'Abstinence' makes the heart grow fonder
Summary: Set in the same universe as my story "Tears fall like rain-" a fluffy humorous (fairly long) one-shot with Nadia/Doyle and brief Chloe/Morris, Jack. Mike just cannot understand her inherent love of shoes. Blackmail and male-locker room talk ensues.
A/N: Yes, more fluff and humour. I've been branching out from the usual angst lately and I've been meaning to post this story for months. This can be read as a stand-alone story, all you need to know is Nadia and Doyle are living together, oh, and in my universe Nadia likes shoes. A lot. I know its a little OOC and kind of far-fetched, but for the purpose of this story, I think it's more fun that way. It's also just a story- let's forget about the ethics of having to make someone give up something- it's not supposed to be thought provoking!
Disclaimer: Not mine, they belong to FOX.
Rating: T
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"Mike…" her voice was husky.
"Nadia…" he mimicked her dulcet tones, running a hand down her bare shoulder as she shifted closer to him on the pillow early one Thursday morning.
"You know how you asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I couldn't think of anything?"
Somehow he knew this was going to cost him; "yes?" he asked warily.
An innocent smile pulled on her lips; "I saw this really amazing pair of leather brown stilettos in Vogue yesterday and--"
"No."
"But—"
"No," he propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at her; "we've already discussed this. No more shoes!"
"But—"
"Nadia," to her amusement he hopped out of bed, butt naked and strode to the abundantly large closet, where he wrenched open the door. He gestured violently to the overflowing shoe racks, which had spilled over into his meagre half of the wardrobe; stiletto's, boots and ballet pumps intermingling with his sneakers and loafers and this was only half of her collection, god forbid. "This is why you can't buy any more shoes- and you already promised you'd donate some of your old ones to the thrift store but you haven't. Until you've made some space, no more shoes are coming into this house!"
Nadia pouted, a move which she knew usually went down so well with him, and let the comforter coaxingly slip a few inches, revealing more bare skin; "but Mike…"
He felt himself wavering, and then quickly snapped out of it; "No! Dammnit woman, stop trying to use your sexy powers of persuasion on me. There will be no more shoes in this house until you get rid of some of the older ones!"
"But—"
He clapped his hands over his ears; "no! I don't want to hear it."
With admirable resolve he wrenched his eyes away from her as she let the cover fully slip in one seductive motion, and stood up and faced him, a triumphant expression crossing her face; "fine! If that's the way you want to play it!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" he countered.
Nadia placed her hands on her hips; "no shoes. No sex."
"W--what?"
"You heard me."
"You cannot be serious," he protested, spluttering a little.
A smug smile crept onto her lips; "oh but I am. Very serious.." her brown eyes meandered down his body and rested rather prominently on his lower half as colour sprang to his cheeks. "Something tells me you'll be the one who caves first."
"That's not fair."
"Neither is you denying me those new Marc Jacobs I want, which would go perfectly with my new dress by the way, and forcing me to get rid of footwear I'm already attached to, just because of a slight shortage of space in the closets."
His mouth fell open incredulously. "A slight shortage of space?"
She tapped her foot and folded her arms; "what would you call it?"
A little gleam flashed in his icy blue eyes, but she detected the humour there. "Come here," he said as he took her hand.
"Where are we going?"
"To the spare room," he said firmly, pulling her after him.
"I'm not going to have sex with you in there," she pointed out.
He flung open the door; "good thing, as oh... wait a minute, there's no room in here, either," he deduced pointedly, the familiar sarcasm dripping from his voice.
Nadia eyed the full-to-bursting closets, stuffed with her belts, bags, casual clothes and yet more shoes which had spilled out onto the carpet, and had the grace to turn pink. It was chaos, but what she defined as 'organised chaos.' "You said you didn't mind if I had these extra closets," she pointed out sulkily.
