i really went and titled all three of the fics in this series (and the series itself) using "and all that jazz" from chicago. iconic of me
xXx
To say Claire had a hell of a headache was an unspeakable understatement. In fact, Claire was almost certain the reason her head ached like a bowling ball had been slammed into it was because at this very moment, her head was quite literally splitting open, as if someone had taken a meat cleaver down the center of her skull. And with her beauty mark, she wouldn't even be blessed with matching halves, which could be very important.
Groaning, Claire reached out with her left arm and aimlessly maneuvered it to and fro until she managed to shut off the blaring of her alarm, a sound so loud and shrill it might as well have been a police siren reverberating within her skull. But even after the booming noise subsided, Claire still didn't dare open her eyes—she feared a single ray of sunshine creeping through the cracks of her blinds might render her sightless for the better part of today.
God. How much had she had to drink last night?
Claire massaged her pounding forehead with her right hand, and hazy memories of her adventure with Margot began to return. Margaritas, shots, maybe a corkscrew or two? She'd lost count at some point, though the general ache that permeated her body told Claire a general estimate of 'too much' summed up the amount of alcohol she'd consumed.
Well, she and Margot had gone out with the intent to get hammered—Claire's eyes fluttered open, causing her to immediately wince at the incoming sunlight—and God, they sure as hell had succeeded.
Hopefully Margot was doing better than her.
Even if she wasn't, though, she'd had the good sense—unlike Claire—to schedule their night out before her day off. No clients would be disturbing her, Margot had gloated after her third shot, while she slept the morning and afternoon away.
Claire gritted her teeth and forced herself to open her eyes a fraction, just enough to get a gauge on her surroundings. She couldn't stop another pained groan from slipping out, however, as she slowly pushed herself into a sitting position. She rested the majority of her body weight against her bed's wooden backboard—sweet, sweet support.
As Claire's senses gradually returned, however low functioning they were, her mind came to a screeching halt with the realization that wait a minute—
She was in her own bed. In her own pajamas. And though her mouth tasted unpleasant and was drier than a desert, there was nonetheless a hint of mint that crept along the back of her teeth—toothpaste, presumably.
What time had she gotten home?
How had she gotten home?
Margot. God, Margot, had Margot gotten home okay—
To Claire's left was a glass of water resting atop her nightstand, the unexpected sight of which distracted her from her influx of panicked thoughts. Beside the glass were two white pills and a folded piece of paper, torn from one of her lined yellow notepads.
Wincing at the stiffness of her shoulders and the thunder that continued to boom against the inside of her skull, Claire reached over to retrieve the folded paper.
It was a note, she realized upon closer inspection, a note scribbled in very familiar cursive. Its message was concise: You'll need these.
Right.
Jack.
Well, that explained how she and Margot had gotten home, and… Oh, God.
The dress. The drinks. The dancing.
More memories from the night before rushed back to Claire in earnest, and she cringed as she recalled her drunken attempts to seduce Jack. Christ, had she really pushed him against the wall? If so, it was a miracle Jack hadn't doubled over laughing at her ineptness.
And if he'd left this note on her nightstand, that meant…
Oh, yeah. She'd asked him to stay the night, hadn't she?
Before Claire could continue wracking her brain about every minute from last night, she placed Jack's note aside, grabbing the two aspirin he'd brought her and swallowing them both with a gulp of water. Although she knew the immediate effect was mere placebo, Claire exhaled in relief as the tightness across her forehead began to fade.
Pressing the cool glass against her cheeks helped, too.
Well, Claire thought, it was some kind of miracle that she hadn't ended up worshipping the porcelain throne the night before, though she supposed she had toned down her drinking after Jack first found them. Sure, the fact that the roof of her mouth still felt lined with cotton was more than unpleasant, but it was nonetheless better than the back of her throat burning with bile.
Claire took another slow, deep breath, forcing her body to further relax against the backboard of her bed and the propped-up pillows. A glance at her clock revealed it was just a few minutes past 6. She wasn't due at work until 9, and part of her wished she'd had the forethought to delay her alarm by an hour, maybe an hour and a half, but nothing could be done now. Hell, maybe the extra time awake and regaining her wits would be good for her. To say last night had been…
Well, 'wild' was an understatement.
But Claire wouldn't have it any other way.
Claire's memories became choppier, hazier with each drink, and trying to recall them was like looking at photos taken through a camera with an increasingly clouded lens. She'd asked Jack to stay the night, and—what? Had they done anything? Was he still here? He obviously wasn't in her bedroom now, but that didn't mean—
Claire's train of thought came to a grinding halt when the faint sound of sizzling met her ears. Sizzling, like… like food on the stove.
