A Not So Simple Offer

Jan 30, 2011 21:29

Title: A Not So Simple Offer
Author: echo_fangirl

Characters: Abby, Lester (Abby/Connor implied)
Rating: M 15+ (partial nudity and accidental exhibitionism)
Words: 1,767
Disclaimer: Not mine, as nice as it would be
Spoilers: 4.04
A/N: This has been sitting on my hard drive for two weeks now. I'm just... Not sure about it. Shrug.

Summary: Abby makes Lester an offer. She gets more (and less) than she bargained for.

---

Abby hitched her top down again, pulling the scooped neck dangerously low. Her lashes were so heavy with mascara that they were practically sticking together, and her lips were painted a provocative cherry. She had once told Connor that she was capable of doing the 'girl thing', but this was something else entirely. This was 'tart', and she knew it.

Lorraine's glance had lingered on her a moment longer than usual as she passed through, but in a manner befitting Sir James Lester's personal secretary, showed no signs of either surprise or judgment. Abby knocked on the door.

"Yes?" answered Lester, giving her implicit permission to enter. Abby leaned into the door as she opened it, ensuring that the first thing Lester would see as she entered was that low cut top being put to very good use.

Her positioning was spot on. As Lester looked up from his desk his eyes caught on her cleavage for a moment before moving up to her face, then after a few seconds hesitation, back down to her cleavage again before finally settling back on her face.

"Miss Maitland? Is there something I can do for you?"

Abby batted her eyelashes, taking a step into the office.

"There might be... But I was actually thinking that there might be something I could do for you?" She leaned back on the door until it snibbed closed. She pouted her lips.

Lester placed the pen carefully on his desk, giving her his full attention. "What in particular did you have in mind?"

Abby took that as her cue. In one smooth movement, Abby pulled the slightly sparkly and very skimpy top over her head, flicking it away into the far corner. She wasn't wearing a bra, it would have just been in the way. Nothing would get in her way today.

She took two confident steps forward, putting a little bounce into her step. She knew she was far from over-endowed in the chest department, but she certainly had enough to produce a pleasing jiggle. Despite her performance though, Lester remained irritatingly poised. He placed his elbows on his desk, and tented his forefingers together, touching lightly at his lip and looking nothing but thoughtful.

"I see," he said. "You were proposing some sort of morale boost for the young male technicians working on the anomaly detector this morning?"

Abby blinked, her pouty smile slipping very slightly. "Uh... Sorry?"

"Perhaps you would like to recall the layout of my office, Miss Maitland? Specifically, the large plate glass windows on the east side of my office. The ones which look out into the Detector Room?" He allowed that thought a moment to sink in before continuing. "If you recall, I tend to leave the blinds on that particular window open, and today is unfortunately not an exception."

It took her a moment to figure out exactly what it was that Lester was referring to, but as soon as she realized, Abby's heart jumped up into her throat and began to hammer loudly. She slowly turned her head to the right, where the aforementioned plate glass windows affording her an excellent view of between ten and twelve members of the ARC staff. So far none of them seemed to be looking in to Lester's office, but she knew it would only take one. She felt her cheeks start flaming red.

"I..." she started, but no further words came.

Lester nodded, sighing in a put upon manner. He stood then, walking towards her as her mind started to race, trying to find some way to salvage the situation. He stood behind her, placing firm but gentle hands on her shoulders. She felt too humiliated to turn around and look him in the eye, so she dropped her head and stared at the ground instead.

"Come along now," Lester said gently, using his grip on her shoulders to steer her away from those horrible windows and across to the wall on the other side of the office. "Stay put."

Lester released her shoulders, leaving her feeling both dejected and rejected in equal measure. He returned a moment later, gingerly draping the ugly, sparkly top over her shoulder. "Put this on. Then perhaps we can have a slightly more sensible conversation?"

She wanted to kick herself. How had she forgotten about the window? It had just always been there, she barely even thought about it any more. It was like security cameras in shopping centers, you just stopped noticing them after a... Oh God. Lester's office had a security camera. Her humiliation was caught on tape. She pulled the horrible shirt over her head and wished the wall would just absorb her into it.

Lester cleared his throat. From the direction of the sound, he was already sitting back behind his desk.

"When you're quite ready..." he said.

Abby took a deep breath and turned around, back straight and head held high. Using every ounce of poise she could muster, she went to stalk out the door.

