fic: Tom Cruise Must Die (6/??) (KB, JD, JJ, KH, others)
Title: Tom Cruise Must Die (6/?)
Cast: Kristen Bell. Jason Dohring. Joshua Jackson. With sundry guest stars of the CW and Scientology variety!
Authors: buffyx & missdeviant
Rating: NC-17 (this section is NC-17)
Notes/Warnings: Rule number one of VM RPS: Do not talk about VM RPS. Not to the actors, anyway. It's just not cool, and DEFINITELY NOT AT ALL FUNNY, OKAY? OKAY. Just so we're clear!
If looks could kill, Theophilus Craww would be six feet under right about now.
Of course, if the intense, steely glare Jason is shooting the scrawny scientist is any indication, Kristen is fairly convinced that the only thing standing between Craww and a serious throttling is the sturdy wooden table between them. The almost tangible hostility doesn't seem to ruffle Craww at all-he merely swallows down the last of his Guinness with a leisurely sigh and meets Jason's eye daggers with a rather rodent-like smirk. If all the hours she's logged watching Animal Planet are anything to judge by, she'd peg him as meerkat-esque.
"Tell us what you know," Jason commands in a low, barely restrained tone.
Craww takes his time wiping his mouth with a napkin and crumpling it in his hand before deigning to respond. "I'm thinking I'm going to need another round first."
The heel of Jason's hand slams down on the tabletop, hard and without warning, causing the salt shakers and silverware to rattle.
"No," he seethes, "you're going to tell us what you fucking know. Everything. Right now."
Tentative, Kristen sets her hand near Jason's elbow, trying to calm him. He casts her a brief sideways glance and relaxes a fraction.
The scientist cocks his head to the side with an appraising look, then says to Kristen, "Careful. You might want to keep your boy on a leash before he hurts someone."
Kristen does her best to return his patronizing gaze with a sharp stare of her own, ignoring her rapidly accelerating heart rate for the moment.
“Look, I’ll buy you your stupid drink myself,” she retorts. “Hell, I’ll even spring for a plate of hot wings if you want. Just tell us where she is first. Did the Scientologists take her?”
“Hey, there’s more to the story than that. I gotta set the scene, all right?” Craww pauses, rolling his neck and looking very much like he’s enjoying watching his adversaries stew to a perverse degree. “You want to know who swiped the subject-“
“Her name is Sara,” Kristen cuts in vehemently. Emotion rises in her chest, and all of a sudden her throat is constricting. “She is not a scientific experiment, okay? Okay. She’s just-she’s just a baby.”
“Fine. Fine, the kid. Don’t get all blubbery and melodramatic on me here.” The man across from her rolls his eyes, exasperated. “The Org has the kid. You’re right about that.”
As Jason curses under his breath, Kristen presses on.
“And is she-she’s still alive?”
Craww scoffs loudly, the corners of his mouth pulled down in a disgusted scowl. “Clearly you are painfully uninformed about the situation at hand. Dohring, I know you’re aware of the… circumstances. It’s why I contacted you. I’d prefer to discuss this with someone acquainted with these matters, not some meddling little girl who thinks acting as a private eye on television means she really is one. Please. If we all really were who we pretended to be on video, I'd be Ron Jeremy.”
Okay, now Kristen has to restrain herself from leaping over the table and strangling the snide little bastard. And from vomiting on her shoes. Eww.
And then something clicks in her brain.
“Circumstances?” She whips her head around to stare at Jason. “What circumstances?”
Jason carefully evades her steady gaze, keeping his eyes on Craww. “How much do you know?”
“Are you kidding?” Craww sneers. “You don’t understand, do you? I created Suri! Me! My lab! These hands! She only exists because of my blood, sweat, and time-- oh, the months I put into that project. Without me, those idiots would’ve been poking at a Petri dish for years without the success I accomplished. I crafted her from the embryo up. Trust me. I know what she’s built for.”
“Built for?” Kristen echoes. “Wait, what is she built for?”
This time, Jason turns and looks her straight on. “Remember, last summer… I told you. About the vortex. How they were planning on using her as a Scientology conversion tool.”
“Oh. Right. The mind control scheme thing.”
Somehow that piece of information had escaped her memory somewhere between the hot, mind-blowing plane sex and subsequent extended period of repression. Oops.
“How much time do we have?” asks Jason.
“Eh, it’s still a little early in the astronomical cycle.” Craww shrugs. “I’d give it a week. Week and a half, tops.”
Kristen frowns. “And we’re trusting you why, exactly?”
The look Craww shoots her from across the booth is withering.
“I’m not going to pretend I have any noble illusions of saving humanity. This is about one thing: payback.” He drops the wrinkled napkin onto the table and leans toward her. “After your little band of renegades took out the Center, the Org regrouped. Did a complete overhaul. They kicked me out of the program, cut off access to my research and said that if I went forward with anything I knew, I’d be swimming with the fishes, if you get my drift.”
“And I assume they didn’t mean the ones in Tom Cruise’s aquarium,” interjects Kristen dryly.
Craww ignores her comment. “The group I’m working with-“
“The Resistance?” Jason asks.
“Please. You think your band of merry men are the only ones working against the Org? The government’s had their eye on them since inception. CIA, FBI, IRS. There are people much bigger than you involved in this. Don’t overestimate the modest importance you have.”
Something in Jason’s face changes as he reacts, but Kristen isn’t sure what; he looks kind of stunned, like this is new information to process. Then, just as quickly, his face smoothes over, and he looks back to Craww with a cold, assessing stare.
"Forty-seven confirmed casualties at the center," he says coolly. "I'm starting to think it's a shame that you weren't one of them."
Kristen's stomach twinges. Forty-seven innocent people. Okay, maybe forty-seven not-so-innocent people. Forty-seven zombified Scientology clones? She hasn't thought about it since the sparse, fuzzy reports came out about the "accidental" early morning fire at the Medical Center in Clearwater. Being an ingenue is easier when your hands are blood-free.
Craww’s eyebrows raise. "Forty-seven confirmed? From the tone of your voice, you suspect more."
"Oh, you mean Africa?" Jason sneers. "I hope they mean that's where they scattered Tom Cruise's ashes."
"Don’t be an idiot," Craww snaps, impatient. "Come on. You know better than that."
“We were there. We saw the building go down. He was in it,” Kristen shoots back. “Jason, tell him.”
But Jason is just sitting there, stony and silent. Craww smirks.
Kristen touches his shoulder. “Jason…”
“I don’t-when I came back through. I didn’t. I didn’t see him,” he finally admits. “I don’t know. I didn’t think…”
“Well, he’s alive. Very much so. Trust me.”
