I pray for the wicked on the weekend
Mama, can I get another amen?
Oh, oh, it's Saturday night, yeah
Swear to God, I ain't ever gonna repent
- Panic! At The Disco - Say Amen (Saturday Night) -
Moran headed upstairs a half hour later, walking over to Jim's office. For once, he didn't knock, just peered in, as silently as he could manage, trying to see if he was up.
"What the hell are you doing, moron?" Jim drawled, back in his place on the couch. He'd already decided not to question how he'd woken up in bed. For once in his life, he was in no mood to needle.
"Trying to see if you were in here without causing undue noise," he said quietly, stepping inside. "Is the painkiller helping?"
"Not as much as I could have hoped, but yes. I would be flabbergasted if it wasn't, with that dosage. Could make a foorrtune selling those on the street," Jim sighed, a hand rubbing at his temples. It didn't help.
"Well, at least it's taking the edge off," he said, standing at ease. "You have an appointment for a CAT scan on Thursday. Is there anything I can get you, or anything you need done that can't wait until this is done with?"
"I need you to help arrange the job in Germany. It's open on my computer. Every time I look at the screen I get nauseous. I trust you not to make any grievous errors."
"Of course sir," he said, expression unchanged by the high praise as he headed over to Jim's laptop and starts reading through the details. "Anything you know that isn't on here yet?"
"No. I've had this in the works for months, just last-minute details that need to be put in order," he waved a hand, and let it dangle over the edge of the couch. If he wasn't in so much pain, he'd have complained of being bored.
He nodded, starting to pull together the final numbers for people required, making assignments, and finalizing timetables. "Sir, is there any particular reason you've got a six man team going in at the rear? Given the predictions for security they'll have a clear path and given their access point is a vent, the fewer people the better."
He was silent for a moment. It wasn't a surprise that he'd missed this. He'd fucked up the screening that had gotten Moran captured, and his mind was creaking under the strain of the scar tissue he'd always hoped was less prevalent. "I may have made an error. Correct it."
"Of course sir," he said, without allowing any reaction to show through. Those were words he had never heard James Moriarty utter, and they sunk worry deep in his gut.
Jim spent the next half hour completely silent, the sound of his own words too loud, too painful, to bother with. All this, just when he'd been trying to be a little healthier.
He finished making the last few adjustments, and saved the document. "It's all ready to go. I can print it out or read it for your approval if you like, or just send it along to the German branch."
"Just send it to the German branch," Jim replied, sounding like he'd very much not be there at all. "That's all that needs doing in here. Go make sure that no situation gets to me. I might kill someone valuable."
"Of course, sir," he said, sending the instructions through with a note to send any questions his way, before closing the laptop and standing. "Let me know if you need anything, sir," he said, before closing the door quietly behind him.
Jim waited until Moran was gone to stagger to his feet and half-feel his way into his personal quarters and to his bed. There wasn't an ounce of work ethic left within him.
He spent the rest of the afternoon informing everyone that any communications to Moriarty were going through him until further notice, and catching up on administrative duties in general.
Harrison didn't come back until late. He tried sleeping, but gave up when the four walls seemed to close in on him, returning to his computer until she got back.
Lorna spent the next few days tailing the newbie, returning at 2 or 3 in the morning. The first time she found him waiting up for her, she didn't think much of it. It was only by the third time, when he looked exhausted and about ready to fall on the knife in his hand, that she put her foot down.
She closed the door behind her, her stomach sinking as she saw him. "Moran? Christ, you look awful. Why aren't you sleeping? What's wrong?"
"Just getting work done," he droned, too tired to put much life in his voice. It was a pitiful excuse, his laptop had switched to screensaver twenty minutes ago and he hadn't bothered to change it.
She set her backpack down by the door and moved to kneel in front of him, taking his face in her hands so she could look at his eyes, check for a fever. "You look like you've gotten six hours of sleep this entire week," she said firmly, although her voice was soft. She cupped his jaw with one hand, the other falling to his knee. Somehow physical affection was easier, now that he'd given her an inkling about how he really felt. "You have to tell me what's going on, Sebastian. Please."
He stared at her for a few moments, but he was too tired to bother trying to evade her questions. "I just... can't sleep. I'm alone here and I keep thinking that I'm back there as I'm falling asleep. I can't stand solitary confinement, Harrison, not after what my dad used to do. It... I just... I can't sleep."
