TITLE: Diplomacy
FANDOM: Jake 2.0
CHARACTERS: Jake Foley, Kyle Duarte,
PROMPT: 037. Sound
WORD COUNT: 325
RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: Everyone watches. Jake listens.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: From the
Book Challenge. Quotation from Homer’s Odyssey:
In the end, his address was both courteous and full of subtlety.
Table This wasn’t actually part of their jobs. They stayed in the shadows, finding information, bringing people to justice in their own special, often sickening way. Jake was still getting used to that part.
They did not sit at tables with gangsters, businesswomen and a secretary named Shirley.
Negotiations, deals and confessions were the order of the week, with more money than Jake would ever earn casually tossed across the table. And, as he stood to one side, an observer, he knew he should be studying their expressions, checking their cells and their laptops and returning Shirley’s smiles. Actually…observing.
Instead, he was hanging off Kyle’s every word, mesmerised by the soft cadence of the words and the clever phrasing and the perfectly balanced wit. He wondered why they hadn’t all agreed days ago with such a perfect, beautiful speech before them, with the man guiding them gently to the week’s delicately poised conclusion.
He may be a little smitten.
At the end of day six, the negotiators all walked away, satisfied and, for the moment, not trying to kill each other. Lou gave them a week.
Kyle was storing his laptop in the back of the SUV, knelt on the seat with the material of his suit stretched just so…
Jake quickly looked around before bundling him onto the back seat and slamming the door.
“Clothes off. Now.”
Kyle looked up at him with a slightly bemused expression, laughter behind his eyes.
“You know, I’m not sure this is legal…”
“Keep talking.”
He looked startled, as Jake tried to remove his jacket in the stupidly small space. No such luck. Exasperated, he kissed him instead, passionately, before breaking away and grinning.
“You. Talk. Well,” he stammered out and Kyle laughed out loud.
“That’s what this is about? Oh, Jake…”
Jake blushed, but kissed him back. If a little irrationality earned him this, he could handle that. Especially if Kyle kept talking.
This was a good life.