If Kristen had any doubts about whether Craww was lying before, they are gone now, destroyed by the concerned furrows in Jason's forehead. Cue the ominous score.
“Who are you working for?” Jason's voice is low, even, but Kristen recognizes a hint of desperation in it. “How do you know this?”
“I can’t tell you much about the faction I’m with, but it’s legit,” Craww continues. “The scientific community is tired of being exploited by these suits. We’ve got moles within the Org, working from the inside. That’s why we were able to know when to send the pictures.”
“Pictures…?” He trails off for a moment, then it seems to click. “The pictures. Of Sara. You sent those?”
“We thought your buddy Jackson would take the hint and run scared, but he stayed. Stupid move on his part, that.”
“How did they know he was there?” Kristen interrupts.
“Are you really not getting it?” huffs Craww. “The Org’s known their location before their plane even landed. They’ve kept tabs on you. All of you. They were just waiting for the right time.”
Oh god. Kristen had spent so much time worrying over such stupid things, and here her life had been at stake the whole time. Oh god, oh god. She doesn’t think she can handle this.
“I’m done with this secrecy bullshit,” Craww persists fervently. “I devoted far too much of my life to working on that project, no way are they gonna steal the glory from me. No. Way.”
“All right. Say we decide to believe you.” Jason cocks his head to the side. “What’s the plan here?”
This time, it’s the look on Craww’s face that is deadly.
“Tom Cruise must die.”
**
It’s going to take some convincing for Josh to trust this guy; Kristen knows that, Jason knows that, even Craww knows that, and he’s an annoying, sniveling cretin man. That’s why when they drive back to the farmhouse, Jason elects to go inside and talk to him first while Kristen and Craww wait outside.
At first this seems like a good idea-Kristen feels like she has no idea what to say to Josh right now, when he’s acting so (understandably) out of it-but then she’s alone with Craww on the front stoop, and she wishes she’d gone inside instead. Stupid stupid stupid.
Craww shakes two cigarettes out of a packet, offers her one.
“Um, I don’t think so,” she says stiffly, looking away as he lights his own with a shrug.
“So. You and Dohring, huh?” He blows out a few smoke rings and eyes her up and down. “Should’ve pegged it. Revolutionaries in love. How darling.”
His voice is dripping with sarcasm. Kristen glances at him and then quickly at the snow. She is so not going to dignify that with a response. Or have this conversation with this creep. Ever.
From the look on his face, the way her cheeks furiously heat up is answer enough. She presses her lips into a thin seam, dips her head so that she can hide behind her hair.
He has no right. Okay, maybe falling for Jason doesn't count among the smartest things she's ever done in her life, but they're actually working towards something that might be counted as NORMAL (for once).
“You could do better,” he says after a lengthy pause, and she bristles, pivoting to face him head on.
“Like you’re one to talk,” she retorts. “At least he believes in something. In a cause. Other than some egotistical self-aggrandizing Nobel Prize wet dream.”
“Oh, and what cause is that? An early demise? The kid’s fucked up. Everyone knows.”
Her body tenses. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I get around. I hear things.” Craww sucks on his cigarette, ashes it as he shrugs. “He thinks he’s a martyr. S’why I knew he’d be my go to guy. Need someone to put his ass on the line. And he’s gotta be giving you somethin’ in exchange-” The look he gives her is skeevy, lascivious, and she shudders. “-if you’re willing to follow a lunatic into near death.”
“We’re friends,” she states rigidly. Yes, friends. Friends with benefits. Like occasional gropage in snow forts or bathrooms or alleys, or whatever.
“Last time I checked, friends don’t send friends on suicide missions.”
Kristen gawks at him, not sure how to respond, finally hugs herself and turns away.
"I have to - um - go do the thing." She eyes Craww warily. "Are you going to be - okay - out here?"
"If you mean am I going to go on a teen idol jihad and rig a bomb under the car chassis? No. I might end up littering on the lawn though." He flicks the stub of his cigarette into the snow.
Okay. Screw it. Jason is taking too long and Craww doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere, and she needs to pee, dammit. In her next life, when the world asks her if she wants to be a superhero, she's going make sure the powers that be give her a bigger bladder first.
She hurries inside, steals toward the nearest bathroom, but stops in her tracks when she hears voices coming from the kitchen. Jason and Josh. Loud.
“You lied to me,” Josh says heatedly. “You shut me out.”
“Look, I did what I had to to get the guy to talk.” Jason’s voice is stressed, but he’s clearly trying to calm Josh. “You’re not being shut out, dude. You need to be here to keep Katie together, okay?”
Which Josh is not really doing, Kristen thinks, but she's not going to bring that pain up now.
“Jackson. I told you I’d take care of this, and I will.”
Kristen tiptoes closer to the kitchen doorway, peering in as inconspicuously as possible. She can see that Josh is near the sink, agitated, pacing back and forth within her view.
“Oh, so what? Did you collectively decide that I'm Mr. Mom now? Does wearing aprons make me unsuitable for search and rescue? No way, man. I'm going with you guys.”
“You're too emotionally involved,” Jason tells him, “not to mention the fact that you don't even TRUST the guy. There is too much potential for this to get fucked up, and then we’re all screwed."
Josh comes to a stop. “That's exactly why you need me. Because I'm not just going to let Bill Nye lead us into a trap. Which you seem to be intent on letting him do.”
“Look,” Jason sighs. “I just-- I trust this guy.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, I just do. Call it instinct. He’s for real.”
“And what if he's part of the plan?”
Jason scoffs. “Sara's already gone and this guy's a freaking scientist who probably couldn't even take KB in a fight. What is he going to do, steal your baking soda and vinegar and make a volcano?"
This gives Josh pause, and he eyes Jason warily before asking, "Did you check him for contraband before you brought him here?"
“Yeah. I patted him down in the car. We had a moment,” Jason deadpans.
“Aww. And here I thought it meant something.”
The sudden voice from behind causes Kristen to nearly jump out of her skin. She whirls around to see Craww approaching, rubbing his chin and brushing past her into the kitchen. Jason turns and catches her eye, surprised.
“You’re supposed to be outside,” he says.
“Yeah, well, you two were taking too long jerking each other off and it’s freezing as balls out there. You got anything to drink? Preferably alcoholic.” Craww starts toward the refrigerator. “It’s been a long day, you understand.”
Before he can open the door, Josh snags him by the coat lapels, shoves him against the counter hard.
