Participants:
| Scene Title | It's On |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Felix tells his best friend what happened to his career. |
| Date | July 16, 2010 |
Felix's Apartment, Hamilton Heights
The call went through her cell phone, and Elisabeth got out of the office as quickly as she could. Having Felix on the phone in the middle of the day in the mood that came through the cell triggers alarms in her. Knocking on the door, she's carrying food from a bakery nearby and a bottle of wine too. She holds both up when he opens the apartment door and says, "You sounded like you needed it."
It's a new apartment. In Hamilton Heights. Does he know how to pick 'em, or what? Fel looks…frankly stricken. She's seen him this bad a handful of times before, but not many. When Lee left. After Deckard murdered him. "Yeah," he says, with a very shaky smile. "Come on in."
Wow… it's worse than she thought. 'I need you' was clear in the call, but wow. Liz slips into the apartment and sets food on the counter. In point of fact, she'll get to the situation in the building itself later on. Her first priority is him. As soon as her hands are empty, she turns around and wraps both arms around the too-skinny speedster. "What happened?" she asks softly.
He doesn't just collapse on her wholesale, as he has in the past. Holding it together a little better than he has. "It's not unmixed bad news. It's just….kind of a shock. See, Kershner or someone apparently tapped me for FRONTLINE. And my SAC heard first. I showed up at the office today, and he basically told me to pack my shit and not let the door hit me on the way out." He punctuates it with a shaky sigh, as he leans his head on her shoulder. His heart's fluttering like a hummingbird's despite his attempt at calm.
Holding him tightly, Elisabeth goes stiff with shock. "Wait…. what?" She pulls back a little bit to look at him, but when his head drops to her shoulder, her embrace tightens. "I…. " She bites her lower lip, "Damn, Fel… that sucks." She knows what his career in the FBI means to him. She knows how much it hurt when her NYPD career went down the toilet. "What can I do?" she whispers.
"What you just did. Show up with booze and food and sympathy. And if I could get a pity fuck out of it, well, I'd not be averse," he says, putting his arms around her in turn. There's the faintest suggestion of a smile, even if a weak one, tacked on to that last request.
Elisabeth looks up and her grin holds a wicked twinkle. "Well, now, if you're going to be plead your case so nicely, what the hell kind of friend would I be to say no?" She stands on her toes and kisses him softly, but there is no pity in her expression. Perhaps a cross between regret and elation would be a better description.
He relaxes into her arms. "You're glad that if I had to get my ass thrown out of the Bureau, I ended up in FRONTLINE, aren't you?" he says, peeking up at her, and then kissing her in return. His mouth tastes of mint, as it so often has since he gave up cigarettes.
That he reads her well enough to know that does not come as a surprise, and Elisabeth nuzzles his chin tenderly. "Yeah," she admits quietly. "I am. Because I trust you at my back, and there aren't many people I can honestly say that about, Felix." Her lips trail across his jaw lightly. "Besides… it makes life just a little simpler for the rest of what we have to do."
"Now I get to be a cowboy," he says, shivering at the kiss. He hasn't yet shaved off the goatee, or cut his hair. No doubt those'll be the first casualties, down in Virginia. "It could be worse. Though I can tell you right now the US government is going to regret it.
At that, she smirks faintly, burying her nose in the curve of his neck beneath his ear and lightly nipping him. "They have no idea how much," Elisabeth chuckles on a soft breath against his skin. It occurs to her that teasing him with the Feeb moniker that she's used for so long will definitely be off the table… and she tightens her arms around him, wishing she could take the hurt of that part of all this away. "It's on, Felix."
He smells like his usual spicy aftershave. The nip raises goosebumps, precisely as she might expect - she does know him intimately, after all. He makes a little noise, and then wonders, "So. Booze first, or pity sex?"
"I don't pity you a bit, kitten," Elisabeth says with one more gentle nip on his neck. She loves it when he shudders like that. Then she pulls away from him and grins up at him. "I pity them…. cuz now I'll let you in on a little secret." She whispers softly, "Cardinal's little group is Kershner's ace in the hole… she's sort of on our side." There's a shrug. "Or at least… our side enough." For now.