Claire took a final drink of the cool water before placing the glass aside and pushing down her bed covers. Huh—she noticed for the first time that her nightclothes were her Harvard shirt and the corresponding burgundy shorts. Not a common pajama set of her choice, but she supposed it was better than having slept in her maroon dress, which, Claire noted, was carefully hanging on one of her closet handles.
Claire swung her legs off the bed, biting her tongue to hold back a groan as the sudden motion sent a sharp jolt up her spine that proceeded to ricochet like a bullet around her brain. God, next time Claire would have to do a risk-reward analysis before she let herself even touch a single shot.
She definitely needed to call Margot later. Check on her, see if she was faring as poorly.
With unsteady steps and several pauses to wait out waves of dizziness, Claire gradually made her way out of her bedroom and down the hall to the front of her apartment, keeping one hand on the wall at all times as additional support. When she got to the threshold, she had to do a double take, because her couch was covered in a pile of blankets. A pair of jeans was also folded atop the small coffee table next to the right arm of the couch. What were those—
Oh, duh.
Claire sighed, massaging her temples at the delayed realization. Jack had obviously slept there, which meant they had probably not done the… horizontal tango last night.
A grin twitched onto her lips at the comical euphemism.
Claire snapped out of her thoughts as the smell of—the smell of eggs wafted beneath her nose. Preemptively squinting at the brightness she knew would hit her like a sledgehammer, Claire steeled herself and ventured out of the hall. She took an immediate left to enter her connected kitchen, where she came all but face to face with—
Jesus Christ.
Well, not quite.
Jack McCoy was at her stove, scrambling eggs with one hand and holding a steaming mug of coffee in the other. From the looks of it, he'd already poured a glass of orange juice and prepared a couple frozen pancakes, too, even putting chocolate chips on one of them. Her baby blue kitchen towel was slung over his left shoulder.
It was a scene far more domestic than Claire had ever expected to encounter from the likes of Jack McCoy, especially within her own apartment.
As Claire ventured into the kitchen proper, Jack must have heard her footsteps echo in the shift from carpet to tile, because he glanced toward her with an unabashedly amused grin.
"Don't tell me good morning," Claire said before he could get a word out, holding up a hand to preemptively silence him. The last thing she needed was signature Jack McCoy smugness when she felt like she'd taken a power drill to her own head. "We both know it isn't one."
Jack chuckled. "Don't worry, the aspirin should kick in soon. Until then"—he tilted his head toward a mug of coffee Claire hadn't initially noticed, as it was behind the glass of orange juice—"drink that. It's black."
Claire had lately become more of a vanilla creamer kind of gal, but sacrifices had to be made to battle extreme hangovers.
Sitting on one of her kitchen island's stools—the one nearest to Jack, by pure coincidence—Claire took a long, slow sip of coffee. It burned the back of her tongue, but at least the stinging heat helped eat away the cotton lining her mouth.
"So," Jack said, pulling Claire out of her coffee-induced reverie, "did you have a good time last night?"
Claire snorted. "You mean do I remember anything from last night."
Jack responded with an innocent shrug, nudging the scrambled eggs around the pan. "You tell me."
Claire took another sip of coffee, massaging her forehead with her other hand. "Well," she said, lowering the mug, "I remember a lot of drinking. A lot of dancing. Mostly with Margot."
"Uh huh." Jack picked up the plate with the pancakes already on it, scooping a pile of eggs into the open space that remained. "Anything else?"
"Let's see…" Even in her hungover state, Claire couldn't stop a mischievous grin from twitching at her lips. "Yes. There was a guy. Louis, his name might've been?"
Claire hid her smirk by taking another sip of coffee. "We didn't really bother with introductions. A great dancer. Knew exactly where to put his hands, if you catch my drift."
Claire watched with thinly veiled amusement as stiffness crept into Jack's shoulders. His next scoop of eggs landed on the plate with just enough extra force for some to splatter off and decorate her countertop. She bit her tongue to hold back a snicker as Jack sighed to himself and tore off a paper towel before cleaning up the scattered pieces.
"After that," Claire continued, "there was more drinking and dancing with Margot, a little cheap flirting with the bartender, and eventually, a certain assistant district attorney showed up."
Jack threw away the bits and pieces of unintentionally discarded egg. "Is that all?"
Claire studied the fluid motion of Jack's arms as he switched off the stove, temporarily setting aside the plateful of breakfast food to ensure nothing had fallen in the burners and would start charring. With the sluggish speed of quickstand, Jack's presence here, in her apartment, truly began to sink in for Claire.
