for trope bingo square twenty four hours to live. not mine, no profit garnered. opening quote and title from the poem Dear Juniper, by Russ Woods. Thanks to the jam for beta, all mistakes mine.
We are both
cameras taking pictures of the rough
of a whispered you are not dead yet.
"Okay, Clarice," Peter said. He ran his hand down her naked back, kneading her ass before letting go. She got up off the bed.
"I'm not Clarice," Olivia said. "I'm not Will Graham, either."
"You've read the books," Peter said. "I haven't so that reference went over my head." He laid back down on his stomach, his eyes shut immediately. "Do you recommend them?"
"I liked them in college," OIivia said. "Most serial killers, though, they're not geniuses at all. They're not trans, either."
"No one wants to read about the boring ones," Peter said. "Even in fiction." He sighed and said, "Today Nurse Smith hastened the death of three men. Tomorrow Nurse Smith will hasten the death of two more."
She came out of the shower with a towel tight around her. "This hotel isn't so bad," she said.
"Thank you, Homeland, for the better accommodations," Peter said.
Olivia looked away, looked down. She had had a hand in that, making sure Peter and Walter had separate rooms. Like she knew what she was going to do.
She was half dressed when Walter pounded on the adjoining door. Peter got up from the bed, pulling on sweats. He said, "Walter, can you give me a second to get dressed here?"
"Peter, I'm worried," Walter said. "I liked it better when we had the same room."
"Yeah, but you get your own room, like an actual adult. You don't need me to help you into bed and out of bed, Walter." There was a strong streak of annoyance in Peter's voice. He wasn't completely at home with his new job. It had only been six weeks, and nothing had gone as planned.
Peter looked over at Olivia to make sure she was dressed. He said, "I'm coming over, Walter, okay?"
He opened the door and went to the other room, closing it behind him. Olivia took another two minutes to get ready and leave by the main door at the room.
She drove to her apartment and changed into clean clothes. She took a few minutes to turn on her laptop and scan the FBI databases. She was looking for information on John Scott, things he'd investigated or pretended to. She did a secondary scan for anything on Peter, including any surveillance of the past three weeks. She only trusted Charlie anymore.
She pulled her hair back in a tight ponytail and drove into the Federal Building. She flashed her ID, did the iris scanner and then the palm reader Massive Dynamic had installed.
Just like every morning for the past two weeks, John Scott sat in his cell, in grey scrubs, looking calm.
She spread the files across the table. John said, "You're not going to tell me how you found all this, are you?"
"What do you think, John?" She had given up on appearing calm in front of him. She knew Broyles was watching, or would be watching the recording, but it was much too late to convince anyone she didn't take this personally.
"I honestly have no idea," he said with a small smile.
"I guess that's just gonna have to remain a mystery to you," she said. "Now, why did you have so much information on Pattern related cases? Why were you doing your own investigations?"
"I had so much information because I was doing my own investigation," John said. "But it wasn't really my own investigation."
"I've already told you no one at NSA will acknowledge you as part of some secret task force."
"That's how these things work," he said. He was always so calm. Like he hadn't lied to her over and over and betrayed his country.
"You're so calm," she said. "No one's coming to rescue you. You're not going to be cleared. You're going to rot here if you aren't executed for treason."
"I knew the risks going in," John said. "The only thing I didn't expect was you."
She gathered up the files, the pictures of his hidden rooms and stores of frogs and other things that made no sense. She didn't say anything as she marched out. She was getting nowhere.
The rest of the day was worse. The cases were all some version of horrifying, today it was women being used as bombs. It was her birthday. Charlie drove her home and waited while she opened her door. "You didn't have to," she said.
"This is my present," he said.
She'd made it the whole day with no card. It was nice.
At 2 am she was still awake so she drove to the hotel. She did this too frequently. She knew Broyles and Charlie both knew about it, they'd probably known since the first time it happened. But she'd found John, she'd captured him. So they let her get away with it, apparently.
She knocked as she used her key to open the door. Peter was sitting on the bed, the light from his laptop screen the only illumination in the room. He said, "What if I meet someone? Bring someone back here and you show up and let yourself in?"
"That would suck for me," she said. She stripped off her clothes, folded them into a pile on top of the bag she'd brought. She noticed he had a bottle of wine open on the bedside table that seemed to be her side.