Fel makes one of those pleased, incredulous scoffing noises. "That….well. They really are gonna regret it." He shrugs, insouciantly. "On their head be it. You wanna armor me up like Iron Man, gimme the warrant to -really- do some damage…." He trails off, but there's that grin.
Liz cautions mildly, "Bear in mind she's got her own agenda. I think it's probably more a case of….. mutual masturbation, quite frankly." She grins wickedly. "She tries to use us, we try to use her, everyone goes away with that tingly feeling… " She snickers. "And usually it's one of rage. Part of what I'm doing there is keeping tabs on her. As much as is possible. Be careful of her, though. Her agenda and ours coincide at the moment, and they're gonna give you nice shiny new toys to play with. Let's raise some hell, handsome."
He steps back, hands still in hers. "I couldn't agree more." He's already dragging her towards the bedroom. Apparently the prospect of getting to play with high caliber weaponry is enough to light his fire.
Damn, it's always fun when Felix actually gets into it. And it's been quite a while since that happened. She rummages in his dresser and comes up with a T-shirt to throw on because at this precise moment she has zero idea where any of her clothes ended up. There's a line of them down the hally to the bedroom, though, so it's probably under the bed or something. She fetches the bag containing the cartons of Chinese and plops down on the floor in front of his coffee table with it, glancing over her shoulder with a grin. Her blonde hair is tousled and her face doesn't have that carefully neutral expression that hides the lines of fatigue on her face — they're perhaps more prominent than they were when she got here, but she is far more relaxed. Around a bite of cold sesame chicken, she comments, "You know it means a couple weeks in the hellhole known as DC, right?"
It's his favorite t-shirt ever - the one with the cosmonaut pinup girl riding Sputnik. It's faded and well-loved. He joins her wearing nothing more than a pair of knit pajama pants, utterly nonchalant. He's lean as a whip, but a bit less unhealthily so than he was. The play of joints and sinews is obvious, though, and it gives him a rather childish air. By the speculative expression he wears as he returns from the bathroom, he's pondering how much mess it would make if he upended her over said coffee table. But he leaves it for the moment, and scratches at his goatee, and sighs as he comes to sit across from her. "Yeah," he says, grumpily.
As if she doesn't know exactly what he's contemplating doing as soon as he lays eyes on her. And a single finger comes up in a cautionary movement. "Lemme eat!" Liz protests without any heat — that libido of his is tough to keep up with once ignited! "You eat too," she instructs, shoving a carton at him. "And find the chopsticks, willya?" She grins and shoves another piece of chicken in her mouth. "If you're going to make me keep up with you, I gotta have calories, man. I'm gettin' old."
Changing the subject, Elisabeth asks around the bite, "Guess we'll have to get you up to speed on what's being worked on… but I think I'll let Richard deal with that. Personally, I'd rather ignore it for tonight, if you dont' mind much."
It did used to stagger poor Lee, back when. Hard to get home from a long shift as a cop to have some pervert Russian pounce on you when you've just walked in the door. He rummages for a moment, offers her the pair. "Sounds great," he says, simply. He cocks his head, picks the Mongolian beef, dumps a whole lot of it over rice.
Even better. Wiping her fingers on a napkin, Liz takes the chopsticks and forgos the rice for now, simply eating the chicken from her container for a few minutes instead. "What the fuck did you say to the SAC when he dumped it on you like that? I'da popped him in the nose, I think," she observes mildly.
He mixes it in, patiently. "I just sorta stared at him. Noted that I hadn't heard anything about it, personally. But…..yeah, when I checked mymessages and my email, there it was," The Russian's shoulders droop for a moment, defeated.
