our last night in chelsea [closed/complete]
Characters: Agravaine, Iseult
Date/Time: Saturday night
Location: Chelsea, at the club at which Agravaine works
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Agravaine, strong language, underage drinking
Summary: Iseult loves Saturday nights. She's quite fond of Saturday knights, too.
my rate of recovery is not what it was'>
Iseult loved Saturday nights. It was because the weekend was just hitting its stride, just like she was. A group of her classmates were going out because it was someone's older brother's twenty-first birthday (or something?). Iseult didn't mind. It was an excuse to dress up and go out drinking and dancing and those were some of her favourite things.
Darren (or was it Darryl?) was celebrating his birthday in a classy club down in Chelsea and, contrary to popular opinion, Iseult did occasionally venture south of midtown. Tonight, just to spite that anonymous man on the community, Iseult spent ages getting ready. Her hair was artfully arranged in a messy upstyle, her make-up was perfect and she wore a short black, strapless dress and sky-high stilettos, she was making the most of her Saturday.
The night was as wild as a night could be when a group of over-privileged twenty-somethings got together (apart from Iseult who was the only one still in her teens). Perhaps she had a bit much to drink but it was hard to keep count when so many men wanted to buy her drink. Eventually, she decided that she needed some fresh air. Unfortunately, her best friend seemed to have vanished (possibly with that hot Polish bartender who was just finishing work) and Darren (or was it Darryl?) was sticking his tongue down some poor girl's throat. Happy birthday, Darren-slash-Darryl.
Waving a vague goodbye to her other friends, she meandered outside and took a deep breath of fresh air and wondered who was around to bum a smoke.
§
There was just once bouncer standing outside the club’s glass doors, a tall man with his arms crossed. Black tee, black work pants, black boots - the typical getup. Only this man wore his arrogance like a mask, and might have seemed more approachable had a pair of young guys hadn’t gotten into a drunken fight on the curb just half an hour ago.
Agravaine felt a certain sort of glee when it came to breaking up a fight, because drunk men fought like wild beasts and watching them fall onto their asses, angry and confused, brought him a sort of joy he couldn’t put into words. The downside was that that fight had opened two of the cuts on his knuckles, which had been healing nicely since last Saturday, but fuck if he ever took good care of himself.
He was nearly contemplating a smoke for himself, a thought that was discarded as a blonde stepped out. A blonde who seemed strangely familiar.
§
Once Iseult had regained her bearings (seriously, that first breath of muggy, evening city air had gone straight to her head), she looked up and down the street. There were quite a few drunks about. Even drunker than her. Sweet. She could feel pretty smug about that.
Oh, she didn't like the look of those two guys, though. They were weaving and muttering. She sidled closer to the bouncer. Big guy. Looked like he could handle himself. And possibly her. Wait. Where was she. Oh fresh air, the bane of her existence.
She looked up at him. He was tall. She wasn't a total shrimp, and certainly not with these heels on, but he was tall.
"Do you've a cigarette?" she asked. What an ice-breaker, right there.
§
An eyebrow went up as Agravaine searched her face, as if trying to figure out her age. With the way she was dressed, he assumed somewhere between the end of high school and early twenties. But her face was a little young. He didn’t uncross his arms, but he did flex the fingers on one hand.
“Aren’t you a little young to be smoking?”
To be perfectly honest, he couldn’t care less about how old she was. But since he was on the job and giving cigarettes to minors could get him in shit, he needed to worry about his own ass instead of her lungs. After all, he’d been smoking since he was sixteen. The fuck kind of position was he in to question her decisions?
§
She wrinkled her nose in his general direction. "Spoilsport," she said, without any real heat. She wasn't sure how much she could say to the bouncer. Would he kick her out for under-age drinking? Well, it was pretty hard to kick out someone who was already standing outside.
The drunks lurched closer and she gravitated closer to the bouncer. She caught sight of his bloody knuckles. "Oh," she said, dumbly. "Does that hurt?"
§
Making sure to keep an eye on the door and the surrounding curb, the ex-knight risked a little smirk. “Not as much as it did last week,” he admitted, deciding to humor the slightly tipsy girl instead. The fuck was with her familiar face?