"You're pretty safe," Peter said. "I've noticed every time I leave this hotel when I'm not with you, someone follows me."
"Knowing you're being watched puts a crimp in your pick up lines?" She sat down next to him. She poured herself a glass of wine and drank it. She poured a second glass.
"It puts a crimp in my life," Peter said. He turned on the light on his side of the bed. He closed his laptop and got out of bed to hook it up for charging. He got back in bed.
"You think after all you've done, Homeland just trusts you?" She finished the second glass of wine. She poured a third.
"All I've done is save lives and find FBI's most wanted," he said. He plucked the glass out of her hand and put it back down on the table. He settled on his side, close to her. He grabbed her ass and pulled her down towards him and then his hand was between her legs. She inhaled deeply.
She said, "I found John, and captured him. Your father was the one putting me back in that tank and guiding me through his memories. What was your contribution again?"
"I was very supportive," Peter said.
She arched into his hand and he smirked at her. She reached for him, hands in his hair, pulling him closer. He made her come, he did it every time, and she felt like he fit in her perfectly.
She was in a lazy languor, sipping on her third glass of wine. He said, out of nowhere, "What would you do if someone told you tomorrow you had 24 hours to live?"
She frowned. She said, "Are you in trouble?"
"Ha, no," he said. "I'm trying to get to know you better. If I know you and you know me, maybe you'll stop having me followed."
"If I know you better, won't I have even more reasons to follow you?" She smiled at him.
"Probably," he said.
She said, "So you should answer the question."
He shrugged. "Have you ever been told you had 24 hours left?"
Olivia said, "I assume you have."
"Hmm, once." He was on his back and he reached over and turned off the light. "I was grabbed off the street in Baghdad. They came into the room where they dropped me and said -" Peter said something in Arabic she didn't understand.
"My Arabic isn't that good," she said.
"It's a dialect, too. Anyway, they said they were coming back in 24 hours to kill me. I asked them, why not do it now? Were they looking for some sort of ransom? Was it about their lucky number? No answer," Peter said.
"You encouraged them to shoot you right then," she said.
"I didn't think they would, I was just feeling them out. I was pretty sure they did plan to kill me. And I thought it might happen, since no one would pay to get me back and I couldn't see a way out of the room at first. You know, I didn't think about Walter at all. No, I thought, someone will tell Walter. But I didn't wish to see him or wish we'd make up," Peter said.
"That sounds sad," she said. "I'd want to see Rachel and Ella."
"I don't have a sister or brother," Peter said. "I was thinking about this girl I knew a few years before."
"You dated?"
"I dated, sure, but not her. I just liked her," he said. She was going by the tone of his voice, the bit of his body she could see in the very dim light from the window, but she thought he was telling the truth. He said, "She loved NASCAR. I mean, loved it. She had this deep, genuine, almost naive love of NASCAR. Which is a weird thing to think of when you're about to die."
"You clearly didn't die," Olivia said.
"No, I figured out how to get out. I don't know why they waited to kill me, I never saw them again, I didn't look up Jena."
"That's a great story," Olivia said.
"I just hadn't seen someone with that kind of love, something so simple and passionate, since I was a kid, probably. Walter loved our dog, Rufus, a lot. More than me, I'm pretty sure," Peter said.
"You should meet my niece Ella," Olivia said.
"Should I?" He was close to her, then, and he pushed her hair behind her ear.
She thought about it. "Well, she likes matchbox cars and ponies, you might convince her to like NASCAR," Olivia said. That wasn't what she'd meant when she first said it. She turned on her side, away from him. She said, "So if it happened now, what would you think about it?"
"Probably Walter. Gene," he said.
She nearly laughed. She said, "I would think about Rachel and Ella. Charlie, maybe."
He said, softly, "Not a little bit about John?"
She didn't reply. She wanted Peter to be someone he wasn't, someone she could fuck to feel better and not talk to. She had almost told him it was her birthday earlier in the day, and why she hated the day. "If I die tomorrow," she said. "Tell John I hated him. Or don't."
"That really doesn't sound like something I would be assigned to do," Peter said. The arrogant bastard was spooning her. She allowed herself to cuddle.
"And it's been two weeks, no more Silence of the Lambs jokes," she said.