Participants:
| Scene Title | Patron Saints of Thieves and Martyrs |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Just a moment to themselves. |
| Date | Sept 19, 2010 |
Redbird Security Solutions, Cardinal's Apartment
As usual for Cardinal's personal spaces, it's a pretty spartan place. The bedroom door's closed, but the living room shows his usual aesthetic - there's a couch pushed up against one wall across from a television set atop a small wooden and rickety table. There's a pull-up bar installed high on one wall, and a push-up mat beneath it on the floor. The kitchen counter's stacked with take-out and pizza boxes, because he's still never really figured out how to cook a decent meal.
Richard's sitting on the floor in a t-shirt and jeans, a large trunk open in front of him. He's pulling out weapons from inside the trunk, checking and cleaning them one at a time before setting them to one side.
The knock on the door is perfunctory at best — Elisabeth is pretty sure he doesn't have anyone in here with him, though as she pushes the door open she does pause in the threshold. "Richard, may I come in?" Because it is still his private space, though he said he wasn't going to move in — she figures it's where he comes when he needs to be away from her, so she's not going to simply step in without at least asking.
The sight of him on the floor with a box of weapons brings a smile to quirk the corners of her mouth upward. "Christmas come early?"
"Come on in." Cardinal's head lifts to look over the trunk and the pile of weapons, snapping a clip into a pistol as his lover walks into the apartment. The sight of her stirs a smile to his lips, chin coming in an upwards nod towards her. "This is just my personal stash… I've been collecting," he says, setting the pistol to one side before he leans over the trunk, "…did I ever show you the gun that Fedor gave me?"
Closing the door behind her, Liz walks over to peek over his head into the case. She too is wearing jeans, these topped by a chocolate top with sleeves that stop at mid-forearm. "Impressive," she tells him with a smile, squatting down behind him to drop a kiss on his temple. "No, I don't think you did. Fedor gave you a special one?"
"It's an OTs-38 Stechkin…" Cardinal lifts the pistol from the trunk, leaning back a bit with a smile as she brushes a kiss to his temple. He holds it up for her perusal cradled in one hand, "…designed to suppress noise and flash both. Integral laser sight built beneath the barrel. It's an assassination weapon. Uses special ammunition, so I've only got so many shots. Nice little piece, though."
She glances at him questioningly, wordlessly asking permission to even touch the thing, before Elisabeth reaches out to take it and inspect it. "It's a beautiful piece," she says admiringly. She knows very little about Fedor, though both Felix and Richard had ties to him. "Do I want to know why he thought you needed an assassin's weapon?" she asks as she hands it back to him. Her amusement makes her blue eyes twinkle.
"You mean aside from the fact that he was completely insane…?" The gun's handed over with a permissive nod; it's clearly got sentimental value to him, even if he can't use it as a standard sidearm. "…I think he figured I might need to kill some people. You know, it's funny…" Cardinal takes the gun back, turning it over in his hand, "…in a couple different ways, we're continuing where he left off."
"Mmmm," Elisabeth says quietly. "Kind of strange, that." She sighs and settles to her behind on the floor, scooting to snug her front to his back and rest her chin on his shoulder. "If you'd asked me two years ago where I thought I'd be? So not the answer I'd have given." She smiles a little. "And for the first time — well, that I can remember. I suppose there might have been times in those years that are gone," she admits, "— I finally feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Don't always feel like I'm doing it well. But I like who I am, and I like my life. Those couple of years when I was teaching? I was okay. I enjoyed the kids and everything, but I wasn't… whole." She pauses a moment, and then kisses the back of his shoulder. "It's strange that I had to become a subversive to find myself, but there you have it I guess."
The gun's set down on the floor, and Cardinal reaches a hand back to stroke over her cheek. "We're not really subversive snow, you realize," he says quietly, "We're practically a black budget agency for the government now." A faint chuckle shakes his shoulders, "We have an Agency liason and everything."
