No Offense Intended

Participants:

elisabeth_icon.gif vincent_icon.gif

Scene Title No Offense Intended
Synopsis Elisabeth and Vincent are on their way back from a date, which apparently went pretty well. Then she says she won't sleep with him and he tranquilizes her and has her tossed into the back of a van. Oh well.
Date November 20, 2009

Dorchester Towers


It's the most bizarre. Thing. Ever. Elisabeth did not think the IA man was in any way serious. But this is twice now that he's gone with her somewhere and been completely social. Drinks at Old Lucy's netted a cautious conversation about hobbies — wherein music and likes and dislikes of various styles were discussed. And dinner tonight, which began awkwardly yet again because Elisabeth is still waiting for the other shoe to drop with this guy, yielded an interest in baseball that carried the conversation animatedly right through dinner and coffee. And he's even a gentleman, he walks her to the door. At which point, Elisabeth eyes him. "Thank you," she says finally. "It's been…. one of the more relaxing evenings I've had in a long time." She still isn't sure why he's bothering; she expects, truth be told, that it's another way to trip her up. She's been careful about divulging much of herself, though their discussion of music probably gave him a fuller insight into the woman who quit the force to teach only to return to it after Vanguard's appearance on the scene than she might have liked.

It's a little late, is the only thing, really. Lazzaro got caught up at the office, one delay after another, and by the time they're back at her place, it's very nearlyy eleven. Not that he's complaining.

He's relaxed as he's ever been, save maybe in attire. The lines of his overcoat are nearly formal in their neat cut across the lighter suit underneath. He's conceded to lose the tie and glasses at some point, maybe on the drive over, but that's the only alteration he's made. The former is snaked loose around his collar now that the evening is drawn to a close and there aren't many people around to impress. Outside, even though it's a Friday night, the streets are clearing out and traffic is quieting save for the passage of a single wide set of tires across from the taxi they took over.

"Glad to hear it," is what he says once he's focused his attention back onto her from the 'ding' of the elevator after his back. "I'm a little out of practice myself."

She pauses there at the door and says, "If I invite you in for coffee, you're not going to take it the wrong way, are you? Because it's just coffee." Elisabeth smiles faintly. "No offense intended, but to be quite blunt, the last thing I need is someone deciding I fucked my way out of an IA investigation." She unlocks the door and opens it, gesturing for him to go ahead if he'd like. "Coffee?"

"Believe it or not, after five years of the same routine, I am aware of the potential for misunderstandings. No need to apologize, or." Vincent gestures vaguely at the door only to heft the same hand a little awkwardly to scuff a second at the back of his neck. "Polite of you to invite me in anyway, but — it is late, and unless you think anyone who knows about this will believe that I was forced to sleep on your couch because we cut things too close to curfew…" he trails off, brows tipped up matter-of-factly on his way to glancing down at his watch.

Elisabeth laughs outright at that. "Curfew, hrm? That's your story and you're sticking to it?" She leans against the door jamb to study him quietly. "You still haven't answered the question that I asked you the other day. So now you have two that I'd like the answers to… the one about Logan, and the one about why you asked me to dinner in the first place. Considering what you've been charged to do, I'm sure you'll understand my … curiosity about the fact that once you snooped through my place you decided drinks and dinner were the next best step."

"You're operating off of the assumption that what the New York Police Department has charged me to do is priority number one." With the flat way of speaking he has and the quiet level of his expression, Vincent has a way of making everything seem imminently obvious. Or at least perfectly rational. Eye contact comes easily to him once he's finished with the watched and dropped his hands back down into his pockets, and for all that he made mention of curfew, he does not seem to be in any real rush.

Since he's not in a rush — and she knows he can absolutely avoid curfew if he wants anyway — Elisabeth gestures once more into the apartment. "Well, this is true - that assumption does tend to cross my mind MOST of the time when it comes to IA guys. Then again," she purses her lips. "Most IA guys don't spring Linderman's goons." She gestures inside. "C'mon. You've come this far, why not go ahead and tell me what's on your agenda?" She grins slightly. "You asked me for honesty… I wouldn't mind the same courtesy in return."

"Unfortunately, courtesy is only in my contract so far as it is necessary to carry out directives passed down from over my head, and I do not think you have been entirely honest with me." In seconds, the Vincent that smiled and chuckled over world series faux pas and paid for dinner has sublimated into a Vincent that is all hard lines and serious looks. The glance he spares her apartment door is passing at best. "While I am willing to have dinner with terrorists, I do not negotiate with them. Thank you," he offers his right hand out, palm tilted slackly down, "for a pleasant evening, but I cannot stay."

"You have an interesting line in the sand, Vincent Lazarro," Elisabeth comments mildly. "I've been honest with you about anything you've ever asked me… clearly you haven't asked me the right questions." She moves to take his hand. "Thank you for a lovely dinner."

"Part of the job, I'm afraid," says Vincent, politely and not without a touch of humor, even if it is black as pitch. Unfortunately, when her hand reaches his, there is an oddly vacant sensation wherein her fingers light upon nothing at all. Sort of like thinking there's one more stair to climb when there isn't. There's a furl of grey smoke 'round her wrist, tenuous as it is short-lived, and when his hand solidifies again, it turns itself over to reveal the syringe laid flush across his palm. The needle's in her forearm in less time than it should take her heart to skip a beat, numbing influence thickening like sludge through the muscles there. "You're welcome."

The moment where her hand slides through him is probably the split second when she realizes something's about to go horribly, terribly wrong. And blue eyes fly up in panic to his face as Elisabeth tries to backpedal through the open door of the apartment into the apartment's small hallway. "What did you give me, you bastard??"

"It's a tranquilizer chosen specifically for the somewhat heightened metabolisms of some evolved individuals. You may experience some dry mouth, and/or nausea upon waking." Elisabeth panics, backpeddles, probably stumbles. Vincent pauses long enough in feeling after a plastic cap to snake his free hand deftly after her, grip caught firm around the slender bones in her wrist to tug her back out into the more public hallway outside of the door.

All the way into the warmth of his side until she gets too heavy to hold up easily, at which point he lets her weight fall carefully down on its own onto the carpeted floor at his feet. Then it's back to applying the aforementioned cap to the needle's end and tucking it back into his coat pocket, where it probably hailed from. "Nothing personal, you understand. We're on the third floor." The last is uttered into his sleeve.

Even as she goes down, her words slurring, Elisabeth struggles against the drug's effects though her own panic will only speed its path through her bloodstream. "Don't…. please…" 'Nothing personal' indeed.

It takes less than a minute for Elisabeth to slip fully into unconsciousness, and five more for the elevator to announce the arrival of four more men in suits that look a lot like Vincent's (only with white dress shirts and black ties to contrast his bloodier shades of sangria.) Not that they wouldn't look dashing in red.

They cart her out with reasonable care taken not to bump her head on anything as they go, with Vincent last to follow once he's tugged on a pair of gloves and reached carefully to click the door to apartment neatly closed.


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