prompt #37 - Champagne (Fitz)
#37: Champagne
Hugh Fitzcairn, bowing to kiss the loveliest hand in Christendom, sighs deeply before fixing said hand's owner with what generations of women have said is his most soulful and appealing expression. (He has also been told that this expression makes him look like a particularly half-witted sheep, but as the speaker in that instance was one Duncan MacLeod, Fitz considers that comment a compliment. Everyone knows how the Scots feel about sheep.)
"Lovely lady," Fitz tells his current, his ultimate, inamorata: "I died my first death for love, and would gladly take my permanent rest for only a glance from your flawless eyes."
"I'll be glad to assist you to that rest," interrupts the aforementioned Highlander, coming up behind Fitz and breaking into the conversation with a typical lack of tact. "Or even to a more temporary one, provided it gets you to leave."
MacLeod's Presence had been an unwelcome surprise some fifteen minutes earlier, but after some mutual glaring and posturing, he and Fitz settled into the vaguely friendly antagonism that is beginning to characterize their acquaintance. The incomparable, the peerless, the matchless Gina is already smiling at the increasingly familiar rhythm of their banter. Fitz pauses to admire the curve of her lips and the sparkle of her eyes, and MacLeod takes the opportunity to jog his elbow sharply. Only centuries-sharpened reflexes save the contents of Fitz's wine glass and the fine silk of his tunic.
"Mind your manners, you barbarian oaf," Fitz snarls. "Civilized people are trying to enjoy the party."
"Then shouldn't you go away and let them do so?" the Highlander says smoothly. Fitz flatters himself that the lad's powers of witty repartee have greatly increased since their first meeting, due, of course, to his own improving influence.
"Besides," MacLeod continues, "you didn't die for love. You died because you were stupid enough to cuckold a man who could best you with a sword." Gina laughs, and Fitz is torn between enchantment at her loveliness and thoughts of revenge on loudmouthed young idiots.
The Highlander is grinning widely, already anticipating his opponent's humiliated withdrawal from the lists. Fitz narrows his eyes. The insolent pup's developed quite a mouth over the years, but Hugh Fitzcairn was an expert in the fine art of verbal fencing even before he gained his Immortality, and the centuries have only sharpened his tongue. No Highland brat is going to best him, at least not in this particular arena.
"Oh, Fitz," Gina says, shaking her head. "Is that really how you died?" She's wearing that damnably knowing smile that all women seem able to summon at will, and Fitz knows he's hopelessly besotted when he realizes that he's thinking how beautiful she looks, smiling like that.
"I died for love," he insists, then gives in. "But yes, if you must know, it was indeed a jealous husband who struck the fatal blow." He smiles beatifically at Gina and then at MacLeod, who recognizes the danger, but not in time to do anything about it.
"Still," Fitz continues, doing his best to keep his self-satisfaction from showing in his face and voice, "better a jealous husband than an outraged father. How old was that girl in Barcelona, MacLeod? Fourteen? Younger?" He watches gleefully as Duncan goes white, then red.
"Gina, it wasn't like that!" The pitch of the man's voice rises with every syllable, as do Gina's eyebrows. Fitz mentally awards himself ten points, and leans back to enjoy MacLeod's insistent protests that he'd actually rescued the unfortunate girl from both her greedy father and a thoroughly unsuitable suitor.
The best part, Fitz decides, as he liberates a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter, is that Duncan is telling the truth, and Gina knows he's telling the truth, and yet she's perfectly willing to let him flounder hopelessly onwards into an ever deepening verbal pit.
Mid-explanation, the Highlander catches Fitz's eye and glares at him in a way that warns of coming retribution. Fitz toasts him silently behind Gina's back and smirks in utter contentment.