Her tone is gentle as she reminds him softly, "Brand new, multi-billion-dollar toys, kitten." Elisabeth watches him and she adds, "I know it sucks. I've been there, Felix. But you know what? I think you're going to like the freedom far more." She never thought she would be the one touting FRONTLINE, of all things. "The entire team is Evo, you don't have to deal with any of the bullshit that comes with it. And you… you're a decorated Fed. They're going to respect the hell out of you, but they're not going to be afraid of you or give you shit about so much of what we've taken shit over for so long." She can't speak to whether he might take shit for the gay part. But it better not be in her hearing, that's for sure — and she's got damn good hearing.
Psychic best friend powers go. Fel chews ruminatively on rice and beef for a moment, before he raises his gaze to her. And then says, in all apparent seriousness, "I think we'd better not mention Lee. That…."
"That's your call. Your personal business, Felix." Elisabeth smiles slightly. "I'll always cover Lee." Because it's what both Felix and Lee need. "It might sound stupid and somewhat optimistic, but…. I think you're going to like it there. It's…. sometimes harder than what we did before. Less investigation, more …. soldier stuff. But eh. It's not so bad, that part." She shrugs. "Mostly… I like it, really." She looks up at him, setting down the chicken to rummage for eggrolls. "I didn't think I would. I figured they'd be … all fascist and insane and shit. But it's… actually a pretty goddamn good work environment, The Shark aside. And mostly even she's okay." There's a pause as she finds the eggrolls and takes one of them. "Don't let her put a bare hand on you, though — she'll know everything you do about everything you know; at least I think that's how her power works."
He nods to that. "I think you're right. My old boss noted that it was pretty damn obvious I was happier off playing Army Man, much as I might piss and moan about working for the CIA. But….yeah. I can do that. I'm honestly better suited to fighting than investigating, these days…"
Elisabeth considers and then nods. "Yeah….. well, honsetly? I think it's going to get worse before it gets better. "I mean…. look at what fucking happened to your building!" She gives him big wide blue eyes. "Christ, what was that all about? And you heard about the precognitive visions, right?"
He lifts his hands in a shrug. "I've heard about the visions, yeah. Fucked if I know what in hell the building thing was about. Maybe a Terminator showed up? That's all I can think."
She snickers, dumping rice into her container now that there's room and settling in to eat from the carton like she hasn't eaten today. In truth, she's a bit more on the slender side than he recalls as well. Not so much so that it's too noticeable, but there's a bit less of her in certain areas. "Huh," Elisabeth retorts. "I suppose that'll eventually get added to the list too," she observes wryly. Some people like to have a finger in everyone's pie. The visions, she leaves alone for now, instead asking, "You seen Abby or anyone lately?"
Fel shakes his head. "No. Not really. Been keeping myself to myself, you know? Been too tired to deal."
Elisabeth nods slightly. "Meds haven't kicked in yet?" she asks calmly. Because he promised he was going to go.
"They're working just fine. Some of my being a misanthropic bastard is just me, Liz," he points out, drily.
There's a snort. "And I'm supposed to sort out which is which when you hardly talk to me anymore?" Elisabeth retorts in her best tart voice. She winks, though. "I kinda figured you must be feeling a little better, cuz damn, Fel…." She grins. "Got your energy back."
He just sort of gives her that owl face. Like he doesn't know what to say, exactly. And then he grins, and it's not the sneer, but something that makes him look about thirteen.
Elisabeth shakes her head, laughing around a mouthful. There's something to be said for having your best friend as a lover. When she swallows, she says on another chuckle, "I do like that face. Even though it makes me feel like I'm robbing the cradle."
He rolls one narrow shoulder in a shrug. "There's part of me that's still a sixteen year old geek that is fucking amazed I get to have sex with anyone at all."
Setting her carton down on the table, Elisabeth twinkles at him again. "Now see… the rest of the world missed out, I guess. Because I count myself pretty goddamn lucky that my best friend also thinks I'm hot enough to get horny over."
This is when he sets down his own food delicately to one side, clears away hers as well. And then literally leaps over the table. It is a tribute to his grace, strength, and lack of weight that he doesn't come crashing down on it. Instead, she ends up pounced.