{ scene } remember when we were gambling to win
After leaving Stigmata - a couple of drinks and a slight headache later - James can feel the conversation he hasn't had with Pela looming on the near horizon. The house is quiet (except for the cat, who winds around James's like ankles like it knows he's not in the mood to deal with somebody's fucking cat) when they get back, and he weighs the odds ( Read more... )
Pela, helpfully, tsks at the cat to send it wandering the halls of the house away from them - it can get in and out, it's clever, and she doesn't feel like teaching it how to Behave. It knows how to be when she tells it, even if it's not really one of her subjects.
"Of course. We understood one another. What did you think of her? Since she seemed to know you, sort of..."
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"Yes?"
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"You're staring at me and it's beginning to get unsettling." He doesn't look remotely unsettled, he's only trying to work out what's going on in her head - against his better judgement.
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"What would you like me to do instead?" It is, like always when the brat-queen of the high seas asks questions like these in her soft-silvery regal voice, hard to tell whether she's daring him to suggest something or simply curious.
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"Sometimes I wonder what goes on in that mind of yours," he demurs, instead of any outright suggestions.
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"Would you like me to tell you?" This seems dangerous.
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...yes. Yes, it does. Where someone else might promptly back down, in light of that, James raises his eyebrow. "Feel free to."
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"I think you're keeping things from me, in regards to your presence here. I also think it bothers you when I talk about my dying, but you brush it aside when I suggest you be careful, too." For such a brave man, she thinks, ruefully, he's awfully afraid of how he feels.
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"I'm not the one with a cause to die for," he says, all together too mildly, and leans back to situate himself more comfortably on the sofa - in perfect contrast to how totally uncomfortable he is with this line of conversation that he's stuck pursuing. "As for my presence here...all right, yes. I've downplayed a few details. I suppose you want to know."
Of course she bloody well wants to know.
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Pela narrows her eyes at him like 'yes, that is the point of this conversation'. "Yes, please tell me, James."
The 'please' is manners.
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"Her Majesty's Secret Service isn't a lending library," he drawls, tapping ash into the tray and pretending not to notice the way she narrowed her eyes. "I don't feel that there's any conflict of interest in what I'm doing here - I've hardly turned mercenary and I have no intention of doing so - but M and I haven't seen eye to eye on the job lately and I know damn well I could never get authorization for this. It's not our problem, and it's not our business ( ... )
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"You went further for this than I thought," she says, after a moment, assessing what that means. Part of her is still wondering why, when this could be so different - but they're getting too close to that raw nerve of emotion between them, and she knows that now is not the time, if there ever were one.
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He smiles at her, wintry, and doesn't say he'd played it close to the chest deliberately; he's sure she can deduce as much all by herself. "I could hardly throw you to the wolves. Ungentlemanly."
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"Protecting me, James?" She rests a hand on his arm, eyebrows raised.
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"I don't expect you'll say 'thank you'."
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"Would you like me to?" She is calmly meeting his eyes, wondering what he's thinking.
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