“You going back in or just looking the break the law out here first?” Agravaine could tell she’d had something to drink. Not to trash her, but enough to give her that glaze in her eyes.
§
Iseult shook her head. "No, all my friends are hooking up in there. It's turning into a gross orgy so I guess I'll call it a night. Unless someone gives me a smoke." She looked up at him again and smiled artlessly. "I am old enough to smoke, you know."
She gestured at the drunks. "You have to put up with people like that all the time?" She smoothed her dress down, inadvertently tugging it up by a couple of centimeters that her modesty could ill-afford.
§
“My ass you are,” he shot back, not giving into her subtle request. As long as he was on shift, no cigarette would pass her lips, especially one from his pocket. Agravaine gave the guys a quick glance, eyes straying to make sure no fight was going to break out. Tipsy or full-blown wasted, it didn’t matter - all it took was a little bit of alcohol and a couple of wrong words to get the fists swinging.
“And yeah, that’s part of my job.” There was a pause. “So you gonna stand here all night, Barbie, or are you gonna catch a cab, ‘cause I’ve gotta do that job.”
§
Iseult's eyes opened wide at the 'Barbie' bit. A shiver of recognition passed through her, cold and almost-sobering. She looked up at the bouncer and her mouth puckered into a thoughtful sort of pout. Her thought processes were surely slower than usual but she'd get there in the end.
"I know you," she said. She bit her lip and put her hands on her hips. "I so do."
§
But Agravaine wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of finding out. “Sure you do. We’re talking right now,” he pointed out, giving the door a glance when a pair of girls stepped out. “But you’re gonna have to stop talking, so cab or back inside.”
It might’ve been a little amazing that he’d refrained from slipping many swears into their conversation, when the word ‘fuck’ was the most frequent word he used on a day-to-day basis.
The penny dropped for Iseult, then. Really, she'd been very slow on the uptake. She should have recognised that grumpy outlook on life the moment she'd arrived at the club, hours earlier. She folded her arms and shook her head.
"Nu-uh," she said. "I've figured you out, Mr Cranky-Pants. Sir. You weren't really lying about not being a gentleman, were you? Can't even give a girl a smoke."
§
And it took him a few seconds to figure it out himself. Iseult, the real Barbie in the flesh. This time both of Agravaine’s brows went up. “It’s not because I give a shit about your lungs. Not really fucking looking to getting arrested tonight, either.”
He’d been doing so well keeping out the obscenities, too.
“Are you?”
§
"Aw," said Iseult, with another pout, though this one was more playful. "I was beginning to think that maybe you cared." She held her hands over her chest. "Break my heart, why don't you?"
She studied him with more interest and perhaps her eyes were slightly less glazed over though she and sobriety were currently occupying different zip-codes. "Look at you," she said. "All real and in the flesh." She nodded and added, with a happy sort of certainty. "I like it. Even if you are mean."
§
If this was a conversation that Agravaine wanted to be having while on shift, it didn’t show in his face. “And you’re just as shrimpy as I figured you’d be. Cheating with heels won’t make you grow taller,” he shot back, keeping those arms of his crossed. If something happened while he was making small talk with Iseult, it would be on his ass, and he had always been a selfish asshole who thought of his own safety first.
He shifted positions, straightening his upper back some to stand just that slightly bit taller. “You gonna go hail that cab or what?”
§
She laughed. "No, Einstein. Wearing heels does make me taller and, until I take 'em off, you can't say anything." She looked around. "And I'm not taking them off here."
Iseult smiled then and resisted the urge to reach up and pat his grumpy face. "I think I'm going to go back to the bar. Why don't you come talk to me when you're done here?"
With that, she opened the door and made her way back inside, with a final parting shot: "And these heels make my legs look amazing."
§
There was a snort. “Sure they fucking do,” Agravaine retorted to her retreating figure, but like any man who found the female figure intriguing, he did risk one glance before Iseult disappeared through the doors. As much as she could act like a teenage girl, because she was a damned teenage girl, those were nice stems.
… Fuck.
However later it was after his shift came to an end, which was about when the club was starting to close up, the knight wandered back inside for that one drink on the house before everything closed up. A shot of vodka was pushed across the counter for him, and after it was quickly downed, he shifted down the bar down to that familiar blonde.