Mike sighed and took her by the shoulders, "sweetheart, I don't mind. I have no objections to you keeping more stuff in here. What I do object to is the fact that you have all these damn shoes and yet you still keep on buying more! The same frigging shoes in seven different colours! What's the point in that? You're like some kind of junkie craving a fix!"
Nadia smirked at the analogy and stretched petulantly; "Oh Mike.. why so tense..? she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing against him.
His shoulders relaxed as she placed soft butterfly kisses on his jaw and he nuzzled her hair willingly sinking into her embrace. A sly little smile curled her lips as she felt him nudge against her and he was just sliding his hands tantalisingly down her body when--
"Well, I think I'd better go and get ready for work," she announced as she pulled away from him and flicked her hair in well-practiced nonchalance.
"But--" he gaped at her in disbelief and then gestured to his obviously pressing need; "what about—this?"
She folded her arms and eyed him appraisingly; "Mike, we went through this already," she explained as if she was talking to a particularly slow child; "no more shoes in the house. No more sex."
With those words, she headed to the bathroom, leaving a very frustrated and het-up Mike Doyle clenching his fists in the spare room, mildly pissed off yet albeit amused by her ingenuity.
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"You're blackmailing him until he lets you buy more shoes and keep the old ones?" Chloe burst out laughing as Nadia finished telling her story of the morning's events later that day. She was back at CTU after having her baby, but on more of a 'freelance' basis- in other words, she tended to help out when someone had screwed up.
Nadia smirked, "he'll cave first. I guarantee it."
"I thought you hid all your newer shoes from him anyways?" Chloe remarked as she booted up the server and tweaked the firewall, her eyes darting up to Mike's office where he was engaged in presumably friendly banter with Morris and Jack. She figured 'presumably' since the three of them could still lock-horns on occasion, though that hadn't happened for a while. Jack, she noticed, was looking very amused. Infact, he was laughing. She hadn't seen him do that for a while, either.
"I did hide them," Nadia admitted, "but after we moved in together he got wise to it. He found all my hiding places and let's just say there was a little incident with a stiletto…" she winced as she vividly remembered it piercing Mike's left foot. It had happened during a blackout when he'd ventured down into the basement sans torch and had stumbled across more of her collection. She'd never known his voice could reach such loud decibels, or that he knew so many expletives for that matter. She then shook herself out of her reverie; "do you know he actually counted all my pairs of shoes that day and deemed it unnatural for anyone to have so many?"
"The horror," Chloe shook her head in amusement, her voice melodramatic. "So, you're abstaining from sex until he buys you the Marc Jacobs and doesn't make you get rid of any other pairs in the mean time?"
Nadia's voice grew dreamy as if it was already a foregone conclusion she'd end up with them, "oh Chloe, wait until you see them.. they're perfect. Absolutely perfect."
Chloe grinned and tuned her out as she continued working. Nadia Yassir could wax lyrical about shoes for hours on end, how on earth did Mike put up with it?
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"She won't have sex with you until you allow more shoes in the house and let her keep the other pairs?" Morris shook his head in sympathy as Jack snickered and tossed a pencil, trying to get it in the cracks of the ceiling tiles; "bloody hell mate. That's rough."
"Tell me about it," Mike sighed in frustration; "it's blackmail, pure and simple! All because of these damn Marco Polo whasisname heels she said she wanted for her birthday and I refused until she got rid of some of her other ones. She's taking up like, fifteen wardrobes with all her clothes and crap, it's unreal. I'm not going to give in. I can't let her win- it's the principle of the thing!"
"You know, this reminds me of the time when Chloe ordered all those new routers and the external VGA interfaces, and I couldn't get her anywhere near the bedroom," Morris began conversationally, "to get her attention I had to resort to pretty drastic measures. Did you know that there's a condition where some people can actually get aroused by inanimate objects such as computers? It's called 'mechaphillia' and—"
Mike blanched, Jack balked and both of them tried without success to blink away the sudden unbidden images that entered their brains. Mike quickly clapped his hands over his ears; "too much information!"