She let out a long breath, and, because she couldn't bear to let him sit there looking so desolate for a moment longer, pressed a kiss to his forehead and tugged him to his feet. "Okay. Okay. Let's get you into bed, okay? I don't have to be late tomorrow, I already have Kane on it anyway, alright?" she murmured, lacing her fingers through his and towing him gently towards the bedroom. She cared so much about him that this hurt.
He followed her quietly, not in the mood to argue, laying down on the bed in the next room without bothering to change, curling up under the blanket, keeping his eyes on her.
She was in blackouts, which never were particularly comfortable to sleep in, so she paused to get out of them and get into a overlarge shirt she'd originally stolen from Malcolm. When she was comfortable enough to relax she crawled into bed, immediately nestling into him, despite the fact that he was still in dress clothes. "Wake me up if you need to talk to me or something, okay?" she murmured, brushing her knuckles over his shoulder. "I think I've gotten a lot more rest than you have, I'll be okay."
He nodded just a little. Part of him was trying to object to the fact that she was comforting him, caring for him, giving him orders, but they were so far past that point it was ridiculous and he didn't bother, falling into an exhausted sleep.
Soothed when he passed out instead of throwing up a wall in her face, she drifted off after him. Hopefully, this wouldn't come back to haunt her, but she had to do something about this.
He started awake, again. It was the third time that night, and he doubted he was going to get any more sleep.
Fuck him. Just... fuck him .
He took a breath, sitting up and dragging himself out of bed, dropping to the ground quietly to start doing push-ups in the hope to burn off the adrenaline the last nightmare had left him with.
Lorna eventually woke up to his absence, as she was wont to do, as much as it annoyed her. Her dependency on him was ridiculous. She shifted, hearing his breathing, and looked at him from over the edge of the bed. She didn't know how to help. She wasn't enough, that was clear. She couldn't help him sleep, but she could put his fucking father in the hospital tomorrow for doing this, that was fucking sure.
He heard her shift and looked up at her, sitting up and back, wiping sweat off his face with his shirt. "Hi. Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you up."
"Not your fault. Been a light sleeper ever since we got back from that... place. You're pretty warm, I notice when you go missing," she shrugged, voice hoarse with sleep. "Have you tried taking a hot shower?"
He nodded just a little. "I've tried everything, believe me..." He looked over at her. "It'll fade. Old memories got brought up. I wish I could change them, but I can't. They'll go away."
"Do you want to watch a movie, get your mind off it? Maybe you'll just slip off without even knowing," she suggested, shrugging slightly. "Anything to just distract you?"
He sighed. "I don't know," he said quietly. "Not a movie, no, that... wouldn't be good." The same fucking movies, playing over and over and over again... He reached up to scrub at his face. "Fuck... I never got it, you know? Never got that it wasn't normal until I went to school. But no one else there bean-counted their fucking cheerios..." He was so exhausted. "Maybe you should go home so you can get some proper sleep."
"You told me, what, how many months ago now? More than six, maybe seven? You told me that I had to talk about what was bothering me, that if I didn't process I would keep having nightmares. I don't want to leave. I do want you to be able to get some decent sleep," she murmured, sitting up, the sheets pooling around her waist.
He closed his eyes, annoyed as she threw his own words back at him, wondering why in hell he wasn't barking orders at her and telling her to leave.
"What do you want to know?" he asked, resigned.
She was a little taken aback that he'd consented, and had to come up with an actual question that she thought might help. "How long did he leave you in that room? Do you even know?"
He nodded, closing his eyes and resting his head back against the nightstand, and shrugged. "The VCR had a clock; when I was older I could read it. I was in there daily from nine until whenever he got home. Longest was almost four days, when he took an unexpected business trip and forgot to let me out. More often it was just the day or two."
"Jesus Christ," she muttered, rubbing at her eyes. A child, going through that... "How many years? How old were you when he stopped locking you up like that?"
He took a moment, thinking. "Seven. That was when I went to school. He forgot to enroll me the year before. After that I had the run of the apartment when I was home, but I was supposed to stay in my room except for food."
She couldn't even think of anything else to say for a moment, just looking down at him in mute shock. "...How long did you live there? When did you get out, when you joined the army?"