His elbow hit the countertop hard. “So how many have you had now? Lost count yet?"
§
"I don't keep count," she said, by way of sweet reply. To be fair, she'd been nursing just the one drink since her venture outside. Some part of her wanted to have some measure of wits about her. Agravaine was aggravating at the best of times. No point in giving him too much of an advantage.
"You finished? Going to be grumpy off the clock instead of being paid for it?"
§
As the bartender passed by, they were given a nod, before Agravaine returned his attention to the little lady. Emphasis on little. “I get paid for doing a fucking good job until patrons come up to me and think I’ve got time for a conversation.”
It wasn’t him trying to be subtle.
§
Iseult laughed. "You do a fucking good job." The swear sounded a little odd, spoken in her somewhat odd Irish-flavoured Brooklyn accent. "i don't doubt it." She swirled the straw around her drink.
"And tell me, Mr Kane. What do you do when work is over? It seems a bit unfair that you've missed out on the fun that is Saturday night in New York City."
§
He let out a derisive scoff, leaning so both of his elbows were balanced on the counter. This at least brought them a little closer in height. “If you want to call Saturday night fun, go ahead. When you work my job, every night’s a fucking Saturday.”
Though it was true the volume of club goers increased toward the weekend, it was always busy. When it came to clubbing, there was no ‘right day’ to do it. Every day could be a party in New York if you wanted it to be. But it was the Fridays and the weekends that had Agravaine tossing out the rowdy ones. The ones who knew they could let loose and have tomorrow to groan through a hangover.
“Not like I miss much.” Dark eyes trailed back over to hers.
§
"No," she said, agreeably. "I can't imagine you miss much at all." She crossed her legs and her skirt rode higher, still. She leaned in a little closer, still so graceful, in spite of the skinful of alcohol imbibed during the evening. Now she was close enough to whisper in his ear.
"And tell me, are you going to take me home or should I have gotten that cab?" Her breath was warm against his cheek and she smiled as she drew back to meet his gaze.
§
The alcohol was easy to pick up on her exhale, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Agravaine angled his upper body toward her, amusement flickering in his eyes. “What makes you think I’ve got a car to take you home, sweetheart?”
Which, in truth, he did. Sitting back at home in the garage he rented out montly and certainly not out in a nearby parking lot.
§
Again, she pouted. It was something she did beautifully. It was something she was paid to do beautifully. "You mean we have to walk? In these shoes?"
She still had enough coordination to touch her toe to his leg, dragging it up his shin. "You really are a spoilsport. Every last one of my friends has either left or will have to be rooted out of her with a pitchfork and you're not even going to spring for a cab? After everything I do for you?"
§
If Iseult thought that pout would have any effect on him, he was so wrong. The foot, however, didn’t go ignored. And soon enough, if it went any higher, he’d probably see under her dress. He couldn’t tell if that was good or bad. “You don’t do anything for me except be a whiny little girl.” The fingers of Agravaine’s undamaged hand curled around her ankle.
“But I’ll catch a cab with you if you can walk a fucking straight line.”
And not hit something in the process.
§
"But I do it so well," she said, brightly. It was a whole lot easier to be considered young and foolish and even annoying than to be some great icon of love or some conquest worth toppling kings for.
She hopped off the stool and onto her feet, remarkably steadily. Perhaps her levels of drunkenness were counteracting the height of her heels, leading to perfect equilibrium. Or else it was blind luck. She tucked her hand around his elbow. She didn't event think about how it looked to her friends, the few who remained; young Isolde was leaving with the bouncer and she was usually so very classy. Ha.
"C'mon, then," she said. "Home."
§
If there was the slightest part of Agravaine that was known for his chivalry, it was the part that had him swinging off the stool and saying: “Home it is.” Nodding his goodbyes to the staff on his way out, he brought Iseult up to the curb, eyes automatically searching for the yellow of a cab.
“So this is what I think,” he began, mostly watching her through peripheral vision. “You either live with daddy, or in some posh apartment in the Upper East Side or somewhere near SoHo. Which one is it?”
§
"You're pretty good," she said, twirling around to face him and placing her hand on his chest to steady herself. "Upper West Side, as it turns out, though the apartment does belong to Daddy. He and Mom are touring Europe for, like, four months."