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Three days. Three bloody days now and not so much as a whiff of a chocolate brown leather shoe anywhere in sight. She was growing frustrated, not to mention antsy for other reasons. What was even worse than the knowledge that he didn't seem to be suffering at all- as demonstrated by the smug grin on his face whenever she tried to cuddle up to him in bed and he quickly pulled away from her. "Now sweetheart. If you're going to do this, then you need to do it properly. I wouldn't want you to get tempted.."
"But--"
"Ah-ah," he shook his head, "no buts. Now, I think I'd better go and get ready for work." With those words, he hopped out of bed with a bright smile as she leaned back against the pillows with a pout, which quickly turned to a smug little smile of her own when she heard him yelping in the cold shower he'd just leapt into.
Maybe he was suffering too- just a little.
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Mike was suffering. Five days it had been now. That was one hundred and twenty hours, seven thousand two hundred minutes and approximately four hundred and thirty two thousand seconds. Not that he was counting or anything. It was her birthday on Friday and he was getting desperate.
"You're a stronger man than me," Jack told him, admiration evident in his voice as they worked out at the CTU gym Tuesday night. "Because with someone like Nadia around, I don't think I could have willpower."
Mike grimaced and lowered the speed on the running machine as his shins started aching. He'd been spending a lot more time in the gym lately, since he appeared to have excess energy in abundance; "I'm close to breaking," he confessed as he wiped the beads of sweat from his brow, "I think that in the long run, forsaking a little male pride can't be a bad thing. I'm going to just buy her the bloody shoes. Screw it! She can open a damn shoe boutique in our living room if she wants to."
"No! You're letting down the side," Morris objected as he paused in his own running and nearly slid to the floor; "you can't let her win! This is for the greater good, Mike. Show her that she can't walk all over you!"
"Morris," Jack pointed out patiently as he swigged from his water bottle and set down his free weights, "after what you told us you did to Chloe to get her to have sex with you, I really don't think you're in any position to question anyone else's male pride."
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"Happy birthday sweetheart," Mike smiled as he handed her the beautifully wrapped, shoe box sized gift three days later.
Nadia smiled in triumph as she tore off the paper and flung off the box lid; "aha! I knew you'd cave eventually--" she stopped short, her eyes widening as she looked up at him and then down at the present, speechlessly. It was a rare occasion when Nadia Yassir was lost for words. Now was one such time.
His arms were folded triumphantly. "You like it?"
"It's a—it's a--"
"A curling iron. Yes, I know."
She forced a warm smile onto her face even as her teeth involuntarily clenched and she pointedly ran a hand through her very straight hair. Hair she much preferred to keep that way. "Thank you sweetheart. That was very thoughtful of you. Just what I always wanted."
He smiled sunnily; "you're very welcome."
She couldn't take it any more and huffed in frustration. "Aargh! You win."
His eyebrow lifted innocently. "Excuse me?"
She set the box down on the floor and stood up, an unhappy little expression on her pretty face. "You win," she repeated gloomily as she looked up at him. "If getting rid of some of my shoes is what it takes to get you to have sex with me again and let me buy more shoes then I'll do it. I wish I'd never started this damn blackmail idea in the first place."
He smirked. "Can I get that in writing?"
"If that helps to make it binding," she countered, levelly.
He grinned gleefully, "you'll make some space in the closets? Really?"
"Yes, really," she was already mentally trying to work out how to adjust a shoes mass and diameter so that they took up minimal room in her closets; maybe she wouldn't have to get rid of as many as she feared.
His smug smile nearly split his face, "great. It won't be so hard sweetheart; I mean they're just shoes. Just think of all the room you'll be making for when Macy's new spring line comes in."
Nadia felt her spirits lift slightly at that notion. "Can we have sex now?"
He ran his hand down the side of her face, "can I hear you say it just one more time?"
