Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no criminal infringement.
A/N: Big thanks to Scarlet Garter who allowed me to exploit her personal life so shamelessly…
Junior put the phone down and smiled. "You think you can handle this alone?" He nodded in the direction of the brothel's door behind which their target had disappeared about twenty minutes ago. Well, he better enjoy his visit there. If all went well tomorrow night, it was going to be his last.
"Not much happening anyway", Baptiste shrugged. "Was that Cass?"
Junior's smile broadened.
"So ice-queen is melting? Wouldn't have thought she'd crack so fast."
"Emergency came up", Junior laughed. "I better hurry."
Fifteen minutes later he had made it into Cassandra o'Neal's bedroom.
"You poor boy", he cooed at the lizard in his glove-protected hands. "I bet she scared you to death."
Cass, predictably, was fuming – from the safe distance of the hallway, of course. "Get the goddamn beast out of my house, NOW!"
"All you wanted to do was rest a bit between her sheets, enjoy the fresh linen and the really nice view…" Junior deliberately looked at Cass' cleavage, not the breathtaking panorama of the valley outside her window.
"You think you're so funny", she hissed. "These monsters can JUMP."
Junior chuckled. "They're not poisonous." He rolled off the bed, carefully cradling the – granted, with almost a foot length rather big – lizard, and proceeded to walk out the room. The minute he was past her, she dashed forward, fiercely determined to take the sheets and BURN them.
But when he was by the door, she called after him. "Don't kill it, will you?"
When he returned a couple of minutes later, the bed was already stripped and partly redone, now with blue instead of purple linen. For a very brief moment, Junior closed his eyes and simply inhaled. The smell of fresh sheets… in his line of work, that involved a whole lot of nights in rundown motels, be it on a stakeout or on the run, not something he was often treated with.
"Why didn't you want me to kill it?", he asked. "It might come back."
"Even monsters deserve a fair chance", she replied, straightening the pillows. "Maybe it mends its ways."
For some reason, Junior's stomach suddenly knotted up. "I better get going", he told her.
Cass, to her utter surprise, picked up a note of finality in his voice. "Maybe we could have drinks tonight?", she suggested. "Or I cook you dinner – after all you saved me from pretty grave danger."
Junior, uncharacteristically void of any playful reply, merely made a curt waving gesture, stepped into the hallway and exited the house.
"You deserve better", he muttered as he pulled her door shut behind him.