“Listen, you little fucker,” Josh growls, “if you so much as try to play us, I will destroy you and-”
“Spare me,” Craww says gruffly. “Hey, buddy, you've got a short window of time here. You want to waste it with a pissing contest and petty grudges, go ahead. It's not my kid at risk."
“Fine.” Josh releases him, smoothes down his coat before stepping back. “Let’s make one thing clear: I don’t trust you. I don’t like you. Not one fucking bit.”
“I’m positively crushed.”
An exchanging of glares follows, but each party retreats, and the feud has come to a standstill, it seems, if only for a moment.
“Okay... not to be a buzzkill, but…” Kristen clears her throat. “So where exactly do we go from here?”
Craww’s thin lips curl into a slow smirk. “I hear upstate New York is lovely this time of year.”
**
Not long after that Jason tells her to get some sleep, that she’ll be needing it, and somehow she’s able to sneak in a few hours, but then there’s a weird noise in the hall and her eyes open, heart jumps. She kicks back the covers and slips into the hallway.
“Katie?” she hisses into the dark, waiting for her eyes to adjust.
“It’s me.”
Kristen blinks and sees Jason’s outline outside of the door across the hall. She steps closer, close enough to see the tired lines across his forehead, his eyes only half-open.
“Sorry, did I..?” He trails off like he’s too drained to finish the sentence.
“Eh, sleep’s not high on the agenda,” she shrugs, folding her arms over her stomach. “I mean, what with-everything.”
“Yeah,” he says sympathetically. Squints his eyes as he makes a face. “Kind of a sucky time to start a relationship, huh?”
“Relationship?” Kristen echoes, one eyebrow raised.
“Well, I'll probably hold off on the promise ring until after we save the world… but yeah. I mean, if you don't mind the title.”
She shrugs a little, trying to pretend like her heart isn't in her throat. "Relationship is good."
Jason pulls her to his chest then, lays a kiss on the top of her head.
“Mmm.” She draws back to tilt her head up at him. “Do you want some coffee?”
“Guard duty.” He glances back at the door. “Not that I think Craww’s going to be much of a problem.”
“What about Katie?” Kristen questions.
“Gone. Uh, she’s with her mom. Undisclosed location. But she’s safe.”
“And Josh?”
“Downstairs,” Jason explains. “Why don’t you go down there? Probably need to start getting ready to leave anyway. Flight leaves at eight.”
Kristen presses herself back against his chest, lingering for a moment longer, then heads down the stairs. The kitchen’s empty, but there’s a lamp on in the living room, and when she turns the corner, Josh is on the couch.
She stands back, watching him from a short distance-there’s something in his hands. It takes her a second, but she realizes it’s Sara’s tiny Christmas stocking; he’s rubbing the red material tenderly between his fingers. Finally he stops, and then his shoulders are shaking and his head is cradled in his hands.
Clearing her throat, Kristen steps toward him. Josh sits upright, wiping at the corners of his eyes absently.
“Bell-” he starts, but she doesn’t let him say anything, just crosses the room and sits next to him.
“I know,” she says, sets a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I know.”
Emotions war on his face for a couple of seconds, and he places the stocking on the coffee table, heaves a shaky sigh.
“I have to get her back. I have to.”
“I know,” she murmurs, rubbing his back, “and we will. We won’t leave until we have her. I promise, okay? I promise.”
Josh doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t move away, and it’s enough.
**
They depart for the airport hours before sunrise, filing out the back door in reserved silence; she stops halfway through, turns and looks past them all, into the living room, at the tree covered in dainty lights, at the floor devoid of presents. Her eyes unfocus and everything becomes a haze where the colors cancel out everything else, a bright storm on a dark blur.
She pretends not to remember the ornament hung in the branches, the one reading "Baby's First Christmas," and blinking once, twice, steadies herself with a hand against the doorframe.
Kristen is not a hero. But she will go, just as she did before, because there is nothing else. There is no question about it. And it's not because of Josh or Katie or pure reluctant obligation - it’s not even Jason, although she’s not sure if she would be as brave without him.
It should have been a decision that she’d toiled and agonized over, but the truth is, it’s one of the few in her life that has been easy, and deciding to go, to fight… it’s like breathing-instinctive, necessary.
It's snowing when they walk through the sliding glass doors, and their footprints leave a trail in the slush as they trudge ahead.
She shivers and Jason slips an arm around her shoulder. For the moment, it will have to do.
**
Planes are not sexy. Not inherently. Not on a surface level. Seriously, they’re not exactly a huge turn-on for most people. So why does it seem lately that every time Kristen boards one, her mind immediately jumps to sex? Is this her kinky side or something?
She thinks maybe Jason feels the same way about aircraft, judging by the stupid little squeeze he gives the back of her shoulder as they wait in line to board.
Twenty minutes after the seatbelt light dings off the backs of his fingers are skating over the inside of her thigh. They made her throw out her Starbucks at the gate, and she hasn't even gotten a Fresca yet, but she's more than willing to bypass the drink cart for this. She closes her eyes, gives in to the sensation.
One minute, two. Her body is collapsing in on itself, and so is her resolve. She was never strong in the first place. For Jason she’ll bend like a reed in the wind. She wants him to shape her, carve her, play her like a flute.
Jason stops what he is doing. His fingers squeeze her leg and her eyelids flutter. He throws a glance to the back of the plane and she'll be damned but she knew this would happen, because this is a story she has told herself every night to help her face the monsters in her sleep.
He smiles and she smiles and they smile like signing a contract.
"Um. I've never done this before," Kristen breathes and he nuzzles her neck. "Or, okay. Not with other people on board. So… how does it work? Like, do I go back to the bathroom and then - what next? Do you have a special knock?"
"Yes. Like the movies," he answers.
So. Inappropriate. She knows this, she does, but still she tries to nonchalantly extract herself from her seat, stretches her arms out and strolls into the aisle, casual as can be.
Hopefully Josh won’t notice her-he seems pretty preoccupied, sitting toward the front next to Craww, whom he’d been firm about wanting to keep watch over. Not that babysitting Craww involved much effort; he’d washed down two Vicodin with a glass of Merlot and passed out fifteen minutes after departure.
About halfway to the bathroom, she makes a flat-out dash for the door, locks herself inside.
Sure enough, she only has to wait about thirty-five Mississippis (not that she’s COUNTING in her head or anything) before there’s a solid series of raps on the door. She barely has time to flip the latch to "vacant" before Jason is pushing his way in, crowding her against the sink.
“What is it with us and bathrooms?” she jokes, then pauses reflectively. “And planes. I think we can safely add planes to that list.”