Nadia pouted and then rolled her eyes, but she couldn't suppress her smile. "Fine. You win. Happy now?"
"Oh yeah," with another snicker at her obvious irritation, he pulled her after him to the bedroom, kicking the door shut after them.
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"Nadia, wake up..." she stirred sleepily as he kissed the back of her neck.
"Mmph?" she yawned, then burrowed deeper into the quilt.
He shivered in the sudden cold then poked her bare shoulder, and she obligingly moved her legs which were sprawled onto his half of the bed. He could really be quite territorial at times.
"I was actually wondering if I could have back my half of the comforter," he said dryly.
She grinned and squinted at him blearily. "What time is it?"
"Saturday," he informed her. "Early. You're no longer the birthday girl, sorry."
"Ah well," she shrugged and hid her smile as she allowed him to take back half the comforter; "it was pretty good while it lasted."
He eyed her lazily, "yes it was."
To her amusement he reached under the bed then.
"What are you doing?" she questioned, as half his body near enough slid under there; "or should the question actually be: where are you going?"
"Since I won your whole blackmail scheme," he began with amusement, his voice muffled, "and you agreed to get rid of some of your shoes, I figure it would be okay to give you this now.."
He emerged with another beautifully wrapped box. Shoe box sized. Nadia eyed it speculatively. "Is it wrong for me to hope that there's actual shoes in there?" she asked him in a small voice. "Not that I didn't love the curling iron but…"
He laughed a little as he handed it to her and she opened it gingerly. Nestled among the pink tissue paper were the beautiful brown leather stilettos she'd coveted in Vogue. With a dreamy, appreciative smile she picked one up and gazed at it, raptured. "They're beautiful! Thank you," she beamed as she threw her arms around his neck, narrowly just missing stabbing him in the shoulder blade with the dangerously-spiked heel, still clutched in her left hand. "I love you!"
"Ow! You're welcome," then he eyed her suspiciously, "were you talking to me or the shoe just then?"
"You, of course," she rolled her eyes, but from the way her hands were caressing the leather upper in that tender fashion she usually only reserved for him, he had some reason to doubt her.
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Three hours later…
"Mike…?" her voice was husky.
"Nadia…?" his voice was exhausted.
"Remember how I said I'd get rid of some of my shoes?"
A wary smile crept onto his face as he propped himself up and looked down at her. "Yes..?"
A smug smile tugged her lips now. "The contract wasn't binding."
The horror in his eyes was now evident as he sat up straighter; "w—what?"
Now she was the one looking triumphant; "I didn't put it in writing. You agreed that would make it a binding contract."
Light dawned; "Christ, Nadia! For god's sake, I was a little preoccupied at the time in case you didn't notice--"
"However," she pressed her index finger to his lips soothingly and he was instantly appeased, "just for you, this once, I will get rid of some of them. Fair's fair after all."
He breathed out in relief at the notion that he might actually get some closet space back soon. "Thank you."
"I do have one stipulation though."
"Oh yeah? What's that?"
"I want you to give up something too."
His brow arched; "what? Me going without sex for so long wasn't enough for you? How many more ways do you want to punish me?!"
She smiled slyly, "Yeah, well I went without that too, plus you're asking me to shrink part of my wardrobe. But don't worry- I'm not done thinking about this yet. I'll let you know when I am."
He fell back against the pillows in exasperation, but his eyes were twinkling as he wondered what she'd get him to abstain from or give up, and how he could get around it. Somehow, something told him that this was going to be an argument that just ran and ran. "Oh yeah honey, fair's fair indeed."
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A/N: yes, the part about mechaphillia is true. I watched a documentary on it. It was very disturbing, yet funny. People were sexually attracted to buildings, cars and stuff. Come on, you couldn't make something like that up! There's another couple of one-shots after this one, which I'm sure I'll get around to posting soon, but hope you liked this one!