He nodded a little. "Not that once I was older I spent much time at the apartment. I'd do anything to get out of there and he didn't much care once I was in my teens. Found a gang and spent time on the streets until I went military. He got pissed when I got a rap sheet, but it was swept up like everything else and aside from the occasional beating when he was drunk I didn't have any consequences. Army was a hell of a turnaround."
"What happened after the army? I mean, I know you were discharged, but did you just.. disappear? What did you do between then and finding Jim? Did your father ever contact you?" she shook her head, just completely baffled. Her childhood had been rough, had been dirty and crime-ridden, but this? This was insanity.
He smirked, not opening his eyes. "Ah, I see, we're doing the full biography," he snorted, but didn't really mind. "I'm damn good with a gun. Knew that going in, knew that going out. The military polished up everything else and neatly chipped off any remnants of what might be considered a moral compass, so I was perfect for gooning. Got a reputation pretty quickly, and Jim found me three years after that."
"Before you went into the army, was that the last time you saw him?" she asked, having not been present for that particular bit of the train incident. The train incident was what she called it - nothing so simple had ever turned out so wrong for her.
"No, a few times after that," he said with a shrug. "He's in Jim's pocket. I have to work with him from time to time. We get the job done and go home. Last time I saw him he tried to... I don't even know. Might have been trying to apologize but fuck that noise." He laughed. "No. Thank you, no."
Lorna just shook her head again, letting out a long breath. It was amazing he'd grown up to be so well-adjusted, to be honest. "I can see why solitary might bring some of that back. It's just- fuck, it makes me angry just thinking about it. I don't know how I can help. I want to, but that's..."
"Fucked up," he said, smirking a little and finally opening his eyes, staring at the wall. "You do realize, of course, that should you relay this information to anyone I would have to kill you in the slowest and most creative way I can imagine?"
"Who would I share this with? I don't have any friends, no family, and even if Jim doesn't know about all that - which I'm positive he does - it would never be relevant information. But I'll take the death threat under advisement, anyway," she sighed, sprawling across the bed. "I wouldn't want to be back in that room, either. Giving solitary to a child..."
He shrugged a little. "It was his idea of safe parenting," he sneered. "I guess it seemed logical at the time."
"He was in government, he could have paid for a sitter," she muttered angrily, then huffed. "Sorry. I did a job that went wrong with the boss I had before Jim, found some kids locked in a basement. They'd been down there for a week. I know what it looks like, and imagining it happen to you is just... shitty."
He didn't comment, just stood and lay down on the bed again. "Let's talk about something else now, okay?"
She nodded, retracting an arm from his side of the mattress. "I ran into someone I used to know today, from when I was running drugs. I would have completely forgotten about him if I didn't remember his stupid-ass name. 'Sherrinford.' God." That wasn't completely the truth, but for some reason she didn't want to speak about it to him.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," he snorted, smiling a bit. "My childhood may have sucked, but Christ, can you imagine trying to grow up with that name."
"I know," she laughed, "And he's really not that bright. Handsome, but maybe two bricks short of a load. Just reckless and impulsive. I only ever really got to know him because he was staying in this shithole of an apartment below a den I used to smuggle to." Also kind of a lie. He'd been a playboy, but reasonably bright. Maybe she didn't want to talk about him because out of all her exes, he'd been the one most similar to Sebastian.
He shook his head, reaching up to rub at his eyes. "God, why in hell people do that to their kids I'll never know," he snorted, sighing.
"I mean, my parents went a little off the beaten path with me, but at least it's not silly," she chuckled, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes and then letting out a long, tired breath. She had more sleep than he did, but it wasn't quite enough, and she didn't want to sleep and leave him by himself.
He looked over at her, caught the tired look. "You should sleep more. I'll try, too. Either way there's no point in both of us being tired."
She sighed, weighing the pros and cons. In the end, he was right. Usually was. "Alright," she relented, reluctantly. "But seriously, you can wake me up if you need to. My dreams are never that great, anyway."
"Yeah, you say that now. Then the one time I wake you up you'll be queen of brownie mountain with a harem full of large dicked intellectuals eager to please," he smirked, reaching over to turn off the light.
"What, are you saying that that's not my life?" she asked innocently, noting silently that he'd turned out the light. Whether or not it was progress, she didn't know, and stopped thinking as she curled up against him, exhaustion quickly clouding her mind.