She took a step back, not too wobbly, thanks very much, and just her fingertips touched Agravaine's chest. "Do I stand for everything you despise, Sir Agravaine? A spoiled brat who has it too easy?"
§
His hand came out to sneak around Iseult's tiny waist, bringing her away from the edge of the sidewalk and closer to him. Because he didn't want her to get smacked by the cab they were supposed to catch, obviously. That was a bit counter-productive.
"Don't flatter yourself, sweetheart. I don't despise you yet," Agravaine easily returned, keeping his hand against her spine in case another back step was attempted.
§
"I'm glad," Iseult said cheerfully. "'Cause even though you could do with smiling more, you're not the total worst guy I've met." Rather docilely, considering, she allowed him to draw her closer and now she was pressed quite comfortably against him.
He wasn't her perfect knight. Whether she admitted to herself or not, there was only one man who could ever hope to occupy that position. This wasn't even a perfect night but that didn't stop her from raising her hand to guide his face down to hers so she could stand on tiptoes (even in her heels) and press a kiss to his mouth.
§
Agravaine hadn't seen that coming. From any other tipsy girl, maybe, but not from Iseult. Not Barbie. Considering all their past conversations, they might not have been on the best of terms, but there was no animosity between them. Whatever they had, it couldn't really be coined in a term.
Which was why he saw little wrong in reciprocating, fingers sliding further up her back and bringing her that tiny bit closer as he returned that unexpected kiss with all that was expected of someone as rough around the edges as him.
§
Iseult's fingers closed in the fabric of Agravaine's shirt. Naturally, her thought processes had ground to a halt quite some time ago. She certainly wasn't using any higher brain functions when a cab was somehow hailed and she somehow managed to communicate her address to the driver.
Agravaine was rough and she didn't mind, pressing as close as possible during the cab ride uptown, meeting each of his kisses with her own brand of Iseult-fury (not a woman scorned but a woman to be appreciated and admired - never loved). When the cab reached her building, there was no doubt in her mind. Walk me to my door, my bedroom, my bed, she didn't care. Just as long as he was gone by morning (and a man like Agravaine would be; her imperfect knight for tonight).
Date/Time: Saturday night
Location: Chelsea, at the club at which Agravaine works
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Agravaine, strong language, underage drinking
Summary: Iseult loves Saturday nights. She's quite fond of Saturday knights, too.
my rate of recovery is not what it was'>
Iseult loved Saturday nights. It was because the weekend was just hitting its stride, just like she was. A group of her classmates were going out because it was someone's older brother's twenty-first birthday (or something?). Iseult didn't mind. It was an excuse to dress up and go out drinking and dancing and those were some of her favourite things.
Darren (or was it Darryl?) was celebrating his birthday in a classy club down in Chelsea and, contrary to popular opinion, Iseult did occasionally venture south of midtown. Tonight, just to spite that anonymous man on the community, Iseult spent ages getting ready. Her hair was artfully arranged in a messy upstyle, her make-up was perfect and she wore a short black, strapless dress and sky-high stilettos, she was making the most of her Saturday.
The night was as wild as a night could be when a group of over-privileged twenty-somethings got together (apart from Iseult who was the only one still in her teens). Perhaps she had a bit much to drink but it was hard to keep count when so many men wanted to buy her drink. Eventually, she decided that she needed some fresh air. Unfortunately, her best friend seemed to have vanished (possibly with that hot Polish bartender who was just finishing work) and Darren (or was it Darryl?) was sticking his tongue down some poor girl's throat. Happy birthday, Darren-slash-Darryl.
Waving a vague goodbye to her other friends, she meandered outside and took a deep breath of fresh air and wondered who was around to bum a smoke.
§
There was just once bouncer standing outside the club’s glass doors, a tall man with his arms crossed. Black tee, black work pants, black boots - the typical getup. Only this man wore his arrogance like a mask, and might have seemed more approachable had a pair of young guys hadn’t gotten into a drunken fight on the curb just half an hour ago.
Agravaine felt a certain sort of glee when it came to breaking up a fight, because drunk men fought like wild beasts and watching them fall onto their asses, angry and confused, brought him a sort of joy he couldn’t put into words. The downside was that that fight had opened two of the cuts on his knuckles, which had been healing nicely since last Saturday, but fuck if he ever took good care of himself.