Unfortunately, Lester seemed to have other plans.

"Miss Maitland, my desk is over here." He said clearly. "Please, sit down."

Her shoulders slumped involuntarily, but she did as instructed.

"Asking 'why' at this point seems terribly unimaginative, yet curiosity compels me." Lester gave Abby a pointed look. Abby chose to look at the ceiling, very much aware that even the makeup she had caked on her face at this point wouldn't adequately hide the flush of embarrassment in her cheeks. At Abby's continued silence, Lester prompted again. "Perhaps you took my comment earlier about starting office gossip as a challenge?"

At that, Abby shook her head firmly.

"No, that's not it. I... Connor and I had a disagreement." Abby stopped there, unsure what else to say.

"I always observed that, when it comes to you, Connor is more than usually inclined to avoid disagreements." Lester observed. Abby sighed.

"Okay, I guess I disagreed with him. You should have heard him this morning though, mooning about after Burton like some kind of science groupie, and he didn't do anything even when Burton said he wanted to kill all the creatures, not even for Rex! He just nicked off, like it wasn't even important. Like I wasn't even important."

"I see." Lester mused quietly. "So Connor displeased you by directing his attentions towards someone you do not approve of, and you decided turn about was fair play?"

"What?" asked Abby, blind Lester's implications.

"I was merely noting that in response to Connor's 'mooning' over Burton, you decided to find and seduce the nearest significant male authority figure you could find."

"No! That's not what I was trying to do at all!" Abby protested, then hesitated. "I... You helped save all the creatures, and you had our lockers brought over from the old ARC and you made sure we got our jobs back, and..." She trailed off.

"All necessary for the smooth running of the operation, I assure you. Certainly I had not imagined your affections to be quite so easily negotiable. It took Mister Temple several years to earn your attention."

"That's not fair." Abby protested. A brief spurt of indignation fired in her chest, but then Lester raised an eyebrow at her, and even that spurt was immediately extinguished. She sighed, a sudden fatigue falling over her as the last of the day's adrenaline waned. "It didn't seem so petty in my head... You know, offering... To you..."

Lester's eyes became slightly less sharp then, which was the closest he ever really got to sympathetic.

"If I were not old enough to be you father, and also happily married, I expect I would have found your proposal quite... Pleasing."

"That doesn't actually make me feel a whole lot better." Abby trailed off. She glanced downwards at her low cut top. Lester noticed immediately.

"Do you have anything less revealing to wear?"

Abby nodded, "In my locker."

Lester tapped at his desk thoughtfully for a moment, then stood up again and walked to the end of his bookshelf. A small hook had been attached there, holding a complete change of clothes still in their dry-cleaning bags. He picked up the hanger with a pale blue and white striped shirt, and removed it from its plastic coating.

"Here," he said, offering her the shirt, "you can put that on for now."

She did. The shirt was several sizes too big for her, even discounting the fact that it was built for a man rather than a woman. Still, it covered everything which her current top failed to cover, and for that she was incredibly grateful.

"Thanks." She said, surprised to realise just how much she meant it.

"It's quite all right." Lester looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, chewing at his bottom lip the way he did whenever he was trying to make a decision. "At the risk of sounding entirely inappropriate, I think it's probably best if we keep your naked bosom between the two of us." Abby opened her eyes wide and nodded rapidly. "Very good," Lester confirmed.

They sat in silence for a moment then, Abby fidgeting alternately with the buttons and with the cuffs of the over-sized shirt hanging off her shoulders. Eventually, Lester spoke.

"It occurs to me that you would probably have a better chance of resolving with conflict with Connor by exposing your... assets... to him. More so at least, than by doing so for me. Mr Temple has had a challenging day today of his own today. Perhaps you should go and find him?"

Abby nodded. "Yeah..." She ducked her head again. "And Lester? Thank you. Really."

"Noted. Is that all you wanted to discuss today? Only it appears that I have quite a long proposal to read regarding the proper storage of temporally displaced creatures, and I would prefer not to have to work late today just to finish it."

Abby nodded with a slight smile, and quickly exited the office. Her first instinct was to run to the locker room and wash all the gunk off her face, but then she hesitated. Instead, she turned towards the lab where Connor kept a desk.

Maybe it was time she showed Connor just how good she could be at the girl thing.

fic, lester, abby, primeval

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