He held her close. He'd not realized what he was doing when he'd turned the light out, he'd been caught up in the habit of things. But like it or not, Lorna had been right. Talking had helped. It had put everything firmly in the past. It wasn't a big difference, but it was some. He closed his eyes, and after a few minutes, he, too, was asleep.
She woke when his alarm went off, sighing unhappily and burrowing further into him like it would make the alarm stop. Mornings. What an awful time of day. It did, however, look like he'd gotten some decent sleep.
He groaned slightly as woke up, feeling groggy but not nearly as exhausted as he had been. He reached over to turn his alarm off, and yawned, sitting up, shoving her off to the side gently. He stood, mumbling something about a shower, and headed for the bathroom.
She rolled over and buried her face in the pillows, refusing to face the day quite yet. She'd had a few dreams about being locked in small spaces, and the things that Moran had told her were rolling around in her head nonstop. She just hated that that asshole had gotten away with it so easy.
He emerged a few minutes later, wiping the shaving cream off his face and walking over to the drawer to pull out clothes. "Come on, Harrison," he called over his shoulder. "Outta bed."
"Who said I have to get up now?" she groaned, though the part of her that recognized that she was his employee got her moving, however reluctantly.
"I did," he said, smirking over at her. "You looked far too comfortable over there and I figured I'd share the misery."
"You're a cruel, cruel man, Sebastian Moran," she muttered dramatically, shuffling into the kitchen a fumbling around with the coffee maker until it started making promises noises.
"Figure I've got to remind you every once and awhile," he smirked, tying his tie as he headed for the door. "I'm going to grab breakfast later.. not really hungry. I'll talk to you later." He ducked out, and headed quickly to the elevator. It wasn't that he was nervous about leaving the boss for so long, it was more that... he was. He had a sinking suspicion that things were not right.
Lorna got herself up to functioning in the next half hour, and after dumping the dregs of her coffee in the sink, set herself up on the sofa with her laptop, curiosity pacing around her head.
That was how she ended up outside the almost obnoxiously posh house, owned by one Lord Riordan Moran, in regular streets clothes, a pair of gloves stuffed into her back jeans pocket. How she'd managed to come into contact with so many Irishmen was beyond her. But since it was late afternoon, there were only a few ways she could go about this. Breaking in would be too much effort and would be too conspicuous. So she stepped up to the stoop and knocked on the door.
The door was answered a few moments later by a man in an expensive jogging outfit holding a smoothie and looking politely puzzled. "Hello. Can I help you?"
"I assume you're Lord Moran," Lorna said, curiously giving him a once-over. "You look like him. Sorry, I guess he looks like you. Can I come in?"
"I look like who, now?" he asks, taking a step back. "I'm afraid I didn't catch your name."
She slipped in through the space he gave her, taking a few steps into the opulent foyer with her hands in her pockets. "Hm? Oh, you look like Sebastian. I thought that would have been clear. You don't have any other children, no siblings. I love the internet. You're not exactly famous, I really doubt there's an impersonator out there for you," she hummed, eyes scanning the pictures on the wall. All of the lord, usually with some other dignitary.
He frowned then, sensing something was off. "I'm sorry, I still haven't gotten your name. Why are you here, exactly? Unless that clears up I think that maybe you should leave."
She was silent for a moment, calculating the risk of giving him her name. She wanted him as far away from the door as possible, and that meant pulling out a few grifting skills. He looked fit, for his age, and she was still not as strong as she'd been before the ordeal. Getting him down would be work, and it might take time. "Lorna," she said, spinning on her heel and putting on her best smile, approaching him again with her hand outstretched. "Sorry, I get a little distracted sometimes. I'm... friendly with Sebastian. I wanted to meet his father."
He relaxed after a few moments under her pleasant smile, and let the door shut a little. "It's fine, dear. I'm sorry for my rudeness... You said your name was Lorna?" He stuck out his hand. "Lord Riordan Moran, but please, call me Riordan. How do you know my son?"
"Work," she smiled, shaking his hand a little more limply than she might normally. Give him low expectations... "Don't worry, I don't do what he does. I'm sure you're... aware of the nature of it," she shrugged, returning her hands to her pockets, still emanating a friendly air. "Also sometimes we live together, but it's mostly the work. Do you have anything to drink? It's past noon, and you probably have some expensive bourbon in this house."
