Author's Note: So... first Spooks fanfiction even though I'm a massive fan. This one's just a bit of fun because I love dirty metaphors, and I love Zaf. So what better than writing a oneshot with Zaf using dirty metaphors? It's like two of my favourite things combined. Well, enjoy it! Hope I make you laugh. x
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Operation Manhood was only just under way, but Adam had already decided he would sooner jump beneath a bus than let Zaf think up another mission name. Jo thought that perhaps they could have done with something a bit more subtle, but Zaf was adamant. He found that all of her suggestions lacked imagination, to which Jo replied that his lacked tact. Ros – of course – had no opinion on the matter, and kept her silence, more than happy to wait it out in the Myers equivalent of hysterics as she watched Jo struggle through the entire conversation about said manhood, slightly pink in the cheeks.
"Adam is in position, we're thinking maybe that he's in there." They'd been sitting staring at the monitors for a couple of minutes, in an uncomfortable silence after Zaf had overshared why he didn't endorse the term "honeytrap". Jo shot the other junior officer a dubious glance, nervous that he would lapse back into the convoluted tale combining a hornet's nest and overt, graphic nudity.
"He is?" She gestured towards the screen. "She's barely even glanced his way." Sure enough, the raven-haired beauty sitting at the bar, her legs crossed with careful grace, had her eyes on her drink. Not once had she looked across the smoky room to examine Adam. "She looks pretty uninterested to me." Sighing, Zaf patted her shoulder patronisingly.
"You clearly have a lot to learn about the ladies." The only lady in close enough proximity smacked him over the back of his head in response. "Hey! There's no need to get physical!" Neither Jo nor Zaf saw Ros roll her eyes.
"Keep your eyes on the prize, Younis," Ros drawled lazily. "Just think of all that paperwork you'd have to do if someone died because you and Portman were too busy 'getting physical' to watch the monitors." Zaf frowned, and Jo flushed, both of them lapsing into silence to sulk. There followed a silence, punctuated only by the sound the affront of a boot to a shin. Zaf, clearly biding his time for retaliation, tensed his shoulders and narrowed his eyes at the screen. Ros stifled the urge to bash their heads together, and pushed herself off of the wall she'd been leaning against. "I'm taking a walk. Keep me posted," she ordered sharply, and tapped her ear with two fingers. Malcolm hurriedly activated her comm unit as she disappeared out the back of the van. Then:
"She's definitely interested now," Zaf informed them all, pompously, causing Jo to throw her hands in the air with exaggerated exasperation.
"She still hasn't looked at him!" Adam was an attractive man, but the target hadn't even laid eyes on him yet and Zaf's assertion was really quite ridiculous. When Jo threw a sidelong glare at Zaf, he was watching her with a mizture of amusement and amazement. "What?"
"You're seriously telling me that you've never played hard to get?" The sentence alone made her blush, but his direct stare made her positively squirm in her seat. Then, Jo cleared her throat and stuck her nose in the air, picking her handbag – which was far too large to be a handbag, in Zaf's loudly expressed opinion – and delving into it. From it, she drew two knitting needles, and a mass of baby blue yarn. Even Malcolm, who had been doing so well ignoring the domestic dispute thus far in, intervened, looking away from his game of solitaire long enough to comment.
"I wasn't aware you knitted," he said politely, his eyebrows raised. Jo sniffed.
"It stops me biting my nails," she explained. Zaf threw a funny look down at her immaculate fingertips.
"I doesn't look like you bite your nails." Jo looked at him as though he was chewing gum that had integrated itself with the bottom of her shoe.
"I don't," she said, as though it was obvious, and waved her knitting needles. "Because I knit." Zaf frowned, and looked away. Malcolm tried to suppress a smile and began a new game of solitaire. Needles clinked in the silence that followed, and Zaf tried to work out – by the sounds coming through her comms, because he daren't ask – where Ros was at. Soon enough she appeared on their perimeter monitor, swinging into the bar and ordering a White Russian with little more than a raised eyebrow. Zaf, still keeping one eye on the monitors, slapped Jo's shoulder to get her attention.
"How do you do that without looking?" She was also looking at the monitors, but all of her stitches were remarkably even. She wasn't joking when she said she knitted.
"Muscle memory," she murmured, keeping her eyes on the target. "See, she's even looked up when Ros came in, but she just ignored Adam completely." Still, Jo failed to see the backing to Zaf's accusation.
"Are you making me a jumper?"
Jo sent him an incredulously disgusted glare. "Why would I be making you a jumper?" Zaf shrugged, quailing slightly under her stare. "And blue is not your colour."
"I suit every colour actually," Zaf insisted, leaning back in his chair as he attempted to rearrange his long legs in the cramped space.