Jason waggles his eyebrows. “A deadly combination.”
“Deadly?” She tilts her head to the side and grins suggestively. “Why, Mr. Dohring, is that a venomous snake in your pants or are you just happy to see me?”
And he kisses her in response, gripping her waist and pulling her to him waist-first, and her thoughts are as follows:
1) Gods and Monsters, is this ever unsanitary.
2) I am glad that Melinda convinced me to go Brazilian the last time I got a wax, even if "take off your panties and lie down" isn't necessarily a phrase you want to hear from a two hundred pound Eastern European woman.
3) hfdsafjlkdsjflks!!!1!!!!!!!
It's not the kind of kissing that looks romantic on film, this she knows. Mouths gaping, tongues clashing. Animalistic. She feels uncaged, foot propped on the stainless steel toilet, door handle jabbing into her back. Jason's hand grasps her under her knee, drawing her toward him. They’re already cramped together in the space, which can't be larger than three feet by three feet, and still he finds a way to bring her even closer.
She jams her hands down the back of his jeans, shameless now. Let's skip the hellos and how do you dos, no tentative yanks at the elastic, not here. He lifts and presses against her, in response to her fingers clutching his bare skin, and then he does the same, one hand in the back of her pants, fingers skimming down the curve of her ass, maneuvering lower until one finger is curling into the damp crease between her legs.
Her breath comes in staccatos, short sharp intakes that cut straight to the place between her legs. Kristen adjusts her body against his hand, bracing her head on his shoulder in the small space as he presses deeper, first one finger, then two dipping inside her. Her cunt contracts around his fingers and she squeezes Jason's arm and looks into his eyes. They are locked on her face and deadly serious in that Jason way. She swallows what would have been an embarrassingly inappropriate sigh.
Kristen doesn’t think she’s ever wanted anything more in her life.
Then she's grabbing at his zipper and he's pulling the stretchy foldover waist of her sweatpants-no, YOGA pants- down her thighs, panties at the same time. The fabric pools around her knees and she steps halfway out with one swift movement, one leg bare and pressed against Jason, her pants wrinkling around an ankle.
He takes possession of her mouth again and she responds with an answering press of her tongue against his as she's pulling at the waist of his jeans. The change in his pockets jingles as she pushes them down blindly. Her fingers curl and lift the elastic of his boxers, out and down until Jason's dick is free and pressing warmly against her belly.
"Hi," she breathes.
"Hi," he replies and bites her lower lip.
Then he has a condom out of his pocket - or somewhere - and she wants to ask him if he brought four this time, but she knows that it is only a few hour trip and there are probably people who have to pee, somewhere, and maybe a stewardess - no, flight attendant - outside the door. Four is not a good idea. One.
Oh god.
He lifts her carefully, watching to make sure her bare skin does not brush against the walls, the sink. This is good because it means more of her is touching him. Her legs are parted and she is slick against his skin; his hands are broad and cover her backside completely.
She hasn't been waiting for this. If she had been waiting, it would have felt interminable. But at the same time, it's here and the tip of his dick is rubbing against her and it feels like it has been too long.
Jason slides inside her and she stifles a moan. He starts to move and she gives up, gives in to him, the in and out. Only when he presses his hand against her mouth does she realize she's stopped stifling.
"We're in an airplane." The words rush into her ear and she contracts around him, smiles against his hand and licks at his fingers in response, letting her tongue swirl around the tip like a dirty promise of something to come later.
Then Jason makes a noise and she laughs at the suddenly turned tables. "Hey. We're in an AIRPLANE. Do I have to remind you?"
Kristen kind of loses track of time after that. She remembers a moment where they experience a bump of turbulence that probably wouldn't have amounted to much if they were sitting in their seats, tray tables locked and seat belts securely fastened, but the fact of the matter is that they are NOT and the jolt drives Jason further inside her and the side of her head knocks against the soap dispenser, but she isn't exactly up to feeling PAIN at the moment, and she bites at her fist to keep from crying out.
Afterward, she slumps a little against him, her legs like liquid, flushed and lightheaded. His hand moves to the top of her head, smoothing down the flyaway strands.
“Oh,” she says, a little breathlessly. “Is it-?”
“It’s a little crazy sauce,” he explains.
For a few seconds they just grin at each other like idiots, and she should not be feeling this giddy right now. She should not. But when he’s cocking that smile at her, she just-she can’t even help it. It’s too much.
"So, is that what the kids call a quickie?" Kristen quips.
Jason bows his knees and presses his nose to hers. "Later I'll show you my slowie."
**
As soon as they cross the tarmac and into Albany International, a doped up Craww grumbles about needing to take a leak, and Jason rolls his eyes and offers to escort him grudgingly, leaving them behind at the luggage claim.
Josh shoots her a semi-concerned look. "Where did you two go? On the plane? You were gone for a while. Everything okay?"
“Yeah,” she nods, careful not to look at him as she starts to yank the suitcase off the conveyor belt, but then she does and he’s looking back with a lopsided grin.
"You two had sex, didn't you?"
The suitcase topples off the belt and Kristen nearly goes flying to the floor. She catches herself just in time, sputtering and cursing loudly, and Josh is just standing there laughing, because he totally, totally has her number. Figures. She turns back to him with as much grace and composure as she can muster.
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” she comments, red-faced but chin tipped up defiantly, “and-for the record-- it was awesome. True story.”
There’s a slight pause before Josh nods and says, "Good for you."
He sounds sincere, too, even if she can tell he is a little weirded out. But he's at least trying to make the best of an awkward situation, and the truth of the matter is that Josh knows everything else. He might as well know this too.
And it feels good-- like getting a weight off of her chest.
A sexy, Jason-shaped weight.
Okay. Moment still kind of awkward, even if kind of sweet. Time to revert to her old trusty standby: coffee.
“Josh,” she says as she snaps the handle up off her luggage, “please, please tell me there’s a Starbucks in the near vicinity. I am dying for a mochachino right now.”
Before he can respond, a voice comes from behind her.
"You know, if you drank less caffeine, you wouldn't pee as much."
It’s Jason, shooting her a playful smile, and she catches Craww rolling his eyes and making a fake gagging noise from a few feet away, but she ignores him. She shrugs and returns the grin.
“Oh, I’m thinking my caffeine addiction is so going to be giving me the edge this time around,” Kristen cracks. “Just you wait and see, boys.”
++TBC
A/N: Um, sorry for the time between updates. Hopefully this fourteen-page chapter will make up for it. Oh and the plane sex. Anyway. We're not exactly certain how many parts more there are, but we will try to post more timely in the future.