Her smile was disarming, and he was heading towards the liquor cabinet before he quite knew why. "I'm afraid I can't claim any real knowledge of what he does beyond that he's a contractor of some sort, Lorna. My son doesn't talk to me too often, unfortunately. What is it you do?"
She took a seat in an elegant armchair that looked like it might spit her back onto her feet if it deemed her too dirty, giving a small sigh. "Riordan, I know you were involved in the Tube incident. I've no idea what capacity, but I saw your name come up. I do much tamer work, though, be assured," she shrugged, crossing her legs and leaning back into the chair, making the space hers. Time to slowly shift the conversation. She wanted him to know what he was being beaten for.
He froze just slightly, glancing over his shoulder at her before walking over with two glasses of bourbon in hand. "You work for Mr. Moriarty, then," he said, handing a glass over.
"I'm surprised you know his name. Not many people do. I guess you know how to keep your mouth shut, don't you?" she chuckled, sipping at her liquor. "Either way, it doesn't really matter what I do. I'm not here for work-related purposes. This is personal."
He kept his eyes on her as he backed up to his own chair, taking a seat. "Mr. Moriarty and I have an agreement. I'm sure whatever personal queries you might have won't be disruptive to that contract?" he asked smoothly, though his fingers were a bit tight on his glass.
"Do I look suicidal to you, Riordan?" she laughed, shaking her head. "No, no, of course not. I wouldn't even be here if I wasn't so invested in Sebastian." Her expression grew more serious, the winning smile dropping right off her face. "I care about your son. More than I've ever cared about anyone else. So imagine my anger when I learned about the treatment he suffered as a child. I simply had to come see you for myself. You don't look like a naturally cruel man. I don't look like a murderer. But there we are."
Riordan seemed to consider bolting for the door, then think better of it. He considered trying to lie to the woman, but he doubted it would work. "Killing me would breach that contract we were just discussing," he pointed out evenly. "I won't insult you by trying to lie. I've tried to apologize to Sebastian time and again, but he won't give me the time of day. Not that I blame him."
"Yes, you're correct. If I killed you, I would be in serious trouble. Maybe even get killed myself, who knows with Mr. Moriarty. I didn't come here today to kill you. I only told you because I thought it would be fair of me to let you know what I'm capable of," she smiled, suddenly friendly again, and stood, taking a sip of her bourbon. There was a moment where she was just standing there and he was sitting there, looking like he was carved out of stone, and then the moment was gone and the glass of bourbon slammed into his face. She took advantage of the momentum from her pitch and lunged forward, hauling him out of his chair while he was still reeling from taking a glass half full of alcohol to the face and sending him right through the glass coffee table.
The next fifteen minutes were not pleasant ones for Riordan. After she'd broken an arm and a wrist with a rolling pin she found in the kitchen, he struggled less, but before she kicked in a rib and slammed his head into the plaster wall, he put up a decent fight.
On minute seventeen, she wiped her prints and put on her gloves to call the hospital from his phone.
On minute nineteen, she left the house out the back door with a slight limp and a bruise blooming on her back where she'd hit the granite countertop.
By minute twenty-five, she was long gone, and Riordan Moran was being loaded into an ambulance van with three cracked ribs, a punctured lung, one broken arm, one broken wrist, one shattered clavicle, a fractured ankle, and multiple lacerations on his face and neck, and that was without counting the deep muscle bruises he was sure to suffer. He would not be jogging for a very long time.
Moran was sitting on the couch when she walked in, tablet in hand, waiting.
"Care to explain to me why channel six just started blasting the breaking news that Lord Moran has been hospitalized after a brutal attack?" he asked, eyes not leaving hers for a moment, taking in her slightly mussed hair and the way she favored one leg.
"I wonder who called the ambulance?" was all she said, pulling off the thin black gloves she was wearing and heading for the bedroom, eager to get her sore leg under some hot water. "If you want to talk about it, I'll be in the shower."
He rolled his eyes, standing up and following her. "What did he do to your leg?" he asks, setting the tablet on the coffee table as he walked past it.
