.
“How did this start?” Becker wasn’t going to let it drop.
“Remember how I had to leave that first class?" Jess came out from behind her hands and explained. "Well, I thought I could watch the rest of it while I was dealing with the detector, so I wouldn’t be behind-”
“Funny choice of words.”
Becker nudged Connor with his shoulder, “Shut up, I want to hear this.”
“And I noticed... the angles were... handy.” Jess shrugged and tried to ignore the bright red blush that was crawling over her face. “I didn’t mean for it to become a regular event! Um... so... sorry? Any chance you can forgive us and we can move on, putting this whole sad event in the past?”
Matt almost doubled over with laughter. “No, no I don’t think so.”
“Yeah.” Connor added. “I’m going to have to bring this up for a while.”
“A long while.” Becker added, finally grinning. “A very long while.”
“Some of us have a work-out to finish. In a camera free room. Ladies?” Matt stepped out the door followed by Becker. Connor even tipped his hat at them before shutting the door behind himself. He winked at Abby and licked his lips just before it closed.
“God, we are in so much trouble.” Jess moaned and buried her face in her hands again. “I’m going to get fired, I know it.”
“No you’re not.” Abby rubbed her back. “We were all supposed to be in that class and see that in person. At the most you’ll get lectured and if Lester gives you too much trouble tell me and I’ll name a baby diictodon after him and give it the Queen.”
o-o-o-o
Despite what they told the ladies, they had no intention of finishing their workout. Instead they were crowded into Matt’s office, rehashing the incident.
“Did you see Jess’s face when Abby instantly tossed all the blame on her?” Connor wheezed and chuckled. “That’s my girl.”
“I guess there isn’t any honour among thieves, or honour among horny woman with security cameras. I’m going to be checking myself just walking down the hallway from now on,” Matt added. “I had noticed a definite Tuesday evening perk and wondered why.”
“I hadn’t got any perks,” Becker groused, then met Connor’s eyes and chuckled. “But that was the most fun I’ve had in months. I can tease Jess about this for years. I'll just have to look at her and poof!” He mimed her cheeks blowing up in flaming red. "Blushing really is a good look on her."
“You might have some other perks if you’d do more than tease her,” Connor said. “I’m the last person to tell anyone to man up, but seriously, man up.” He deftly twisted to avoid the halfhearted elbow Becker threw at him. “See? I wouldn’t’ve been able to do that seven weeks ago. Besides, did anyone else notice how it was the woman that isn't getting some that started it? Purely a coincidence, I know.”
"Yeah Becker," Matt chimed in. "In a way this is all your fault. Ask her out before she comes up with some other idiotic plan."
Becker threw a pen at his head. Matt caught it and dropped it on his desk. "Thanks mate, I can always use more pens." He only laughed when Becker flipped him off with both hands before answering his question.
“I don't think she would. Dating someone you work with is a bad idea."
"How could that possibly be a bad idea?" Connor asked, exuding innocence.
Becker just pointed at him and Matt. They laughed at him and Becker relaxed, dropping his arms.
"We’ll see,” he finally conceded. It was the same thing he always said when Connor tried to push him into the same happily in love bliss that he was afflicted with. "We'll see."
o-o-o-o
Jess was grateful to get through the rest of the day without being summoned to Lester’s office for a dressing down for misuse of equipment and possibly dismissed for sexual harassment and, oh, there was probably something about abusing her clearance to ogle people. On the balance, just sexual harassment sounded tame in comparison.
But either nobody made a complaint or Lester hadn’t checked his email. She was able to grab her bag and escape at five with nearly everyone else. Jess saw Matt and Emily walking across the garage away from her, his hand resting possessively on the small of her back as they went towards Matt’s car. He didn’t seem angry over the stunt she had pulled.
Connor wouldn't be a problem. She knew he thought the whole thing was hilarious. That afternoon he’d texted her to check a random camera in a rarely used area of the ARC and when she did, she saw he was doing a ridiculously over the top mock stripper dance in the corridor. One thing was sure, he was taking advantage of his newly-found flexibility. She expected she’d better get used to being stripper-danced at through the cameras until he got bored or something else caught his attention.