Cast: Kristen Bell. Jason Dohring. Joshua Jackson. With sundry guest stars of the CW and Scientology variety!
Authors: buffyx & missdeviant
Rating: NC-17 (this section is NC-17)
Notes/Warnings: Rule number one of VM RPS: Do not talk about VM RPS. Not to the actors, anyway. It's just not cool, and DEFINITELY NOT AT ALL FUNNY, OKAY? OKAY. Just so we're clear!
If looks could kill, Theophilus Craww would be six feet under right about now.
Of course, if the intense, steely glare Jason is shooting the scrawny scientist is any indication, Kristen is fairly convinced that the only thing standing between Craww and a serious throttling is the sturdy wooden table between them. The almost tangible hostility doesn't seem to ruffle Craww at all-he merely swallows down the last of his Guinness with a leisurely sigh and meets Jason's eye daggers with a rather rodent-like smirk. If all the hours she's logged watching Animal Planet are anything to judge by, she'd peg him as meerkat-esque.
"Tell us what you know," Jason commands in a low, barely restrained tone.
Craww takes his time wiping his mouth with a napkin and crumpling it in his hand before deigning to respond. "I'm thinking I'm going to need another round first."
The heel of Jason's hand slams down on the tabletop, hard and without warning, causing the salt shakers and silverware to rattle.
"No," he seethes, "you're going to tell us what you fucking know. Everything. Right now."
Tentative, Kristen sets her hand near Jason's elbow, trying to calm him. He casts her a brief sideways glance and relaxes a fraction.
The scientist cocks his head to the side with an appraising look, then says to Kristen, "Careful. You might want to keep your boy on a leash before he hurts someone."
Kristen does her best to return his patronizing gaze with a sharp stare of her own, ignoring her rapidly accelerating heart rate for the moment.
“Look, I’ll buy you your stupid drink myself,” she retorts. “Hell, I’ll even spring for a plate of hot wings if you want. Just tell us where she is first. Did the Scientologists take her?”
“Hey, there’s more to the story than that. I gotta set the scene, all right?” Craww pauses, rolling his neck and looking very much like he’s enjoying watching his adversaries stew to a perverse degree. “You want to know who swiped the subject-“
“Her name is Sara,” Kristen cuts in vehemently. Emotion rises in her chest, and all of a sudden her throat is constricting. “She is not a scientific experiment, okay? Okay. She’s just-she’s just a baby.”
“Fine. Fine, the kid. Don’t get all blubbery and melodramatic on me here.” The man across from her rolls his eyes, exasperated. “The Org has the kid. You’re right about that.”
As Jason curses under his breath, Kristen presses on.
“And is she-she’s still alive?”
Craww scoffs loudly, the corners of his mouth pulled down in a disgusted scowl. “Clearly you are painfully uninformed about the situation at hand. Dohring, I know you’re aware of the… circumstances. It’s why I contacted you. I’d prefer to discuss this with someone acquainted with these matters, not some meddling little girl who thinks acting as a private eye on television means she really is one. Please. If we all really were who we pretended to be on video, I'd be Ron Jeremy.”
Okay, now Kristen has to restrain herself from leaping over the table and strangling the snide little bastard. And from vomiting on her shoes. Eww.
And then something clicks in her brain.
“Circumstances?” She whips her head around to stare at Jason. “What circumstances?”
Jason carefully evades her steady gaze, keeping his eyes on Craww. “How much do you know?”
“Are you kidding?” Craww sneers. “You don’t understand, do you? I created Suri! Me! My lab! These hands! She only exists because of my blood, sweat, and time-- oh, the months I put into that project. Without me, those idiots would’ve been poking at a Petri dish for years without the success I accomplished. I crafted her from the embryo up. Trust me. I know what she’s built for.”
“Built for?” Kristen echoes. “Wait, what is she built for?”
This time, Jason turns and looks her straight on. “Remember, last summer… I told you. About the vortex. How they were planning on using her as a Scientology conversion tool.”
“Oh. Right. The mind control scheme thing.”
Somehow that piece of information had escaped her memory somewhere between the hot, mind-blowing plane sex and subsequent extended period of repression. Oops.
“How much time do we have?” asks Jason.
“Eh, it’s still a little early in the astronomical cycle.” Craww shrugs. “I’d give it a week. Week and a half, tops.”
Kristen frowns. “And we’re trusting you why, exactly?”
The look Craww shoots her from across the booth is withering.
“I’m not going to pretend I have any noble illusions of saving humanity. This is about one thing: payback.” He drops the wrinkled napkin onto the table and leans toward her. “After your little band of renegades took out the Center, the Org regrouped. Did a complete overhaul. They kicked me out of the program, cut off access to my research and said that if I went forward with anything I knew, I’d be swimming with the fishes, if you get my drift.”
“And I assume they didn’t mean the ones in Tom Cruise’s aquarium,” interjects Kristen dryly.
Craww ignores her comment. “The group I’m working with-“
“The Resistance?” Jason asks.
“Please. You think your band of merry men are the only ones working against the Org? The government’s had their eye on them since inception. CIA, FBI, IRS. There are people much bigger than you involved in this. Don’t overestimate the modest importance you have.”
Something in Jason’s face changes as he reacts, but Kristen isn’t sure what; he looks kind of stunned, like this is new information to process. Then, just as quickly, his face smoothes over, and he looks back to Craww with a cold, assessing stare.
"Forty-seven confirmed casualties at the center," he says coolly. "I'm starting to think it's a shame that you weren't one of them."
Kristen's stomach twinges. Forty-seven innocent people. Okay, maybe forty-seven not-so-innocent people. Forty-seven zombified Scientology clones? She hasn't thought about it since the sparse, fuzzy reports came out about the "accidental" early morning fire at the Medical Center in Clearwater. Being an ingenue is easier when your hands are blood-free.
Craww’s eyebrows raise. "Forty-seven confirmed? From the tone of your voice, you suspect more."
"Oh, you mean Africa?" Jason sneers. "I hope they mean that's where they scattered Tom Cruise's ashes."
"Don’t be an idiot," Craww snaps, impatient. "Come on. You know better than that."
“We were there. We saw the building go down. He was in it,” Kristen shoots back. “Jason, tell him.”
But Jason is just sitting there, stony and silent. Craww smirks.
Kristen touches his shoulder. “Jason…”
“I don’t-when I came back through. I didn’t. I didn’t see him,” he finally admits. “I don’t know. I didn’t think…”
“Well, he’s alive. Very much so. Trust me.”