He was nearly contemplating a smoke for himself, a thought that was discarded as a blonde stepped out. A blonde who seemed strangely familiar.
§
Once Iseult had regained her bearings (seriously, that first breath of muggy, evening city air had gone straight to her head), she looked up and down the street. There were quite a few drunks about. Even drunker than her. Sweet. She could feel pretty smug about that.
Oh, she didn't like the look of those two guys, though. They were weaving and muttering. She sidled closer to the bouncer. Big guy. Looked like he could handle himself. And possibly her. Wait. Where was she. Oh fresh air, the bane of her existence.
She looked up at him. He was tall. She wasn't a total shrimp, and certainly not with these heels on, but he was tall.
"Do you've a cigarette?" she asked. What an ice-breaker, right there.
§
An eyebrow went up as Agravaine searched her face, as if trying to figure out her age. With the way she was dressed, he assumed somewhere between the end of high school and early twenties. But her face was a little young. He didn’t uncross his arms, but he did flex the fingers on one hand.
“Aren’t you a little young to be smoking?”
To be perfectly honest, he couldn’t care less about how old she was. But since he was on the job and giving cigarettes to minors could get him in shit, he needed to worry about his own ass instead of her lungs. After all, he’d been smoking since he was sixteen. The fuck kind of position was he in to question her decisions?
§
She wrinkled her nose in his general direction. "Spoilsport," she said, without any real heat. She wasn't sure how much she could say to the bouncer. Would he kick her out for under-age drinking? Well, it was pretty hard to kick out someone who was already standing outside.
The drunks lurched closer and she gravitated closer to the bouncer. She caught sight of his bloody knuckles. "Oh," she said, dumbly. "Does that hurt?"
§
Making sure to keep an eye on the door and the surrounding curb, the ex-knight risked a little smirk. “Not as much as it did last week,” he admitted, deciding to humor the slightly tipsy girl instead. The fuck was with her familiar face?
“You going back in or just looking the break the law out here first?” Agravaine could tell she’d had something to drink. Not to trash her, but enough to give her that glaze in her eyes.
§
Iseult shook her head. "No, all my friends are hooking up in there. It's turning into a gross orgy so I guess I'll call it a night. Unless someone gives me a smoke." She looked up at him again and smiled artlessly. "I am old enough to smoke, you know."
She gestured at the drunks. "You have to put up with people like that all the time?" She smoothed her dress down, inadvertently tugging it up by a couple of centimeters that her modesty could ill-afford.
§
“My ass you are,” he shot back, not giving into her subtle request. As long as he was on shift, no cigarette would pass her lips, especially one from his pocket. Agravaine gave the guys a quick glance, eyes straying to make sure no fight was going to break out. Tipsy or full-blown wasted, it didn’t matter - all it took was a little bit of alcohol and a couple of wrong words to get the fists swinging.
“And yeah, that’s part of my job.” There was a pause. “So you gonna stand here all night, Barbie, or are you gonna catch a cab, ‘cause I’ve gotta do that job.”
§
Iseult's eyes opened wide at the 'Barbie' bit. A shiver of recognition passed through her, cold and almost-sobering. She looked up at the bouncer and her mouth puckered into a thoughtful sort of pout. Her thought processes were surely slower than usual but she'd get there in the end.
"I know you," she said. She bit her lip and put her hands on her hips. "I so do."
§
But Agravaine wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of finding out. “Sure you do. We’re talking right now,” he pointed out, giving the door a glance when a pair of girls stepped out. “But you’re gonna have to stop talking, so cab or back inside.”
It might’ve been a little amazing that he’d refrained from slipping many swears into their conversation, when the word ‘fuck’ was the most frequent word he used on a day-to-day basis.
The penny dropped for Iseult, then. Really, she'd been very slow on the uptake. She should have recognised that grumpy outlook on life the moment she'd arrived at the club, hours earlier. She folded her arms and shook her head.
"Nu-uh," she said. "I've figured you out, Mr Cranky-Pants. Sir. You weren't really lying about not being a gentleman, were you? Can't even give a girl a smoke."
