Written for the tumblr prompt: "I need you to pretend we're dating . . . " Of course, I had to be contrary and have them actually dating.

"So, how much do you charge?"

Caitlin looked around at the man who'd just sat down in Cisco's spot at the table. "I'm sorry, what?"

Simon Danwell (according to his nametag) leaned forward, a little too close. Caitlin sat back in her chair, suppressing a cough at the waft of Axe that tried to scorch her esophagus.

"Cisco found you on Craigslist, right? Sent you a message that said, My high school reunion's coming up, and I need you to pretend we're dating." He leered. "Is he paying you for the whole night?"

"He's not paying me at all," she said, taking a drink of water. Ugh. Had he marinated in the stuff?

"Uh-huh, yeah. I bet gigs like this are a lot of your business. What's your going rate? I've got a family wedding coming up - "

She set her cup down and held up her hand to stop him. "I'm his girlfriend. We work at Star Labs together. I'm a bioengineer and geneticist."

"Very professional! Good sticking to the cover story. It's a doozy. A bioengineer, that looks like you? Wow, he was really aiming high. But I guess you can do that if you're paying for it."

"He's not paying for anything, I told you. Wait, weren't you one of his friends in high school?" That was how Cisco had introduced him earlier, his eyes lighting up with delight as he dragged her over to meet "Si! Wow! Dude, how long has it been?"

I-Go-By-Simon-Now snorted. "Yeah, we were giant losers together. That's how I know a guy like him could never bag a chick like you in real life."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "First of all, a woman like me has chosen to be with a man like him for a year and a half. Second of all, what the hell kind of thing is that to say about somebody you call a friend?"

"Wow. He must have paid you a lot. That's a perfect reaction. Hey, I'm serious about that family wedding. You want to go somewhere and, you know, talk about it?"

Under the table, a hand covered her knee.

With one hand, she grabbed his wrist. With the other, she took his pinky and pulled it back until he caught his breath and his eyes went wide.

"The bones of the fingers are known as phalanges," she said. "Did you know the pinky finger is the easiest finger to break? They teach it in self-defense classes. Healing time really depends on the severity of the fracture. If it's bad enough, it could require surgery."

"Wha - you - "

"I did tell you I trained as a doctor," she said sweetly. "I'm proving it. Now I could snap the proximal phalange of your pinky, down here at the base, or I could go for the intermediate phalange, here in the middle." She rubbed her thumb over the tip of his pinky. "The distal phalange, here at the tip, is very tiny, but I imagine I could find a way to break that instead. Or also! What do you think? All three?" She smiled at him, sweetly, like a shark.

He whimpered. "No. None. Please?"

She sighed. "Well. All right. Since you said please. Now, you've been tremendously insulting to me, and to the man I love. So if you would rather avoid fractures, you're going to leave. Now. And if I hear that you spread those vile speculations to anybody inside or outside this ballroom, they won't find your frozen corpse until man lands on Jupiter. Understood? Nod yes or no."

He nodded frantically.

She let go of his hand and watched him scramble to his feet, knocking the chair askew, and flee for the door.

She let out her breath and looked around to check for Cisco. If he'd heard any of that, she might just go find Simon and break his fingers anyway.

But she spotted him working his way around the edge of the dance floor. He was far enough away that he would have had to use powers to hear what was going on, and he'd had no reason to do that. She sighed with relief and tugged at her dress to straighten it, pasting on a bright smile.

He came toward her with his beer in one hand and her white wine in the other. "Okay, I can't believe I'm actually saying this," he said, handing her the wineglass, "but Jake Tully grew up into an okay guy. He apologized! Can you believe that? He said he wasn't in a very good place in high school, but that doesn't excuse him taking it out on me, and he wanted to say he was sorry. And then he did!"

"That's amazing," she said, taking a sip.

"Yeah." He cocked his head. "And then he hit on me, which was awkward, but explained a lot. Hey, was that Si I saw you talking to just now? Where'd he go?"

"I think he had a personal emergency and had to leave."

"Aww. That's too bad. I wanted to catch up. We were tight in high school, but after, we sort of drifted apart." He looked at the door as if he was contemplating running out to the parking lot to see if he could catch Simon.

She put her hand on his arm. "Honey, maybe you should just let him go. I think he's one of those people who peaked in high school."

"Well, that doesn't matter to me. I don't care if he's working at a sporting-goods store or something now, he - "

"No. As a human being."

He studied her, frowning. "What'd you talk about?"

"Nothing important." She took the beer from him and set it on the table along with her wineglass. "You wanna dance?"