If Kristen had any doubts about whether Craww was lying before, they are gone now, destroyed by the concerned furrows in Jason's forehead. Cue the ominous score.
“Who are you working for?” Jason's voice is low, even, but Kristen recognizes a hint of desperation in it. “How do you know this?”
“I can’t tell you much about the faction I’m with, but it’s legit,” Craww continues. “The scientific community is tired of being exploited by these suits. We’ve got moles within the Org, working from the inside. That’s why we were able to know when to send the pictures.”
“Pictures…?” He trails off for a moment, then it seems to click. “The pictures. Of Sara. You sent those?”
“We thought your buddy Jackson would take the hint and run scared, but he stayed. Stupid move on his part, that.”
“How did they know he was there?” Kristen interrupts.
“Are you really not getting it?” huffs Craww. “The Org’s known their location before their plane even landed. They’ve kept tabs on you. All of you. They were just waiting for the right time.”
Oh god. Kristen had spent so much time worrying over such stupid things, and here her life had been at stake the whole time. Oh god, oh god. She doesn’t think she can handle this.
“I’m done with this secrecy bullshit,” Craww persists fervently. “I devoted far too much of my life to working on that project, no way are they gonna steal the glory from me. No. Way.”
“All right. Say we decide to believe you.” Jason cocks his head to the side. “What’s the plan here?”
This time, it’s the look on Craww’s face that is deadly.
“Tom Cruise must die.”
**
It’s going to take some convincing for Josh to trust this guy; Kristen knows that, Jason knows that, even Craww knows that, and he’s an annoying, sniveling cretin man. That’s why when they drive back to the farmhouse, Jason elects to go inside and talk to him first while Kristen and Craww wait outside.
At first this seems like a good idea-Kristen feels like she has no idea what to say to Josh right now, when he’s acting so (understandably) out of it-but then she’s alone with Craww on the front stoop, and she wishes she’d gone inside instead. Stupid stupid stupid.
Craww shakes two cigarettes out of a packet, offers her one.
“Um, I don’t think so,” she says stiffly, looking away as he lights his own with a shrug.
“So. You and Dohring, huh?” He blows out a few smoke rings and eyes her up and down. “Should’ve pegged it. Revolutionaries in love. How darling.”
His voice is dripping with sarcasm. Kristen glances at him and then quickly at the snow. She is so not going to dignify that with a response. Or have this conversation with this creep. Ever.
From the look on his face, the way her cheeks furiously heat up is answer enough. She presses her lips into a thin seam, dips her head so that she can hide behind her hair.
He has no right. Okay, maybe falling for Jason doesn't count among the smartest things she's ever done in her life, but they're actually working towards something that might be counted as NORMAL (for once).
“You could do better,” he says after a lengthy pause, and she bristles, pivoting to face him head on.
“Like you’re one to talk,” she retorts. “At least he believes in something. In a cause. Other than some egotistical self-aggrandizing Nobel Prize wet dream.”
“Oh, and what cause is that? An early demise? The kid’s fucked up. Everyone knows.”
Her body tenses. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I get around. I hear things.” Craww sucks on his cigarette, ashes it as he shrugs. “He thinks he’s a martyr. S’why I knew he’d be my go to guy. Need someone to put his ass on the line. And he’s gotta be giving you somethin’ in exchange-” The look he gives her is skeevy, lascivious, and she shudders. “-if you’re willing to follow a lunatic into near death.”
“We’re friends,” she states rigidly. Yes, friends. Friends with benefits. Like occasional gropage in snow forts or bathrooms or alleys, or whatever.
“Last time I checked, friends don’t send friends on suicide missions.”
Kristen gawks at him, not sure how to respond, finally hugs herself and turns away.
"I have to - um - go do the thing." She eyes Craww warily. "Are you going to be - okay - out here?"
"If you mean am I going to go on a teen idol jihad and rig a bomb under the car chassis? No. I might end up littering on the lawn though." He flicks the stub of his cigarette into the snow.
Okay. Screw it. Jason is taking too long and Craww doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere, and she needs to pee, dammit. In her next life, when the world asks her if she wants to be a superhero, she's going make sure the powers that be give her a bigger bladder first.
She hurries inside, steals toward the nearest bathroom, but stops in her tracks when she hears voices coming from the kitchen. Jason and Josh. Loud.
“You lied to me,” Josh says heatedly. “You shut me out.”
“Look, I did what I had to to get the guy to talk.” Jason’s voice is stressed, but he’s clearly trying to calm Josh. “You’re not being shut out, dude. You need to be here to keep Katie together, okay?”
Which Josh is not really doing, Kristen thinks, but she's not going to bring that pain up now.
“Jackson. I told you I’d take care of this, and I will.”
Kristen tiptoes closer to the kitchen doorway, peering in as inconspicuously as possible. She can see that Josh is near the sink, agitated, pacing back and forth within her view.
“Oh, so what? Did you collectively decide that I'm Mr. Mom now? Does wearing aprons make me unsuitable for search and rescue? No way, man. I'm going with you guys.”
“You're too emotionally involved,” Jason tells him, “not to mention the fact that you don't even TRUST the guy. There is too much potential for this to get fucked up, and then we’re all screwed."
Josh comes to a stop. “That's exactly why you need me. Because I'm not just going to let Bill Nye lead us into a trap. Which you seem to be intent on letting him do.”
“Look,” Jason sighs. “I just-- I trust this guy.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, I just do. Call it instinct. He’s for real.”
“And what if he's part of the plan?”
Jason scoffs. “Sara's already gone and this guy's a freaking scientist who probably couldn't even take KB in a fight. What is he going to do, steal your baking soda and vinegar and make a volcano?"
This gives Josh pause, and he eyes Jason warily before asking, "Did you check him for contraband before you brought him here?"
“Yeah. I patted him down in the car. We had a moment,” Jason deadpans.
“Aww. And here I thought it meant something.”
The sudden voice from behind causes Kristen to nearly jump out of her skin. She whirls around to see Craww approaching, rubbing his chin and brushing past her into the kitchen. Jason turns and catches her eye, surprised.
“You’re supposed to be outside,” he says.
“Yeah, well, you two were taking too long jerking each other off and it’s freezing as balls out there. You got anything to drink? Preferably alcoholic.” Craww starts toward the refrigerator. “It’s been a long day, you understand.”
Before he can open the door, Josh snags him by the coat lapels, shoves him against the counter hard.