Becker, on the other hand, did seem to have some mild annoyance mixed in with his bemusement. That wasn’t good. Even if she still had a faint hope they could maybe go out, he was the type to bring this up forever and ever amen.
For her own peace of mind, she was going to have to take steps to ensure he didn't. There was only one thing to do. Yeah, she’d done something stupid, but so had he, at some point, sometime in his life. All she had to do was find it and fight fire with fire. Otherwise she’d better just get used to going around blushing red as a tomato and listening to people hum that song from ‘The Full Monty’ when she passed them in the hallways.
At home she set to work. Hilary J. Becker. At least there weren’t very many of them. Stubbornly, she stuck to legally available records. She was already in hot water for abusing her security clearance, she didn’t want to make it worse.
He didn’t have a Myspace page. Connor had nagged him into setting up a Facebook page but she’d friended him instantly and he’d never posted anything remotely embarrassing. He wasn’t on Twitter, Pintrest, Google circles or Linked In.
He’d liked a few popular TV shows, but if he was sqeeing on a fansite he certainly wasn’t using his own name. That would be supremely awkward if it came up during a random spot check. She had no idea what he’d pick for a username. Jess went by PurpleButterFly87 on the manga sites she hung out at. What would he pick? BlueSteel? ActionMan69? Dinoboy? Connor was more likely to name himself Dinoboy.
This was stupid. Dispirited, Jess returned to his Facebook page. He’d liked a lot of bands. Mostly thrash metal or heavy rock. That wasn’t her thing so she didn’t pay much attention to them but maybe there was something there. She noticed one of his friends had liked some of the same bands and, unlike nearly all the people Becker was friends with, this guy had all his info set to public.
After Facebook stalking him to the max she learned three important things about Tyson Davvy (Sex God). He’d gone to school with Becker. He was a sexist twat. He had been in a band with Becker when they were both teenagers, which made up for all the rude jokes and pictures she’d waded through to find out that information. A teenage rock band was exactly the kind of leverage she was after.
Tyson Davvy (Sex God), had created a helpful note of all the bands he’d been in and all the people in those bands with him. Near the bottom of the list, she struck gold. Trashcan Junkies - Drums - Ken McDonald, Guitar - Adrian Mitchell, Lead Singer - Hils Becker.
Hils. He went by Hils instead of James, his middle name. That felt oddly intimate to know whilst she ransacked the internet for a photo. It was not scientifically possible to be seventeen and in a thrash band called Trashcan Junkies without some really bad nineties fashion. As much as Jess hated bad fashion, she was hoping it was epically bad.
A few minutes later, she found something even better than a photo. She found a video.
She couldn’t believe her luck when she hit play. Becker was rocking out on stage with his lips pressed to the mike, wailing about licking ashtrays and the balls of life. The sound wasn’t very good, lyrics were worse, and the instruments were much too loud, probably to cover up the fact that they weren’t very good either. She winced when they hit an especially bad combination of chords. His shirt was open halfway down the front, and the striped trousers he wore had never been in style in any country in any year ever in the entire history of the world.
That didn’t draw her attention nearly as much as his ridiculously poofy, curly hair. She hoped it was a wig and at the same time, hoped it wasn't. It was enormous and just kept going and going, it looked like he’d escaped from an 80s shampoo commercial. Then he tossed his head and she was certain.
This was perfect.
Jess saved the video and printed a few choice moments as screenshots before heading over to Becker’s house to beg forgiveness and plead for her dignity back.
As she pulled up outside his house she wondered if knowing where he lived counted as creepy behavior. Resolutely, Jess decided it didn’t because she knew where everyone lived, in case there was an anomaly in their neighborhood. Anyway it was too late now. Moving her car or calling him under a pretense was overthinking the situation.
Jess clutched the screenshots in her hand, crumpling them briefly before she folded them and shoved them down in her back pocket. She tried to achieve something approaching casual in her body language as she ambled up the walkway. He lived in a maisonnette, and it seemed that his neighbours had kids, based on all the finger painting in their windows and the chalk drawings on both pavements.