Not only had he stayed overnight at her drunken request, but he'd slept in a separate room presumably as additional reassurance for her that nothing had happened while she was… under the influence. He'd hung up her dress, given her meds, and now here he was, making her breakfast.
When Claire had first started sleeping with Jack McCoy, she'd expected it to be a good time, and goddamn if she hadn't been right about that. What she hadn't expected was for them to start sleeping together fully clothed, to start going out on cheap dates like any regular couple, and now—
Now this.
Now breakfast.
What could she say? Claire hadn't expected this kind of intimacy with Jack McCoy.
But Claire would be lying if she said she minded it, either.
"No, that's not all," Claire said, realizing the silence between them had hung for too long when Jack threw her a questioning look over his shoulder. "This district attorney—he's a very patient man. He waited, took me and Margot home, and even slept on the world's most uncomfortable couch for my sake."
"'Patient'?" Jack echoed with a chuckle, almost to himself. "That's debatable."
Whatever inside conversation Jack was having with himself, Claire decided to press onward. If it concerned her, Jack would let her know.
"Thank you, Jack," she said sincerely, both hands wrapping around her warm mug of coffee. "I mean it. You didn't have to do… any of this."
"You mean stay with you and make you breakfast?"
"And provide free transport for me and Margot."
Jack shrugged. He placed the plate of food and the glass of orange juice in front of Claire. "Maybe. But I wanted to." He met her eyes with a teasing grin. "Surely that counts for something."
A soft smile flitted onto Claire's lips. "Wow. Who are you and what have you done with Jack McCoy?"
Jack chuckled, pulling the towel off his shoulder to fold it neatly atop the kitchen island. "Well, I've had more than my fair share of hangovers in life. If I can make the experience even a little less hellish for you…" He shrugged a second time. "Seems cruel not to."
That was only half of it, Claire knew, because 'hangover help' didn't demand making sure she was tucked into bed, didn't demand the unspoken reassurance of sleeping in separate rooms, didn't demand a half-homemade breakfast hot off the stove.
And yet here Jack was, standing before Claire in a white t-shirt and gray boxers like a man much closer to her heart than she ever thought she'd allow him—allow anyone—to get.
"Thank you." Claire's voice was soft with undisguised affection. She stood, tucking the messy waves of her bedhead behind her ear. "I mean it. Thank you."
Jack swallowed, the Adam's apple of his throat bobbing up and down as their eyes met. "Anytime."
A promise, Claire realized, whether Jack was aware of the implication or not. A promise of companionship, of trust, of I'll stay at your side.
How long?
As long as you let me.
Claire smiled. "Come here."
Gently so as not to exacerbate the faint throbbing that still pounded like a drum in the back of her skull, Claire looped her arms around Jack's neck, and after a brief pause, she leaned in to capture his mouth with a slow, chaste kiss. A content hum escaped her lips when his hands slid up her thighs to rest on her waist.
"You're not so bad, McCoy," Claire murmured as she pulled away. She kept her arms wrapped loosely around Jack's neck. "You should be more careful. People might start thinking you've got a heart."
Jack chuckled. "Don't say that. I have a reputation to uphold."
Claire grinned. "Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me, I promise."
And speaking of promises, speaking of secrets—or, at least, of secret relationships—Claire recalled a certain promise of her own that she was yet to uphold. A promise that involved a particular red dress.
A smirk twitched at Claire's lips.
"By the way," she said, reaching up with one hand to push Jack's salt and pepper hair out of his forehead, "I'll be dropping by your apartment tonight. You know, to give you a proper thank you."
"Is that so?" Jack said, amused. He caught Claire's hand with his own and proceeded to press a kiss to the inside of her wrist, the warmth making Claire shiver. "And how do you plan to do that?"
Claire laughed. "It's a surprise."
"What, not even a hint?"
Claire hummed, weighing her options. "Alright," she decided. "One hint. It's dark red and shows about twice as much skin as it covers."
Jack's eyes widened. "Oh." He swallowed. "I… I look forward to it."
Claire chuckled, leaning in to kiss him out of his stupor. "I'm sure you do," she murmured, her words like butterfly's wings flitting across his lips as the fingers of her free hand curled into the front of his shirt. She kissed him again, and this time she found herself smiling into the embrace, a touch as gentle and lingering as the first. "I'm sure you do."
Jack needn't worry, she thought. After all—
Claire would make it a night they'd both remember.
xXx
and that, my friends, is the end ;) im on tumblr at thinkingisadangerouspastime if you'd like to yell about kincoy with me