“Listen, you little fucker,” Josh growls, “if you so much as try to play us, I will destroy you and-”
“Spare me,” Craww says gruffly. “Hey, buddy, you've got a short window of time here. You want to waste it with a pissing contest and petty grudges, go ahead. It's not my kid at risk."
“Fine.” Josh releases him, smoothes down his coat before stepping back. “Let’s make one thing clear: I don’t trust you. I don’t like you. Not one fucking bit.”
“I’m positively crushed.”
An exchanging of glares follows, but each party retreats, and the feud has come to a standstill, it seems, if only for a moment.
“Okay... not to be a buzzkill, but…” Kristen clears her throat. “So where exactly do we go from here?”
Craww’s thin lips curl into a slow smirk. “I hear upstate New York is lovely this time of year.”
**
Not long after that Jason tells her to get some sleep, that she’ll be needing it, and somehow she’s able to sneak in a few hours, but then there’s a weird noise in the hall and her eyes open, heart jumps. She kicks back the covers and slips into the hallway.
“Katie?” she hisses into the dark, waiting for her eyes to adjust.
“It’s me.”
Kristen blinks and sees Jason’s outline outside of the door across the hall. She steps closer, close enough to see the tired lines across his forehead, his eyes only half-open.
“Sorry, did I..?” He trails off like he’s too drained to finish the sentence.
“Eh, sleep’s not high on the agenda,” she shrugs, folding her arms over her stomach. “I mean, what with-everything.”
“Yeah,” he says sympathetically. Squints his eyes as he makes a face. “Kind of a sucky time to start a relationship, huh?”
“Relationship?” Kristen echoes, one eyebrow raised.
“Well, I'll probably hold off on the promise ring until after we save the world… but yeah. I mean, if you don't mind the title.”
She shrugs a little, trying to pretend like her heart isn't in her throat. "Relationship is good."
Jason pulls her to his chest then, lays a kiss on the top of her head.
“Mmm.” She draws back to tilt her head up at him. “Do you want some coffee?”
“Guard duty.” He glances back at the door. “Not that I think Craww’s going to be much of a problem.”
“What about Katie?” Kristen questions.
“Gone. Uh, she’s with her mom. Undisclosed location. But she’s safe.”
“And Josh?”
“Downstairs,” Jason explains. “Why don’t you go down there? Probably need to start getting ready to leave anyway. Flight leaves at eight.”
Kristen presses herself back against his chest, lingering for a moment longer, then heads down the stairs. The kitchen’s empty, but there’s a lamp on in the living room, and when she turns the corner, Josh is on the couch.
She stands back, watching him from a short distance-there’s something in his hands. It takes her a second, but she realizes it’s Sara’s tiny Christmas stocking; he’s rubbing the red material tenderly between his fingers. Finally he stops, and then his shoulders are shaking and his head is cradled in his hands.
Clearing her throat, Kristen steps toward him. Josh sits upright, wiping at the corners of his eyes absently.
“Bell-” he starts, but she doesn’t let him say anything, just crosses the room and sits next to him.
“I know,” she says, sets a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I know.”
Emotions war on his face for a couple of seconds, and he places the stocking on the coffee table, heaves a shaky sigh.
“I have to get her back. I have to.”
“I know,” she murmurs, rubbing his back, “and we will. We won’t leave until we have her. I promise, okay? I promise.”
Josh doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t move away, and it’s enough.
**
They depart for the airport hours before sunrise, filing out the back door in reserved silence; she stops halfway through, turns and looks past them all, into the living room, at the tree covered in dainty lights, at the floor devoid of presents. Her eyes unfocus and everything becomes a haze where the colors cancel out everything else, a bright storm on a dark blur.
She pretends not to remember the ornament hung in the branches, the one reading "Baby's First Christmas," and blinking once, twice, steadies herself with a hand against the doorframe.
Kristen is not a hero. But she will go, just as she did before, because there is nothing else. There is no question about it. And it's not because of Josh or Katie or pure reluctant obligation - it’s not even Jason, although she’s not sure if she would be as brave without him.
It should have been a decision that she’d toiled and agonized over, but the truth is, it’s one of the few in her life that has been easy, and deciding to go, to fight… it’s like breathing-instinctive, necessary.
It's snowing when they walk through the sliding glass doors, and their footprints leave a trail in the slush as they trudge ahead.
She shivers and Jason slips an arm around her shoulder. For the moment, it will have to do.
**
Planes are not sexy. Not inherently. Not on a surface level. Seriously, they’re not exactly a huge turn-on for most people. So why does it seem lately that every time Kristen boards one, her mind immediately jumps to sex? Is this her kinky side or something?
She thinks maybe Jason feels the same way about aircraft, judging by the stupid little squeeze he gives the back of her shoulder as they wait in line to board.
Twenty minutes after the seatbelt light dings off the backs of his fingers are skating over the inside of her thigh. They made her throw out her Starbucks at the gate, and she hasn't even gotten a Fresca yet, but she's more than willing to bypass the drink cart for this. She closes her eyes, gives in to the sensation.
One minute, two. Her body is collapsing in on itself, and so is her resolve. She was never strong in the first place. For Jason she’ll bend like a reed in the wind. She wants him to shape her, carve her, play her like a flute.
Jason stops what he is doing. His fingers squeeze her leg and her eyelids flutter. He throws a glance to the back of the plane and she'll be damned but she knew this would happen, because this is a story she has told herself every night to help her face the monsters in her sleep.
He smiles and she smiles and they smile like signing a contract.
"Um. I've never done this before," Kristen breathes and he nuzzles her neck. "Or, okay. Not with other people on board. So… how does it work? Like, do I go back to the bathroom and then - what next? Do you have a special knock?"
"Yes. Like the movies," he answers.
So. Inappropriate. She knows this, she does, but still she tries to nonchalantly extract herself from her seat, stretches her arms out and strolls into the aisle, casual as can be.
Hopefully Josh won’t notice her-he seems pretty preoccupied, sitting toward the front next to Craww, whom he’d been firm about wanting to keep watch over. Not that babysitting Craww involved much effort; he’d washed down two Vicodin with a glass of Merlot and passed out fifteen minutes after departure.
About halfway to the bathroom, she makes a flat-out dash for the door, locks herself inside.
Sure enough, she only has to wait about thirty-five Mississippis (not that she’s COUNTING in her head or anything) before there’s a solid series of raps on the door. She barely has time to flip the latch to "vacant" before Jason is pushing his way in, crowding her against the sink.
“What is it with us and bathrooms?” she jokes, then pauses reflectively. “And planes. I think we can safely add planes to that list.”
Jason waggles his eyebrows. “A deadly combination.”