§
And it took him a few seconds to figure it out himself. Iseult, the real Barbie in the flesh. This time both of Agravaine’s brows went up. “It’s not because I give a shit about your lungs. Not really fucking looking to getting arrested tonight, either.”
He’d been doing so well keeping out the obscenities, too.
“Are you?”
§
"Aw," said Iseult, with another pout, though this one was more playful. "I was beginning to think that maybe you cared." She held her hands over her chest. "Break my heart, why don't you?"
She studied him with more interest and perhaps her eyes were slightly less glazed over though she and sobriety were currently occupying different zip-codes. "Look at you," she said. "All real and in the flesh." She nodded and added, with a happy sort of certainty. "I like it. Even if you are mean."
§
If this was a conversation that Agravaine wanted to be having while on shift, it didn’t show in his face. “And you’re just as shrimpy as I figured you’d be. Cheating with heels won’t make you grow taller,” he shot back, keeping those arms of his crossed. If something happened while he was making small talk with Iseult, it would be on his ass, and he had always been a selfish asshole who thought of his own safety first.
He shifted positions, straightening his upper back some to stand just that slightly bit taller. “You gonna go hail that cab or what?”
§
She laughed. "No, Einstein. Wearing heels does make me taller and, until I take 'em off, you can't say anything." She looked around. "And I'm not taking them off here."
Iseult smiled then and resisted the urge to reach up and pat his grumpy face. "I think I'm going to go back to the bar. Why don't you come talk to me when you're done here?"
With that, she opened the door and made her way back inside, with a final parting shot: "And these heels make my legs look amazing."
§
There was a snort. “Sure they fucking do,” Agravaine retorted to her retreating figure, but like any man who found the female figure intriguing, he did risk one glance before Iseult disappeared through the doors. As much as she could act like a teenage girl, because she was a damned teenage girl, those were nice stems.
… Fuck.
However later it was after his shift came to an end, which was about when the club was starting to close up, the knight wandered back inside for that one drink on the house before everything closed up. A shot of vodka was pushed across the counter for him, and after it was quickly downed, he shifted down the bar down to that familiar blonde.
His elbow hit the countertop hard. “So how many have you had now? Lost count yet?"
§
"I don't keep count," she said, by way of sweet reply. To be fair, she'd been nursing just the one drink since her venture outside. Some part of her wanted to have some measure of wits about her. Agravaine was aggravating at the best of times. No point in giving him too much of an advantage.
"You finished? Going to be grumpy off the clock instead of being paid for it?"
§
As the bartender passed by, they were given a nod, before Agravaine returned his attention to the little lady. Emphasis on little. “I get paid for doing a fucking good job until patrons come up to me and think I’ve got time for a conversation.”
It wasn’t him trying to be subtle.
§
Iseult laughed. "You do a fucking good job." The swear sounded a little odd, spoken in her somewhat odd Irish-flavoured Brooklyn accent. "i don't doubt it." She swirled the straw around her drink.
"And tell me, Mr Kane. What do you do when work is over? It seems a bit unfair that you've missed out on the fun that is Saturday night in New York City."
§
He let out a derisive scoff, leaning so both of his elbows were balanced on the counter. This at least brought them a little closer in height. “If you want to call Saturday night fun, go ahead. When you work my job, every night’s a fucking Saturday.”
Though it was true the volume of club goers increased toward the weekend, it was always busy. When it came to clubbing, there was no ‘right day’ to do it. Every day could be a party in New York if you wanted it to be. But it was the Fridays and the weekends that had Agravaine tossing out the rowdy ones. The ones who knew they could let loose and have tomorrow to groan through a hangover.
“Not like I miss much.” Dark eyes trailed back over to hers.
§
"No," she said, agreeably. "I can't imagine you miss much at all." She crossed her legs and her skirt rode higher, still. She leaned in a little closer, still so graceful, in spite of the skinful of alcohol imbibed during the evening. Now she was close enough to whisper in his ear.
"And tell me, are you going to take me home or should I have gotten that cab?" Her breath was warm against his cheek and she smiled as she drew back to meet his gaze.
§
The alcohol was easy to pick up on her exhale, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Agravaine angled his upper body toward her, amusement flickering in his eyes. “What makes you think I’ve got a car to take you home, sweetheart?”