"Blue is not your colour," Malcolm confirmed helpfully, from the sidelines. Zaf frowned at him. "Azure, perhaps. Cerulean, out of the question." Jo nodded, still not taking her eyes off the monitors. So far, nothing more had happened. The target was staring at her cocktail.
"Definitely pink though," she added, as an afterthought. Malcolm hummed his assent, clicking onto another channel for a perimeter team update. Zaf eyed them both nervously.
"You've put a lot of thought into this, haven't you?" Malcolm ignored him gracefully, while Jo coloured lightly, turning her face away in embarrassment.
"Just an observation," she muttered self-consciously, the fake nonchalance in her tone fooling no one. A slight smile climbed onto Zaf's face, but he managed to hold the silence for a great deal longer than usual. Then, he was overtaken with the incessant need to say something grossly inappropriate.
"I must say Jo, your technique is superb. The wrist action alone is impressive." In the bar, Ros swirled her White Russian, trying not to smirk as Adam almost choked on his beer. So far, she didn't know if he'd noticed her arrival – after all, he wasn't expecting it, and she'd entered behind him. Perhaps he though that he didn't need to check out the newest visitors, because the Dream Team had his back. Ros was inclined to disagree.
"Er…" Jo glanced sideways at him, unsure what he meant, and Zaf's day was made.
"Good twisting. Wonderful for knitting." As a spy, he'd kept his poker face longer and harder than this, but it remained an impressive feat.
"Thanks, I guess." Although she knew him well enough to know that Zaf always has an angle, Jo naively took the compliment at face value. "What do you know about knitting?" Ros very nearly smashed her face into the table when she heard that particular display of stupidity, but managed to keep her composure. It was a very good thing that the operation was no dependant on the youngest officer's quick wit.
"My grandmother knits," Zaf replied, smoothly.
"Your grandmother passed away over twenty years ago." Zaf looked oddly surprised that she knew that.
"My grandmother knitted," he amended, just as smoothly, frowning as he caught Malcolm smirking. "But hey, do you know what else is requires a good technique when it comes to wrist action?" His tone was so innocent and unassuming that Jo, already concentrating on the screen and her knitting, didn't catch the horrified warning look Malcolm sent Zaf. "It's good for passing the time too."
"No, what?"
"Tennis." Rolling her eyes at his predictability, Ros tracked the gaze of the target, and found with surprise that it led to the glass on the back of the bar, then straight back at her. Thankfully, Ros reacted very little, and merely lifted her glass minutely, raising one eyebrow at the woman. Adam, having clearly decided that he was about to make his move, moved from his seat to the one two down from the target. The target, distracted, broke Ros' gaze, and… did she blush?
"You play tennis?" Jo was asking, sounding surprised. Ros could visualise the glee on Zaf's face as he realised that the other junior agent hadn't caught on yet, and the exasperation on Malcolm's.
"All the time." Jo continued to knit, completely unaware of the delight she was causing. Stretching his arms lazily over his head, Zaf straightened out his poker face before going on. "I mean, it's a great way to stay in shape. What's more, it's fun. Have to be careful though; don't wanna hit the balls too hard." For a split second when she paused to check her stitching, he thought that she was catching on, so he added "indoor arena." Over Jo's shoulder, Malcolm shot Zaf a warning look which was blatantly ignored.
"Surely it's better to hit them hard though," Jo piped up, and Ros severely hoped that this was revenge and she wasn't actually that thick. It was an insult to MI5 and blondes alike. "Keep your opponent on their toes. Tire them out." If Zaf didn't know any better, he'd think she was playing his game, and better, but the innocence in Jo's voice was genuine.
"I'd like to think that I hit them just hard enough." A smirk broke out on his face before he could check it. "My opponent seems to think so, anyway." Malcolm internally groaned, knowing that something extremely vulgar was about to be voiced in a particularly disgusting fashion. Poor unwitting Jo kept her eyes on the screen, where the target had just finished ordering another ridiculously pretentious drink, and Adam was offering to take up the tab. Now was the crucial moment: the first impression. "In fact, he makes it so easy," Zaf continued, twirling his thumbs, not even watching the proceedings of their very important operation. "I mean, sometimes it just feels like I'm playing with myself."
Ros watched, in horrified slow motion, powerless to prevent the catastrophe unfolding, as Adam lost control of his laughter and sprayed a full mouthful of beer all over the front of the target's white dress. In the van, the glare that Malcolm sent Zaf effectively conveyed the opinion that Zaf was an incredibly unpleasant individual. In the silence which followed, Ros irate, Zaf only just realising what he'd done, and Adam pondering how he could rectify the situation, Jo muttered "You're disgusting" at the other junior agent.
If the clinking over the comms was of any indication when Ros left the bar (raven-haired beauty on her arm and babbling about her rich important husband) Jo was still knitting, while Zaf had been humbled into silence. This would be a story to tell Harry about.