“Deadly?” She tilts her head to the side and grins suggestively. “Why, Mr. Dohring, is that a venomous snake in your pants or are you just happy to see me?”
And he kisses her in response, gripping her waist and pulling her to him waist-first, and her thoughts are as follows:
1) Gods and Monsters, is this ever unsanitary.
2) I am glad that Melinda convinced me to go Brazilian the last time I got a wax, even if "take off your panties and lie down" isn't necessarily a phrase you want to hear from a two hundred pound Eastern European woman.
3) hfdsafjlkdsjflks!!!1!!!!!!!
It's not the kind of kissing that looks romantic on film, this she knows. Mouths gaping, tongues clashing. Animalistic. She feels uncaged, foot propped on the stainless steel toilet, door handle jabbing into her back. Jason's hand grasps her under her knee, drawing her toward him. They’re already cramped together in the space, which can't be larger than three feet by three feet, and still he finds a way to bring her even closer.
She jams her hands down the back of his jeans, shameless now. Let's skip the hellos and how do you dos, no tentative yanks at the elastic, not here. He lifts and presses against her, in response to her fingers clutching his bare skin, and then he does the same, one hand in the back of her pants, fingers skimming down the curve of her ass, maneuvering lower until one finger is curling into the damp crease between her legs.
Her breath comes in staccatos, short sharp intakes that cut straight to the place between her legs. Kristen adjusts her body against his hand, bracing her head on his shoulder in the small space as he presses deeper, first one finger, then two dipping inside her. Her cunt contracts around his fingers and she squeezes Jason's arm and looks into his eyes. They are locked on her face and deadly serious in that Jason way. She swallows what would have been an embarrassingly inappropriate sigh.
Kristen doesn’t think she’s ever wanted anything more in her life.
Then she's grabbing at his zipper and he's pulling the stretchy foldover waist of her sweatpants-no, YOGA pants- down her thighs, panties at the same time. The fabric pools around her knees and she steps halfway out with one swift movement, one leg bare and pressed against Jason, her pants wrinkling around an ankle.
He takes possession of her mouth again and she responds with an answering press of her tongue against his as she's pulling at the waist of his jeans. The change in his pockets jingles as she pushes them down blindly. Her fingers curl and lift the elastic of his boxers, out and down until Jason's dick is free and pressing warmly against her belly.
"Hi," she breathes.
"Hi," he replies and bites her lower lip.
Then he has a condom out of his pocket - or somewhere - and she wants to ask him if he brought four this time, but she knows that it is only a few hour trip and there are probably people who have to pee, somewhere, and maybe a stewardess - no, flight attendant - outside the door. Four is not a good idea. One.
Oh god.
He lifts her carefully, watching to make sure her bare skin does not brush against the walls, the sink. This is good because it means more of her is touching him. Her legs are parted and she is slick against his skin; his hands are broad and cover her backside completely.
She hasn't been waiting for this. If she had been waiting, it would have felt interminable. But at the same time, it's here and the tip of his dick is rubbing against her and it feels like it has been too long.
Jason slides inside her and she stifles a moan. He starts to move and she gives up, gives in to him, the in and out. Only when he presses his hand against her mouth does she realize she's stopped stifling.
"We're in an airplane." The words rush into her ear and she contracts around him, smiles against his hand and licks at his fingers in response, letting her tongue swirl around the tip like a dirty promise of something to come later.
Then Jason makes a noise and she laughs at the suddenly turned tables. "Hey. We're in an AIRPLANE. Do I have to remind you?"
Kristen kind of loses track of time after that. She remembers a moment where they experience a bump of turbulence that probably wouldn't have amounted to much if they were sitting in their seats, tray tables locked and seat belts securely fastened, but the fact of the matter is that they are NOT and the jolt drives Jason further inside her and the side of her head knocks against the soap dispenser, but she isn't exactly up to feeling PAIN at the moment, and she bites at her fist to keep from crying out.
Afterward, she slumps a little against him, her legs like liquid, flushed and lightheaded. His hand moves to the top of her head, smoothing down the flyaway strands.
“Oh,” she says, a little breathlessly. “Is it-?”
“It’s a little crazy sauce,” he explains.
For a few seconds they just grin at each other like idiots, and she should not be feeling this giddy right now. She should not. But when he’s cocking that smile at her, she just-she can’t even help it. It’s too much.
"So, is that what the kids call a quickie?" Kristen quips.
Jason bows his knees and presses his nose to hers. "Later I'll show you my slowie."
**
As soon as they cross the tarmac and into Albany International, a doped up Craww grumbles about needing to take a leak, and Jason rolls his eyes and offers to escort him grudgingly, leaving them behind at the luggage claim.
Josh shoots her a semi-concerned look. "Where did you two go? On the plane? You were gone for a while. Everything okay?"
“Yeah,” she nods, careful not to look at him as she starts to yank the suitcase off the conveyor belt, but then she does and he’s looking back with a lopsided grin.
"You two had sex, didn't you?"
The suitcase topples off the belt and Kristen nearly goes flying to the floor. She catches herself just in time, sputtering and cursing loudly, and Josh is just standing there laughing, because he totally, totally has her number. Figures. She turns back to him with as much grace and composure as she can muster.
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” she comments, red-faced but chin tipped up defiantly, “and-for the record-- it was awesome. True story.”
There’s a slight pause before Josh nods and says, "Good for you."
He sounds sincere, too, even if she can tell he is a little weirded out. But he's at least trying to make the best of an awkward situation, and the truth of the matter is that Josh knows everything else. He might as well know this too.
And it feels good-- like getting a weight off of her chest.
A sexy, Jason-shaped weight.
Okay. Moment still kind of awkward, even if kind of sweet. Time to revert to her old trusty standby: coffee.
“Josh,” she says as she snaps the handle up off her luggage, “please, please tell me there’s a Starbucks in the near vicinity. I am dying for a mochachino right now.”
Before he can respond, a voice comes from behind her.
"You know, if you drank less caffeine, you wouldn't pee as much."
It’s Jason, shooting her a playful smile, and she catches Craww rolling his eyes and making a fake gagging noise from a few feet away, but she ignores him. She shrugs and returns the grin.
“Oh, I’m thinking my caffeine addiction is so going to be giving me the edge this time around,” Kristen cracks. “Just you wait and see, boys.”
++TBC
A/N: Um, sorry for the time between updates. Hopefully this fourteen-page chapter will make up for it. Oh and the plane sex. Anyway. We're not exactly certain how many parts more there are, but we will try to post more timely in the future.