She sighed, pausing in the bedroom to gingerly strip out of her clothes, trying not to irritate the throbbing ache in her lower back. "I got careless. He got one of the coffee table's legs and got in a good hit before I broke his wrist." She tossed her bloodied clothes into a heap on the floor and limped into the bathroom, turning on the shower about as hot as she could bear before stepping in, hissing.
He frowned at the marks, but didn't comment otherwise, going to get the first aid kit. "That was stupid," he called over the roar of the shower. "Jim uses him. What the hell were you thinking?"
"I was thinking I didn't kill him," she shouted back, only loud so she could be heard. She really just wanted to sit under the hot spray and take a quick nap. Not going to happen, but she wanted it. "I was also thinking that Jim has been awfully quiet this week. He better rattle someone soon, or I won't be the only one noticing. Not me, preferably."
"Stop trying to change the subject," he said, walking back into the bathroom with the kit and an ice pack, though he knew she had a good point. There wasn't much he could do about it until tomorrow's scan. "You've got another job tomorrow and you look like you've been in a car wreck."
She turned off the shower and got out, looking a little stiff, and grabbed a towel. "I'm not completely stupid, I did think about that," she sighed, doing her best to dry her long hair before wrapping the towel around her chest and sitting on the toilet to get a better look at her leg. She didn't think it would bruise too visibly, but it certainly hurt. "I'm not getting information out of any one target, all I need is a good pair of stockings. I know better than to let myself get punched in the face, although I will admit that he was surprisingly fast."
"Of course he was," he sighed, handing her the ice pack for her leg and standing to look at her back. "Nothing backless tomorrow, either," he sighed, looking for any broken skin or serious damage. "That's going to hurt like a bitch, right across the spine." He came back around and gave her a weary look. "You know, you can't go out throttling people every time we have story time."
"I don't expect that there will be anyone else who's done bad enough that I can't resist the temptation to beat half to death, but yes, I know," she shrugged, lifting a hand to rub her eyes. She was always exhausted after prolonged physical violence. She felt good, but exhausted. "You can't tell me you won't sleep a little better, though, can you?"
"That's beside the point," he sighed. "You're goddamn lucky that Jim's distracted right now or you would be dead right now. You crossed his contact on a personal. I don't care if you killed him or not, that's not good, and Jim would have had you shot on sight for daring to step out of line like that."
"I know, Moran, I know," she muttered, keeping herself from snapping at him and slipping by him into the bedroom, looking for clean clothes. "You don't think I'm always aware of what Jim could do to me? After DeWitt? After every goddamn Boss I've ever had? I know." She got dressed as quickly and efficiently as she could without hurting herself too much. "But Jim's got something going on up there that's got the Eye of fucking Sauron pointing in another direction, so I took a chance. I'm a better liar than you, Sebastian, and you've gotten away with it in the past." She sat heavily on the edge of the bed, looking like she'd rather just stop talking about it.
"You got away with it, yes," he said, walking out after her, frustrated and not even sure quite why. "And if it were your target we wouldn't be having this conversation. But if you expect me to be grateful that you almost got yourself killed dealing with my problems, you've got another thing coming."
She had enough energy to look offended. "What? I didn't almost get myself killed. He got a weapon once, and I took it from him, and then I made sure he couldn't used a weapon. I have two injuries. Not even serious ones. I haven't broken a thing. No sprains. Look, if he could have done some serious damage to me after I half-blinded him with the bourbon glass to the face, I would have been impressed," she huffed, just looking bewilderingly at him. "I'm starting to try and think of a time you've actually seen me fight and see if I need to be really offended by this."
"Not by him," he muttered, waving that off. "Jim is a wild-card! The Eye of Sauron, as you so eloquently put it, does shit like this just to fuck with people, and it could have been you. I know you know what you're doing, I don't doubt that, what I don't get is why you just did that."
"Because I've had enough of being helpless," she spat, not angry at him, angry with herself. "Holmes, DeWitt, I can't fucking get them. Holmes we can't even touch, and god knows where DeWitt is. Your father lives twelve blocks from here. He was reachable. I could have some sort of sense that I'd righted something. And I hate watching you suffer. I rather be miserable myself."
He was quiet for a long while. "Anyone else I would have killed," he said finally, with a small nod. "But I suppose for you... An exception can be made." It was as close to a thank you as he was going to get.