Which, in truth, he did. Sitting back at home in the garage he rented out montly and certainly not out in a nearby parking lot.
§
Again, she pouted. It was something she did beautifully. It was something she was paid to do beautifully. "You mean we have to walk? In these shoes?"
She still had enough coordination to touch her toe to his leg, dragging it up his shin. "You really are a spoilsport. Every last one of my friends has either left or will have to be rooted out of her with a pitchfork and you're not even going to spring for a cab? After everything I do for you?"
§
If Iseult thought that pout would have any effect on him, he was so wrong. The foot, however, didn’t go ignored. And soon enough, if it went any higher, he’d probably see under her dress. He couldn’t tell if that was good or bad. “You don’t do anything for me except be a whiny little girl.” The fingers of Agravaine’s undamaged hand curled around her ankle.
“But I’ll catch a cab with you if you can walk a fucking straight line.”
And not hit something in the process.
§
"But I do it so well," she said, brightly. It was a whole lot easier to be considered young and foolish and even annoying than to be some great icon of love or some conquest worth toppling kings for.
She hopped off the stool and onto her feet, remarkably steadily. Perhaps her levels of drunkenness were counteracting the height of her heels, leading to perfect equilibrium. Or else it was blind luck. She tucked her hand around his elbow. She didn't event think about how it looked to her friends, the few who remained; young Isolde was leaving with the bouncer and she was usually so very classy. Ha.
"C'mon, then," she said. "Home."
§
If there was the slightest part of Agravaine that was known for his chivalry, it was the part that had him swinging off the stool and saying: “Home it is.” Nodding his goodbyes to the staff on his way out, he brought Iseult up to the curb, eyes automatically searching for the yellow of a cab.
“So this is what I think,” he began, mostly watching her through peripheral vision. “You either live with daddy, or in some posh apartment in the Upper East Side or somewhere near SoHo. Which one is it?”
§
"You're pretty good," she said, twirling around to face him and placing her hand on his chest to steady herself. "Upper West Side, as it turns out, though the apartment does belong to Daddy. He and Mom are touring Europe for, like, four months."
She took a step back, not too wobbly, thanks very much, and just her fingertips touched Agravaine's chest. "Do I stand for everything you despise, Sir Agravaine? A spoiled brat who has it too easy?"
§
His hand came out to sneak around Iseult's tiny waist, bringing her away from the edge of the sidewalk and closer to him. Because he didn't want her to get smacked by the cab they were supposed to catch, obviously. That was a bit counter-productive.
"Don't flatter yourself, sweetheart. I don't despise you yet," Agravaine easily returned, keeping his hand against her spine in case another back step was attempted.
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"I'm glad," Iseult said cheerfully. "'Cause even though you could do with smiling more, you're not the total worst guy I've met." Rather docilely, considering, she allowed him to draw her closer and now she was pressed quite comfortably against him.
He wasn't her perfect knight. Whether she admitted to herself or not, there was only one man who could ever hope to occupy that position. This wasn't even a perfect night but that didn't stop her from raising her hand to guide his face down to hers so she could stand on tiptoes (even in her heels) and press a kiss to his mouth.
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Agravaine hadn't seen that coming. From any other tipsy girl, maybe, but not from Iseult. Not Barbie. Considering all their past conversations, they might not have been on the best of terms, but there was no animosity between them. Whatever they had, it couldn't really be coined in a term.
Which was why he saw little wrong in reciprocating, fingers sliding further up her back and bringing her that tiny bit closer as he returned that unexpected kiss with all that was expected of someone as rough around the edges as him.
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Iseult's fingers closed in the fabric of Agravaine's shirt. Naturally, her thought processes had ground to a halt quite some time ago. She certainly wasn't using any higher brain functions when a cab was somehow hailed and she somehow managed to communicate her address to the driver.
Agravaine was rough and she didn't mind, pressing as close as possible during the cab ride uptown, meeting each of his kisses with her own brand of Iseult-fury (not a woman scorned but a woman to be appreciated and admired - never loved). When the cab reached her building, there was no doubt in her mind. Walk me to my door, my bedroom, my bed, she didn't care. Just as long as he was gone by morning (and a man like Agravaine would be; her imperfect knight for tonight).