nice is different than good
So, in the spirit of -entines both Gal and Val, and because I'm feeling ridiculously productive, wordwise, un meme! Super basic and open-ended:
Leave me some shippy fic prompts, and I will write you something!
Be ridiculous, be-be ridiculous. I know I'm sometimes awful at delivering with these, but if you ask for robot/cockroach otp* and/or shameless ( Read more... )
Leave me some shippy fic prompts, and I will write you something!
Be ridiculous, be-be ridiculous. I know I'm sometimes awful at delivering with these, but if you ask for robot/cockroach otp* and/or shameless ( Read more... )
Her espresso's gone cold by the time he appears-wearing a leather jacket that looks effortfully dented, still shining beneath its purposeful scuffs. He's always indulgent whenever they're in Italy-what is that, some kind of assumed birthright? Every time, he gets a new jacket, and she's pretty sure it's company money that goes into it.
"Francesca," he says, kissing his fingers, the look on his face deceptively self-mocking behind his hand. "Bella."
His accent is appalling, even after years of training. Then again, he's not trying very hard. Even now, he looks better-equipped to play the bolshy American tourist, clumsy and unthreatening and charm like a lucky accident. The natives never have a chance.
She pushes her sunglasses up from her nose onto her head, squinting through the light, and blots away a reluctant grin with her napkin, leaving behind a lipstick print-in demure day-brown that hides coffee stains, call that dressing for the mission. If the suits are paying for her to wait around while this idiot spends too much time and money ogling leather and Vespas like the Eurotrash he so clearly isn't, they can damn well pick up her coffee bill.
"You're late."
"My Italian isn't doing anything to make up for it, is it?"
"Not even a little."
"You're jet-lagged," he notes, and she drops her head in her hands, eyes tired-she's fresh in from London. Still shaking off the accent, point of fact. Isn't he nice for not mocking her for that yet-she expects she'll get a barrelful once she's awake enough for fun. No use bantering with a corpse.
She says as much.
"Is that you being harsh on yourself?" His eyes pop, all assumed surprise. Thank God she can also attest that he has a poker face on command. He'd be a real waste of time if his face was like this all the time. She scrunches her nose.
"Hardly-"
He bops her scrunched nose with a fingertip. "Agent Bunny. Operative of self-deprecation."
"I have a gun in my bag."
He grins, wide, wide open. "Let's take this to the hotel."
"My thoughts exactly. There's business," she stresses. "Business to look over." She flicks a nail toward the espresso cup. "Toss down a euro or five, that's a good boy."
"You've already got me paying for the pleasure of my company? Francesca."
"Watch it, Beta."
She watches it sting him into action, watches him pull a bill from his wallet and toss it onto the table. "Better?"
"Buona." She rises. He offers an elbow, and that's something of a complicated joke, too, and she takes it-there's the punch line. "Alpha."
His face eases.
"Sometimes, Banks, you make me feel like a mark."
"Someday, Alpha, you might just be." She kisses him on the cheek. "But until then-"
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