A/N: New WIP! Not sure how regular updates will be, RL is busy right now, but I'll try, this world is so fun to play in! Er, all the cast will feature in this AU, including Maggie and Sterling, and possibly one or two other familiar faces. The main pairing will be Nate/Sophie, with hints of past Nate/Maggie, and I might pair Parker up with Hardison -- we'll see how that goes. Would love to hear people's thoughts on this one! :-D
The Disorganised Crime Caper
by LillyPilly
I wake up on the floor, light in my eyes from the lamp in the corner. The shade is green with tassels, the light is too bright, glinting off the brass stand and the dusty mirror on the wall, and Parker's eyes as she stares down at me with her hands on her hips. Well at least I know I'm in my office, I've certainly woken up in worse places.
Parker kicks my shoulder again. "Oh," she says belatedly, "You're awake."
"Gimme a minute," I tell my trusty secretary, her impassive gaze a constant in my dangerously tilting world. "I can fix that." The whiskey will fix that, anyway, I just need to reach the bottle sitting over there on my desk. Hell, it may as well be six miles away, rather than six feet. I shift my gaze back to the young woman standing over me and the room spins. I don't ask, I know better than that.
A hand over my eyes helps with the light. I couldn't say what time it is. Could make an educated guess as to what day of the week it is, but I wouldn't put money on it. I couldn't say when I passed out, or at what point exactly during that period I fell off the old beat-up sofa that has sat against the wall in my office since time immemorial. Unless I started out on the floor, that's always a possibility.
"It's after six, you know." Her nose wrinkles. She's got something to tell me. "You've got a visitor. Client. Whichever. Want me to show her in? I know how you like to make a good impression."
"Little early, isn't it?" I try to lever myself off the floor, a hand bracing on the edge of the sofa. I fail miserably, my head thumping back down hard and, yes, I really needed that.
"PM, Nate, jeez," she spits out, and the next thing I know her footsteps are falling away, and the door to the outer office is opening. She leaves it ajar as she speaks to whoever it is waiting out there to see the great Nathan Ford. "Hey, he's kinda busy lying in his own filth, but you can go on in if you want. It's a free country."
There's an answering murmur of thanks, coloured with amusement, then another set of footsteps approaching. I lurch up to sit, and I make it this time, so I'm leaning there with my back against the sofa, hands clutching my splitting head, when the the door creaks all the way open and a figure appears in the frame. It's her feet I notice first. By which of course I mean her ankles, and the calves above them. From there it's all uphill, the kind of journey that'll leave a man out of breath by the time he's even made it halfway. But that guy'll keep going because he'll figure, by that point, it'll be worth the effort.
Of course, he'll be wrong.
She speaks. "Mr Ford." There's a smile playing about her lips like the hint of danger plays around a loaded tommy gun.
"Miss Devereaux." For it is, indeed, the woman herself.
Yeah, the world hates me today.
Sophie Devereaux. The name sounds French, the soft, honeyed voice places her as London born-and-bred, but the legs, the legs are straight out of hell. Or maybe heaven, I've never been able to decide. I guess it's all a matter of where you're standing.
She saunters in like she owns the place, says, "Interesting. Here I am, coming to you for help, and it looks like you could use a little yourself." She doesn't offer any, thank god for small mercies. No, not her style, she just takes a cigarette from a familiar case, shining inlaid with brilliant mother-of-pearl, and crosses to the desk to use the lighter.
"Come on, I do all my best work down and out."
"Really."
"The lower the better."
"And here I always thought that scum floated to the top."
And there they are, every rose has its thorns, some more hazardous than others. I have to smile as she wanders over to the window, parts the blinds with an idle finger, letting in the last rays of evening light. I get comfortable, pulling up my knees and resting my forearms on them. See, I care and I don't that she's seeing me like this. Of all people, this woman has no right to judge. And yet there's something about the presence of an old flame... And no one burns brighter in my mind than the devastating Miss Devereaux.
I have to drop my eyes, and my smile falls away. Suddenly I'm just dead tired, and she's like the lamp, searing my retinas, too bright. Too damn bright. "What are you doing here, Sophie?"
"I've said already. I need -"
"Need me to stick around, boss?"
It's not me that interrupts her. The voice from the door startles me from my intent contemplation of the floodboards between my feet. Parker is there, already shrugging on her coat. Really, she's just asking me if I'm all right. She's more perceptive than she seems. Actually, she's a lot of things she doesn't seem, when it comes down to it. "No," I wave a hand, "Go on home, honey. Won't be needing you tonight."
"Good, 'cos I got stuff to do. And last I checked, you don't pay overtime, anyways." Trench coat tied, she drops an old fedora on her head so it sits at an angle, and then with a final glance over at Sophie, still by the window, she's gone. Out into the night, not that I worry about her. Night like this, a girl like that, it's the city that should be worried.
I get up off the floor, dignity be damned. And once that Herculean task is accomplished, I throw myself down in my chair at my desk, and swivel round to catch her approach.
"So you want something," with all the bravado that comes of possessing the ability to separate your ass from the ground beneath your feet. "I think we've established that. So what?"
She perches on the corner of the desk, skirt rides up over her knee. Stall tactic. Obvious one. And I'm so busy wondering if that's the edge of a stocking I can see that her next words barely register at first. "Word's all over the street. I'm surprised you haven't heard, Nate. Then again, perhaps not." She reaches across the desk to tap out the ashes of her cigarette in the ashtray, leaning right over the bottle, only an inch full, and the glass tumbler lying on its side spilling an amber trickle out onto the blotter. Still wet. Must not have slept as long as I thought.
I drag my eyes reluctantly up to her face. "You, uh, you got big news for me, Sophie?"
"I'll say. As if me needing you isn't news enough. So how about it? A little help for an old... friend?"
"Sorry, fresh out, you wanna drink instead?"
"He's got Maggie."
My hand freezes on its way to the bottle and hovers there, inches from the promise of... what? A little peace of mind? All the whiskey in all the bathtubs in all the world wouldn't be enough, never has been. Only thing I've ever found in that damn bottle has been a path straight to my own personal hell. For me, it's where all roads lead these days, ever since...
I let my hand drop, it makes a fist in my lap. Maggie, he has Maggie. I can feel Devereaux watching me, waiting while smoke curls up around her face, those eyes that see everything. In this moment, I hate those eyes.
So I say it. The name. "Blackpoole."
to be continued...