"You're assigned with the quiff."
You look up from the notes you've been reading to meet your editor's sympathetic eyes – an odd look on her considering how detached she looks most of the time – and you drop your notes to your desk. Your eyes stray to the desk assigned to the youngest reporter of Le Petit Vingtieme, which honestly looks more like a rat's nest than a journalist's desk, which is a feat considering how messy most of Vingtieme's journalists are.
Your editor nodded, sympathy in her eyes doubling. "Yeah. Don't worry, we've decided that you'll get double the insurance money if you survived."
"If I survived." You took a deep breath and puffed your cheecks. It's at times like this that you're itching for a smoke even though you've promised yourself you'd stop. "Well. Shit."
Tintin is a bounding ball of optimistic sunshine and Snowy sure is a really cute ball of fluff, but damn if they're not the most difficult partner you've had to deal with. Inwardly, you wonder what you've done to get assigned to a fucking babysitting duty. Maybe it's karmic punishment.
It's ridiculous. Most who have been assigned with Tintin refuse to speak of their "adventures"; some even quit altogether. If this is because that prank you pulled on Gilles' lunch a month ago, you'd make a huge fuss in HR, you swear inwardly.
"Do you think we should go in and ask about his involvement in the drug dealings?" Tintin whispers at you.
"Maybe after we get better bearings and more concrete info," you whisper back. "No sense in shutting that door before we even got to knock."
Tintin hummed. "Well, better to start looking for clues then." He looks around and places his hands on the high wall surrounding the mansion.
You stare. "What are you doing."
"Sneaking in," Tintin answers, as if it was the most logical answer in the whole wide world. "What better evidece would there be other than ones inside their own home?"
"I – no." You shake your head. "No, that's – that's illegal. You know that sort of evidence can't be put on in the news. It's unethical."
"Well yes, but the confession is free game," Tintin shrugs. "So, would you like to sneak in with me?"
"Would I like to – goddammit, no. I want no part of this. Let's just go to town and start asking around like we ought to in the first place."
"Well, suit yourself," Tintin shrugs again and just like that, he'd jumped over the wall. Snowy somehow found a crack in the wall big enough for him to squeeze through.
You swallow your urge to scream. If only the boy was older, you wouldn't hesitate to cuss him out in front of his face, but NO, he had to be a fucking kid.
The house Tintin broke into catches fire.
Both the boy and the dog were fine, if a little sooty. Wrily, you push a bottle of water to his hands. "I told you we should just ask around in town."
Tintin laughed, voice thin and stretched. "That would take too much time. We have a deadline."
"You do realize that your writings pretty much never gets a deadline, right. This was supposed to be like a vacation for me."
Tintin smiled. "That's true, isn't it." His fingers curled around Snowy's fur. You wonder if he's just moving for the sake of moving, for the adrenaline rush, for the particular feeling of living when death was an inch away from grabbing you by the ass. You wonder what sort of childhood he'd been having. You almost feel sorry.
And then Tintin starts wondering if he could get info by sneaking into possible hideouts, and whatever sympathy you've been feeling gets chucked out of the window immediately.
"Wait, you got this all from the townspeople?" the awe in Tintin's voice was hard to mistake.
"Sure did. It's easy to once you know where to ask." You flipped a page of the notes you've been making. "Easier still once you're older, kid. Bars and brothels don't seem like an age-friendly places."
He burns as red as his hair and you chuckled. "Did you say brothel?" he asked meekly, voice high.
"Well yeah, that sort of person plays around with women like a magician with cards," you shrug. "Best if you don't try to get into one of those too soon, though. Maybe in ten years or something. At least grow out those baby fat before you try."
"I, ah. I think I'd prefer my own way of investigating." Tintin petted Snowy, laughing nervously, a hint of red still tinting his cheeks.
"Suit yourself, but honestly, you got to stop sneaking into people's houses," you snort.
"It's the fastest way to get evidence," he protests weakly.
"It's also the fastest way to get to jail," you lift your brow at him. "Have you counted how many times Vingtieme has had to bail you out? At least be more careful about it."
"It's not like I want to get arrested," Tintin sulked, and you are reminded just how young he truly is.
You sigh. "Well, take this advice at least. When you get too involved in your story, you lose the little neutrality you had. Maybe even your independency to the story. That's a line you should never cross. Your independency to your story is pretty much your shield and what makes you trustworthy and the story you deliver believable. Also, it probably will save you some murder attempts."
