Request: I'm a sucker for the gang placing bets on who will make a move first/pushing them along on their way to each other, so... maybe a bit of both? :)
No real warnings for this one, so T rating again!
Beating the Odds
Jess knew about the office pool as soon as the first bet was made. Really, she wondered how completely thick the others thought she must be anyway. She knew/heard damned near everything that went on the ARC thanks to monitoring the various surveillance systems on top of her role at the ADD; it was her job after all. So why exactly Becker's soldiers thought she'd be unaware of the fact that they were placing bets on whether or not their commander would ever actually ask her out was just beyond her.
She was more than a little insulted frankly. Bad enough they thought her oblivious, but they were placing bets. On her bloody private life! She worked herself up into quite a tizzy, but luckily Becker had talked her down to some semblance of sanity before she'd stalked off to confront the idiots.
Yes, he knew about it, as well. It was fairly normal, he'd told her. Soldiers tended to bet on just about anything: the weather, traffic, what era the latest creature would come from, how many new recruits would be injured by an accidental EMD shot during training. They really would bet on anything. It was just one of few pastimes they could take part of in their downtime between missions, and better yet, one of the few that didn't require carrying anything on their person besides cash. So really, he'd expected something of the sort. Becker was practically blasé about the whole thing.
Jess was less so, but there hadn't been much she could do about it. She supposed she might have been able to ignore it if the pool had been restricted to just the ARC soldiers. But, of course, it didn't.
Soon she was dodging giggling and/or commiserating looks from various scientists and technicians, and next the ladies in the canteen were gossiping behind their hands every time she entered the room, and then the medics were sneaking condoms into Becker's locker whenever they thought he wasn't looking, and… It was humiliating. Really. Hell even Lester had made a vague, cutting reference to Becker's apparent lack of progress in a meeting.
And dear god, then the team found out. Reactions amongst her closest friends had been all across the board. Connor had immediately placed a bet of his own, Matt looked faintly disappointed in Becker, Emily was frankly aghast, and Abby looked about to explode with hysterical giggles.
It wasn't that funny. Really, it wasn't.
Worst of all in Jess's opinion was that now of course it was almost im-bloody-possible to find even a single moment alone with Becker. Ever. Any time the handsome head of security even looked like he might be considering a private conversation with his Field Coordinator, half a dozen spectators would suddenly appear to do something 'vital' in the nearby area all in hopes of catching Becker in the act and ending the pool once and for all. Frankly, the whole situation was near to pushing Jess to the brink of her not inconsiderable patience.
The only thing that kept her in relatively good humor was she and Becker's own very, very private bet on just how long it would take the ARC at large to figure out that they'd actually been together for months.