She rang the bell. Becker answered and Jess’s train of thought was instantly derailed, plunging off the tracks into a heap of wreckage that promptly burst into flames in the canyon that was her professionalism.
“Yes?” he said pleasantly, cradling a wine glass by the stem, completely at ease with the fact he was wearing nothing but a jet black dressing gown belted at the waist, leaving a nice thatch of chest visible. His hair was still dripping slow droplets of water down his neck.
“Guh.”
He raised one perfect eyebrow.
Jess got a grip on herself. “I mean, can I come in?”
“Sure? Want something to drink? I just opened this bottle.” He led the way back towards where he was engaged in cooking dinner. “Actually would you like to stay for dinner? I always make more than I need so I’ll have leftovers.”
“Sure,” Jess answered before she considered how awkward things might get. She felt the blush trailing up her cheeks and swiftly looked away from him, taking a moment to look around his house. It was tidy, which she was expecting, but it was also cozy, with a knitted throw on the back of the couch and tucked away in the corner he had an overstuffed chair with a footstool positioned under a lamp, just the perfect spot for some reading.
Jess picked up well loved copy of ‘The Cat in the Hat’ off an end table. Someone that hadn't entirely mastered the fine art of colouring inside the lines had helpfully filled in all the white in the cat’s hat. She held it up curiously when Becker walked back in the room. He answered her unasked question easily.
“My neighbour’s kid, Heather, left it over here. She’s six. I watch her sometimes to give her parents a break.”
“That’s sweet of you.” Jess stubbornly suppressed the wibbly feeling that gave her.
“She’s fun. Sometimes I think she's six going on sixty-five. For a child she can be quite cynical. She has a very unique outlook on the world. Loves dinosaurs.”
“I bet you’re popular then.”
“She says I tell the best stories and make all the dinosaurs sound real.” He shrugged. “I can’t imagine why.”
He handed her with a glass of dark red wine and grinned when he noticed her reading his bookcases from across the room. “Make yourself at home,” he said with a wave. “I’ve just got to turn the lamb chops.”
“It smells delicious.” Jess commented, following after him to sit at the table and firmly resisting her urge to pilfer his reading materials.
“Ought to. It’s my great-grandmothers secret family recipe.” Becker called from the narrow galley style kitchen. Jess watched him deftly flip the seasoned chops and adjust the heat.
She was impressed despite herself. “Really?”
He flashed a grin at her. “No, I found it an hour ago.” Becker pointed at his laptop, which was set up on the counter opposite the stove and open to a recipe website.
“You joker!” Jess walked over to swat at him. “I believed you!”
Becker laughed as he dodged away.
“So, what brings you here tonight?”
Jess abruptly remembered the papers in her back pocket. “Well... I wanted to talk about what happened today.”
“Really? What’s to talk about? You’ve got a voyeur side. Nothing wrong with that, really. It’s not my kink but whatever floats your boat.” He shrugged and peered at her out of the corner of his eye, chuckling when she protested.
“It’s not a kink!”
“Oh really? Then what was it?”
Jess took a few deep breathes. “It was rude and I’m sorry.” She took a big gulp of her wine. “I came over to ask if you’d mind not saying any more about it at work.”
He pretended to consider that. “Hum... no, no I don’t think so. I think this joke is going to roll for years.”
She sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Besides, if you wanted to stare at my arse, why didn’t you just ask?”
“Because that’d be weird?” She offered up shyly. “I can’t just say, ‘You’re really hot, can I just stare at you for a while because you give me pantsfeels?”
Becker let out a deep rolicking laugh and almost doubled over with the force of it. “Pantsfeels? Who says pantsfeels?”
Jess sniffed and refused to be baited. “How else would you say it?
Still chuckling, he seized on that and caught her eyes with an intense stare. “How would I say it? I would say, ‘You’re really beautiful, and funny and clever, despite some of the harebrained schemes you come up with. Would you have dinner with me?” He didn’t stop when Jess gasped. “Then you would say yes and look-” he raised his glass to encompass the room. “Here we are.”
She sputtered and set her wine down before she could spill it. “But you didn’t say that.”