"I guess," Liz acknowledges with a faint smile. "Maybe that's why in some ways I feel so damn good about it," she admits, turning her cheek into that caressing hand. "The guilt factor's less anyway." She kisses his palm, her arms wrapping around his chest as she sits like that behind him, straddled around his hips. "Ever think you'd be on the …. well, not right side of the law, not really, but…." She's quiet and then says, "You didn't tell me when you were leaving." The upcoming trip to the past — when she knows what Samson Gray said to him — has been weighing on her mind.
Richard leans the rest of the way back against her, trusting her to keep him upright, both hands sliding over her arms where they wrap about him. "I didn't expect to find myself here, no," he chuckles faintly, "Apparently I'm a better con man than I ever thought." His eyes close, and he says quietly, "Wednesday. I'm going to— talk to him. Maybe there's another way."
God, wouldn't that be good? Elisabeth buries her nose in the hair at the nape of his neck, breathing in his scent for a time. "The fact that you're worried enough not to go?" She bites her lip and kisses the back of his head, squeezing him tightly. "I wondered if you had any sense of self-preservation at all," she admits softly.
"I'm not a complete idiot." Cardinal closes his eyes, his fingertips stroking lazily over her arm as he murmurs, "Look, I… talked to Peyton last night. During the Flash, she— she saw Danko. Killing her. She's been going around this whole fucking time convinced she's a dead woman walking. If— something happens to me. Make sure she's alright?"
Letting a deep breath out slowly, the blonde nods immediately. "Of course," Elisabeth replies. He didn't have to ask. They're her people too. "I wish she'd said something. I knew whatever it was she saw, it was bad. So many people have seen bad things, Richard…. God. Part of me wants to take them all and just leave fucking town."
Resting her cheek against the back of his shoulder, Liz pauses and then smiles. Her tone is wriy. "I, uhm… got you something." One hand slips from his front to dig in her pants pocket, a feat made complicated by the fact that she's snugged to him the way she is, but she manages. And when her hand slips back under his arm to reappear in front of him, a simple gold chain dangles from the slender appendages, what looks to be a coin dangling off the bottom. For those raised in the faith, the medallion is recognizable, though it's unusual — it's a two-sided patron saint medal. "It's… kind of stupid," she admits softly, self-deprecatingly.
"We could all move to Hawaii. Then, of course, we'd get a letter from Edward Ray warning us of the volcano about to erupt due to a terrakinetic that was going to…" He trails off with a rough little chuckle, Cardinal's gaze turning to the medallion as she dangles it in front of him. He reaches out to take the coin in his hand, turning it over, a faint smile twitching to his lips.
"Saint Nicholas and Saint Joan d'Arc… patron saints of repentant thieves and martyrs. God willing, both of them are already looking after me…"
Elisabeth laughs softly. "Joan is also the patron saint of soldiers. And since I'd prefer you were not a martyr again, I'd rather think of it that way." She continues to rest her chin on his shoulder. "Call it a little insurance. Father Matthew blessed it." The same priest who presided over his funeral Mass.
"Does he know I'm alive?" The chain's drawn up and around his neck, and Richard lets it drop to rest on the front of his wifebeater, gazing down to it with a wry smile, turning his head then to look back to her, "Thank you. It… well. I might not go to Church, but I was still. Anyway. You know."
There's a soft smile. "Yeah…. I do know," Liz replies softly. "I don't either except the rare occasions when it's the only place that feels right, yeah?" She shrugs. "It's a silly thing, but it made me feel better. And yes, he does know that you survived. So I think he put a few extra prayers into the thing." She leans forward to kiss him softly, though the angle is awkward. "So anyway…. you know the rules. If you do wind up going into the past, if you die on me or something, I'm going to do something suitably drastic."
That angled kiss is returned, softly, and Cardinal murmurs, "Gonna do my best not to. If something does happen… I've left some instructions in a box in the basement, under the desk." A pause, "I, uh, put it there before we laid down the concrete, so you'll have to blast it out're something."
She wrinkles her nose at him with a soft chuckle. "What the fuck is it with you and goddamn inaccessible places encased in concrete. You bitched last time I blasted through one," Elisabeth teases. No point in making things more maudlin or angsty than they have to be, right?