He blinks, stares, and nods. "Alright. Thank you for the advice."
You wave him off. You could only hope he actually takes that advice to heart.
Someone buldgeons you in the head. You got shot in the leg.
Motherfucker, you cuss inwardly. Maybe outwardly, too. You don't particularly care.
Somehow, the two of you (plus Snowy, of course) managed fo dismantle a drug cartel from the inside, because the boss was too stupid to keep two journalists within their hideout – one who's had too many history of dismantling crime rings on his own despite his young age, and one who gets assigned to crime articles the most among his coworkers.
You kicked a guy who bludgeoned you in the head with vengeance. The guy who shot you in the leg got a nut kick.
(You try to conceal your satisfied smirk when you hear them yowl. Judging from Tintin's concerned and wary look at you, you don't quite manage.)
The police thank Tintin for his help, as well as yours, and tells him for what seemed to be the umpteenth time that he needs to stop getting tangled into crimes.
He laughs bashfully and apologizes. He doesn't promise he wouldn't get tangled up in another mess.
You know he'd be tangled up again sooner than any of you expected.
When people try to get photos, you adamantly refuse to get one taken. When Tintin starts making drafts of his articles, you forcefully tells him you don't want to be written into the article – your work hinges on your anonimity among the crowds, and there is no sense in drawing attention to you now. Also, Vingtieme already has a well known journalist whose name alone could open any gates. They didn't need another.
(You think about all those letters Vingtieme got for Tintin; how brave he was, how reckless he was, how young he was.
How dangerous the work he was doing was.
More than half of them condemn Vingtieme for letting such a young boy work in such dreadfully dangerous field. All Vingtieme workers knew better: at least this way, Tintin would have his health covered by an insurance, would have money to cover for his daily needs, would have some way to anchor him to someplace, where people could keep an eye on him. Otherwise he would just… fly off to god knows where, never to return.
Considering the enemies he's made by far, that wasn't really an option they could take.)
Tintin respects your wish. You get left out of the article. When he needs to cite you somehow, you get referred to as "a coworker", "a fellow journalist", or "an anonymous benefactor". You could appreciate that.
You still couldn't appreciate the mild concussion and the gunshot wound, though. You made sure Tintin wouldn't forget that. As a revenge, he writes "a fellow journalist who was caught up in the ensuing fight makes it clear that they do not appreciate being hit in the head and shot in the leg". Your editor thinks it hilarious and leaves it for print.
At least your name is nowhere in that article.
"Hey. You're assigned with quiff again."
You drop your notes onto your desk and glare at your editor. "No."
"You're the only one who didn't get badly traumatized. Go on with him."
"Not in a million years. Fuck's sake; once is enough. Do you know how many grey hairs I acquire in the three days I was last assigned with him? Pick someone else. Julienne never got assigned to him."
The deadpan look your editor always wore intensified tenfold. "She's a lifestyle journalist."
"So? Everyone got assigned with quiff at one point or another. Michel was in charge of the economy section and he got paired with him."
"He quit halfway through the assignment."
You drag your hands over your face. "I swear to god. Pick anyone, alright. Just not me. Getting shot was NOT a fun experience."
"Yes, you made it quite clear in the article."
Silence hung, thick like honey. Neither of you budged.
"You know that Gilles is still angry because of that lunch debacle, right?" your editor asks, almost airily. You know better. That's her go-and-do-what-you're-told-you-fuck-i-have-power-over-your-paycheck voice.
You bury your face in your hands and groaned loudly. You could see your editor smirking even without actually seeing it.
"Fine, but just once," you relented. "After this you'd better pick someone else, or I'll quit right then and there. And you can't say you don't care. I'm your best crime journalist and you know it."
Your editor looks like she's just swallowed a lemon whole and you watch in smug satisfaction as she agrees to your terms.
Well. Looks like another life-threatening trip with a kid with way too little self-preservation is in order.
First, though, you need to get to HR and rant about Gilles and his weak-ass baby stomach, because seriously, all you did was to add like a pinch of dry chili powder. He didn't even get red.
A/N: A silly little something I wrote on tumblr based on imagines-of-all-fandoms's post on "imagine being assigned to work with Tintin"
Haha buddy you sure? This kid has a giant cosmic FUCK ME UP sign up his forehead, you sure you want to be assigned to work with him?