Becker set his wine down next to hers and then reached out and caught her hand, tugging her towards him so he could rest his arms loosely around her waist. She slid her hands up to clutch his shoulders, letting the silky fabric bunch up under her fingers. He looked into her eyes.
“You’re very beautiful, and funny, and clever. Will you have dinner with me?” He leaned his head down so that the last words were a whispered request against her lips.
“Yes,” Jess whispered back and leaned up to meet him in a gentle kiss. It was only gentle for half a second before his arms tightened around her and he deepened the contact, coaxing her mouth open taking control of the kiss. She let him, content to melt against his chest. She reached up with one hand to wind her fingers through his damp hair.
Eventually they had to stop and breathe.
“So,” Becker murmured against her mouth. “On the whole I’m glad you’ve got a voyeuristic side.”
“I have not,” Jess insisted while they separated themselves to finish cooking dinner. He turned down her offer of help and so Jess was left sitting at the table watching him dish up two plates. She topped off their wine just for something to do.
Jess waited until they had polished off the delicious lamb chops and veggies before she brought up the subject again. By then they had moved to the couch and it was just as cozy as it looked from the doorway. Becker was on one end and she was snuggled into his side, taking a brief break from the thorough kissing and caressing they had been doing. Right now he was running his thumb around the edge of her shirt, up her neck and into her hair before repeating the slow pattern, content just to touch her lightly with his hand.
Jess pushed herself up slightly. It wouldn't do to try her first attempt at blackmail whilst resembling a well stroked cat. “I was serious about convincing you to at least not tease me about this at work where anyone could hear.”
He shook his head. “Yeah, I can’t let this go. You understand? This has to be the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever been caught doing. As your... friend... boyfriend... whatever I am, it is my solemn duty to bring this up again. Besides you look so cute when you blush. ”
“Yes, I thought you might say that.” Jess eased a hand down and pulled the papers out of her pockets. “So I found this to try to convince you.”
Becker looked at the photos uncomprehendingly for a moment before he realised what they were. When he did, he snatched the pictures from her. “How did you find these? I didn’t think any pictures existed of us!”
“There’s more where that came from.” Jess tried to sound threatening but completely failed because she’d just been kissed into oblivion. “There’s even a video. So you might rethink your plan to bring this up constantly for eternity.”
“Are you kidding? There’s a video? Where? I want to see it!” Becker bounced up and retrieved his laptop from the kitchen counter. “C’mon, show me. That shitty band was the most fun I had as a teenager. Right after we broke up I was off to Sandhurst and that was the end of my partying for a long while.”
Bemused, Jess pulled up the video and didn’t mention she’d found it by cyber stalking his Facebook friends. He watched it with his mouth curved open in delight. “Look at my hair! I’d forgotten about my hair, my parents hated it. My dad once said he’d give me a hundred quid if I cut it and I sneered at him and told him I was an artist. Oh, this is brilliant!”
When the video ended he played it again, and hummed along with the melody line. “I can’t believe this still exists. We were shit, but we expected to get discovered any moment, get a record deal, get wined and dined on tour, be rich and famous and the biggest concern in our life would be to pick out the hottest groupies... God, we were young.”
He hugged her tight. “I can’t believe you found this.”
“I am so confused.”
“This is awesome.” He sighed. “If it bothers you that much, I won’t bring up you organizing a party to stare at my arse. I wasn’t actually going to anyway, but making you squirm was too much fun.”
She squealed and flung her arms around his neck. “Thank you.” Jess was so relieved she didn’t notice immediately that he was still messing with the computer. When she looked back she saw he had just finished posting the video to his Facebook with the comment, ‘Bow before the mighty HAIR!’
She was absolutely gobsmacked. “I can’t believe you shared that.”
“It’s brilliant.” He hugged her again. “Shall we get back to what we were doing before?” Becker leaned in and nibbled along the line of her neck. “I do believe you have expressed interest in watching me flex?”
She giggled and let him carry her to the bedroom.
The End.
That rock video really does exist. It's here: http://velvetswag.tumblr.com/post/27051173192/short-hell-bent-for-leather-2006-dir-james. Ben doesn't turn up until about four minutes in.