Author's Notes: I've been bench watching this series lately and this little number popped into my head. Enjoy.
Dan Vs. The Surprise
It was only as he stood there, hand hovering hesitantly over the knob, that he started to think this wasn't such a good idea.
Sure, when the idea had first come to him in that strange twilight between sleep and fitful waking, it'd seemed like a perfectly logical and reasonable thing to do. Elise had even approved of it over the clanging of sharpened steel and spent shell cases. That reminded him, he needed to go to the Depot and get some industrial strength bases because honestly, that guy had bled all over his sorted piles of stuff. He'd add him to one of his notebooks but, you know. He was kind of not living at the moment.
But that was neither here nor there. The imposing monolith impeding him from his intended course was. And he most definitely was shaking from nerves because someone as awesome as himself didn't shake. He vibrated. And it was usually with poorly repressed anger so having it be nerves- He was getting off track again. He absently checked his watch.
He'd been standing here for the past twenty-five minutes. Which meant that their break was in another five and so even if he didn't move, he'd still have to face them. He could just leave…but that was such a cowardly thing to do. A Chris thing to do. Which, in fact, made it even worse. So, swallowing down a surprisingly dry throat, he fisted the bronze ornament and pushed it open.
The occupant swiveled in their chair, sending their long, burnt umber tresses flying as they turned, freckle specked face transforming from startled to shocked. Her svelte hand went to her mouth as she forced a gasp into silence, chestnut eyes wide in wonder. Which was quite comely. And her upper management attire was cut so as to radiate both power and femininity that her old failed to convey. She was, in a single word, breath-taking. And yes, the hyphen made it a single entity.
"Dan?" Her voice had grown even more alluring in its absence, if such a think was possible "What're you doing here?"
"Hortense…I…you-um…uh…" He was convinced some lower-leveled peon had been watching them because the temperature in the room had spiked quite drastically and he'd broken out in a sweat. Which wasn't preferable because he hadn't worn deodorant today as Mister Mumbles had eaten it and regurgitated bars of potassium alum made for a substandard substitute. "I…the thing is…you…um…uh…"
He suppose he was in need of a beverage of some kind seeing as his rapidly drying throat was making his normally immaculate speech less than verbose. Which was a shame, since he planned on saying something suitably witty and intellectual because she seemed to enjoy that from their past interactions. And he'd rather like amusing her.
"How'd you get here? I thought I'd never see you again." She'd risen from her seat and walked, no, glided over on high heels that grew a considerable amount of attention to her legs. Which were rather nice.
Then she hugged him.
Which felt very nice and his eyes had started rolling which was peculiar as he hadn't been tasered or in the presence of noxious fumes. Well, except Chris, but he'd become use to the faint odor that insistently clung to the man. And Hortense didn't smell. Well, she did but not horribly or in a Chris way, but she smelt like freshly made French fries and burgers with olive oil. Which was to say she smelt heavenly.
And all too soon she was letting go and his tongue was still tied as went to speak but thankful, she chose to speak first.
"Well, I was about to go to lunch, but I can miss it." She sat back down, crossing her legs primly and smiling in that soft, bit-of-overbite way. "So what've you been up to? Gonna say, you look great, even when you aren't in chains."
"Ugh, I…um…thanks." There! Finally, some progress "You look…um, nice-I mean, you look nice a lot-well, I mean you look nice all the time but you look even better now-not that you never use to look great before-"
"You're just as funny as last time." she giggled, no tweeted into her soft hand "So, what bring you all the way out here?"
"Um…" Yes, why had he come all the way out here for again? He recalled it being fairly important "Oh! I…just wanted to…you know…check up on you…see how things were…"
"Oh, well things are pretty great, actually. I mean, I have a lot more stuff to do than if I was Assistant Manager and it can be pretty busy sometime, but I love it. I really can't thank you enough for helping me decide to take it." Right, he had encouraged her to come here in the first place. And it was great that she was enjoying her work and seemed to be happier now, but wasn't there something…Oh!
"Yeah…Look, I um,…just wanted to…you know…we were…used to be…a couple and I…well…you know…" And now she was gasping again with wide eyes, both hands over her mouth. Crap. Did he mess up? He was pretty sure he hadn't. "I…I get if you don't…you know…it was just a enshackled compliant for a few hours…it wasn't all that-"
Suddenly, she was up from her seat again. Only now, her lips were planted firmly against his own and her tongue was in his mouth, search and Wow did the room just get hot. Blood pooled to his face and Dan stood there, hands twitching as Hortense ran her long, slender fingers through his coarse, unkempt follicles. After another moment or three, she finally retreated, her own face slightly flushed, though Dan's cheeks felt as if they'd been set ablaze.
"Does that answer your question?" And it was a rather…firm confirmation "Here. We'll meet after I finish my work and then we can catch up."
He nodded dumbly, not trusting his voice which had done nothing but fail him this day. He left out the door, mind hazy from the brief experience of carnal bliss that he didn't even notice the large mass of Chris when he miraculously stumbled back to the car.
"So how'd it go?" Dan thought about it: the waiting, the anxiety, the sweat, the speechlessness, the kiss…
"Fine." And it really had.
Author's Notes: This was my first real attempt at romance of any kind so please, be honest.