She laid back on the bed, feet still hanging over the edge, and managed not to make a sound of complaint when her back twinged. He made a lot of exceptions for her. And, honestly, she made a lot for him. Even as bosses went, she took a lot of shit from him. She resisted the urge to lift a hand and reach out for him, knowing that that was perhaps too personal, even considering the fact she basically had made his apartment home. So instead she just reached up, grabbed a pillow from the top of the bed, and brought the pillow over her face, letting out a long sigh into it.
He left the room, and came back a minute later with a bottle of painkillers and a glass of water. He nudged her good leg with his toe. "Here. Take these."
She sat up, let the pillow fall into her lap, took the pills. "Thanks," she murmured, after taking a good drink of water. She wasn't sure what else to say to him. They had no basis to work off of here.
He nodded a little bit, after a bit sitting down next to her. He stared at his hands for a bit before sighing. "Do you want to go over tomorrow's briefing tonight, or would you rather wait for the morning?"
"Better if it's tonight, I can't remember it right if I do it in the morning," she shrugged, leaning down to put the bottle and the empty glass on the ground, next to the pile of bloodstained clothes. She really shouldn't have worn her second favorite hoodie.
He nods in agreement, leaning over to grab the file off the bureau and tossing it to her. "I'm really rather... annoyed.. that Jim hasn't called these off yet," he sighs. He'd breached the subject with the man this morning and had gotten the pained equivalent being laughed out of the room.
"I never really expected him to," she shook her head, catching the file with a little more clumsiness than normal and flicking it open. "Anyway, some of these do seem like they need doing, the only issue is sending me... Crap, I can recognize half the names on this list. Have to go heavy on the makeup, try to look different. Break out a wig, maybe..."
He walked over, pulling the list out of her hand and reading over it, snorting air through his nose and handing it back. "This is complete bullshit. I don't have time for his mind-games right now," he muttered blackly.
"Really nothing we can do about it," she replied wearily. She was resigned to this. It was why she'd gotten her affairs in order, after all. "I'm not crazy enough to go against a direct order."
He nodded just a little, and walked into the next room. "You want a drink to replace the one you dumped on my father?" he called back.
"I would say 'tossed' or 'chucked' but yes, very much so," she said, following him in and lowering herself onto the couch with a small huff. The heels tomorrow would be a bitch. "Doesn't have to be good, just strong."
He nodded, pulling a bottle of mid-grade vodka out of the cabinet and pouring them each a glass, handing one over. He raised his in a half toast. "Up Jim's ass," he said dryly, taking a long sip.
She smirked, and then got down to the serious business of draining half the glass, completely ignoring the mindbogglingly boring taste. "I don't know how much longer I can keep up the pace with these jobs, to be completely honest," she muttered, when she'd taken a good breath to catch up. "If they keep coming faster I won't be able to get them done in time, or I'll slip. I've given a good chunk of my workload to Kelly, but he's not exactly good under administrative pressure."
"I'll fix it, don't worry about it," he said, reaching for the remote and turning the television on. "Not too much longer."
"I hope you're right. I mean, you usually are, but especially so right now," she snorted, knocking back the rest of her vodka and coughing at the burn. Right now she had the urge to get black-out drunk. She wondered how far he'd let her get.
"Don't even think about getting drunk," he said, as if reading her mind, already screwing the top onto the vodka. "We are not making tomorrow any worse by having you hungover."
"Damn. Caught red-handed," she muttered, then stood, very carefully stretching. "Unless you need me for something, I'm just going to pass out, get a head start on tomorrow."
He nodded a little, sitting back and staring at the television, watching the news. "Go ahead. I'm going to see if there's any news on your misadventure."
Lorna nodded, and headed for the bedroom. There wouldn't be, not if Lord Moran had taken her threats before she'd called the hospital seriously. And why wouldn't he? A few minutes later she was fast asleep in bed, no worries to keep her up.
He waited until the door shut, gave it another five minutes to ensure she hadn't forgotten anything, and then stood, walking over to his safe and opening it, pulling out a notepad. He didn't dare trust this to his laptop. He walked back over, sitting down and starting to go over the final details. Lorna just had to survive tomorrow. Then, assuming Jim didn't call things off, the next assignment would be his chance.
Playlist: The Brothers Bright - Blood On My Name
Panic! At The Disco - Say Amen (Saturday Night)