"Well," Cardinal grins back at her, "Just make sure I'm really dead this time… I mean, you do have Peyton, y'know? Did you ever ask her to check in on me?"
Elisabeth nudges him and makes a mock-outraged face. "Do you think I don't know how to run things around here?" she demands, her arms tightening involuntarily in remembrance. Her tone is slightly more serious, though she deliberately injeects a lightness to it. "All she could see was darkness. But all's well that ended well." At least as well as it gets. "And since I refuse to cry endlessly over your silly ass again, I'm just tellin' you right now — don't. get. dead. I'll desecrate your body if they bring it to me. Or I'll…. I don't know. Deface your favorite thing. Fuck your least favorite person just to piss you off in hell or something."
"You and John Logan?" Cardinal's brows leap upwards at that, lips twisting into a smirk, "C'mon, I thought you had better taste than that, baby… I mean, seriously. The perfume he wears'd probably linger for weeks, and he probably wears more expensive underwear than you do."
Pure disgust. That's what he gets in return. "That's just nasty," she informs him, removing her arms enough to shove him. And then Liz laughs. "That's just nasty. Eew!"
There's laughter as she pushes him away, Cardinal's hands coming up defensively as he laughs, "…hey, hey, you're the one who said it! I just followed that threat to its inevitable conclusion…"
Pulling her legs toward her, Elisabeth scrambles to shove him once more, then plops on top of him to pin him on the floor. She's not sure if he's ticklish, but she tries it out anyway in retaliation. Tickle fight on the floor!
"Hey, no— " A laugh as he's shoved over, his own hands lifting back to tickle back against her side - he's only got a few ticklish spots, but by now she knows where they are, along the small of his back and his ears, "— no fair!"
Liz's laughter is accompanied by squirming. She is apparently quite ticklish — he already knew several spots, like the back of her neck. But it turns out that her sides and her neck are wildly ticklish. So although she's the one who started the battle, the tables are quickly turned just by virtue of the fact that she can't fight back when she's too busy trying to catch her breath. "Hey, Uncle! Uncle! Time out! Can't breathe!" she gasps out between giggles.
As she surrenders to his counterassault, Richard pushes /her/ over onto the rug with a triumphant bark of laughter - rolling over to keep over her on all fours, grinning down to her as she gasps for breath, "…you should know better'n to challenge me, babe."
Giggling, she moves that leg that's pinned between his and nudges it upward. "I think you're not so dangerous, mister," she retorts breathlessly. As she looks up at him, though, the smile eases from pure teasing and laughter to something softer. She reaches up and touches the dangling medallion on its chain hanging over her and her eyes flicker down to it for a moment before going back up to meet his. "I surrender," she murmurs softly, her lips still quirked upward in a smile.
"Good." Cardinal leans down slowly towards her, the tip of his nose brushing against hers in an affectionate little motion, the dangling medallion falling to rest against her breasts as he does so. "So… what should an unrepentant thief like me do with a captive cop, hmm…?"
"Mmmmm… so many possibilities, so little time," Elisabeth retorts on a chuckle. "And me without my handcuffs too. Damn. Ex-cops aren't allowed to carry them." She tips her head slightly, her hands sliding to cradle his ribs. "And I haven't got much left to steal," she grins. "My virtue's a thing of the very distant past, and my heart has long belonged to this sort of crazy guy who keeps doing stuff like swallowing bombs just to impress me. He's kinda dumb, but I just can't help myself."
"Y'know, I can always rely on you to keep my ego small…" A smirk twitches to Cardinal's lips, his eyebrows both raising upwards, "…so at least I've got you to keep me honest."
"Always glad to oblige, lover," Elisabeth giggles, leaning up to press a soft kiss to his jaw. "I'd hate for you to get a … swelled head," she teases.
Cardinal exhales a husky little chuckle of breath… and he murmurs back to her, "Oh, I'll show you a swelled head… in fact…" A rock back to his knees, and his hands slide along her sides, moving to slip beneath her shirt and pushing it upwards, "…why wait?"