Numb3rs fic: Where There's Smoke
Oct. 30th, 2009 06:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unadriftI've had a really, really stressful week, and of my seven prompts for the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
story_lottery round two, I've managed to finish four so far. The deadline on Sunday is a little too close for comfort for me, actually.
Aaanyway, here's number five, for the prompt "smoke":
Numb3rs, tag for 6x02 "Friendly Fire". PG-13, David/Colby, humor, 2000 words.
Thank you so much,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
snarkydame, for the mother of all beta sessions!
The vodka wasn't making things any better. In fact, the continuing assault on Nikki's taste buds ruined what would otherwise have been a fine steak dinner. Well, she had brought it on herself. She couldn't very well complain.
It took her until after dessert to realize that she wasn't even mad at them. No, she was cursing her own stupidity. Of course David and Colby would pull a stunt like this. Of course they would scheme and find a loop hole in the conditions of their bet and use it to hang her out to dry. She'd known, and she hadn't cared up until two hours ago, when she'd still had a date – and a famous and impressive one, at that.
Three delicious courses, a serving of expensive wine, a bottle of bad vodka and a three-hundred-dollar bill later, Nikki was just about ready to explode. If Colby called David 'dear' one more time, there would be consequences, possibly homicide. Or maybe not, considering that she wasn't carrying her weapon, and that she was a little too drunk to be sufficiently coordinated to take either of them in a fistfight right now.
So Nikki handed her credit card to the excessively polite waiter and glowered at her dinner companions.
"This was a pleasant evening." Colby leaned back in his chair, looking impossibly smug. "Thank you for inviting us. Wasn't it nice, David?"
"Yes," David said. The smugness in his voice was less obvious, but still very clear. "Yes, it was. Thank you, Nikki. We very much enjoyed ourselves, didn't we, Colby?"
"Oh, we sure did. This might have been the best filet I've ever eaten. It was a very good choice," Colby said, smiling earnestly at David. "You have great taste."
"It's very nice of you to say that. Thank you," David answered and reached out to squeeze Colby's forearm briefly.
It was all very John-and-Judy-two-point-three-kids, to the sickeningly sweet nth degree, and it made Nikki want to either slap them, or burst into giggles, or just put her head on the table until they both quietly went away. None of the options were dignified behavior for an FBI agent, so she gritted her teeth and went for acceptable option number four: payback.
"Glad you enjoyed it," she said cheerfully, and forced a smile of her own. "And I'm glad to see you're happy together. Because, let me tell you, Liz had her doubts. And me? If you'd asked me, I would have said, 'Not even a week'. But it turns out Amita was right. You two really seem to have hit it off. And here I was thinking that was just the hopeless romantic in her talking."
It was deeply satisfying to see Colby's eyebrows rise in badly concealed surprise.
David blinked. "Uh. What?"
"Oh, come on," Nikki said, feigning hurt. "We're trained investigators. We're supposed to notice these things. And you weren't exactly subtle. More like a disgrace to our profession."
And that wasn't even a lie. Considering the way one always eyed his cell whenever the other wasn't around, and the fact that they were scarily good at that silent communication thing, and the fact that they enjoyed going on stake-outs together (which really was the most boring duty known to mankind), their marriage only seemed to lack the official papers.
The waiter returned with Nikki's credit card and the receipt before David could ask the, "What things?" that was so obviously on the tip of his tongue. Colby and David exchanged a look. A very brief one, and, ha! Not so comfortable and sure in their heterosexuality now, were they.
The weirdest thing was: she had always known there was nothing to it, even though David and Colby seemed to be doing their damnedest to make the talk around the water cooler interesting. And, okay, yes, maybe she had added to the gossip, too. Once or twice. Inadvertently. But, really, half the time she was certain the guys were doing it on purpose anyway, only to go and have a beer and a good laugh at their colleague's expense afterwards. They were sneaky and juvenile like that, after all. With any luck, their waiter of the evening would turn out to be a second cousin to the wife of the hairdresser of a forensic scientist from second floor, and tales of this dinner would fuel the rumor mill at the office for weeks to come.
Nikki pushed her chair back and stood. "I hate to impose on your alone time, but can you two lovebirds give me a ride home?"
It took Colby a few too many seconds to form an answer. "Sure. No problem."
David regained his footing soon enough. It was a shame. She would have liked to watch him squirm a little longer. So maybe the fueling of rumors really wasn't intentional after all. That made this just more fun.
David helped her into her jacket like the gentleman he usually was – whenever his mind wasn't preoccupied with-- well. Colby, in this case. Colby, who still seemed just a little off balance, steering them through the restaurant towards the exit and taking a wrong turn twice, despite David's guiding hand on the small of his back.
They were back to their cutsy-couple ways by the time Colby held the car door open for Nikki – the back door, so chivalry probably really was dead. "Do you want me to drive part of the way, dear?" Colby asked over the roof of the car, his voice tinged with the appropriate amount of genuine concern. "You must be exhausted, and I wouldn't mind."
David turned down the offer with a smile, and Nikki suppressed the strong urge to deck Colby, who happened to be the closest of the two at the moment.
Then streetlights and houses and traffic lights rushed by, and somewhere along the line a wicked, perfect idea emerged from a part of her brain that only ever lost its status as a completely restricted area when alcohol was involved. She grinned to herself. She was diabolical. Had anyone ever told her that?
It was only sensible for David to take Colby home first. Geometry and geography dictated it, unless he wanted to either drive almost twice the distance, or spend the night with Colby. Which he wasn't planning on, apparently.
"Goodnight. Drive safely, honey," Colby said with a grin and moved to climb out of the car.
"Stop," Nikki said. David eyed her suspiciously through the rearview mirror, and Colby turned to look at her over his shoulder. "I want my money back," she informed them. "Your share. You're gonna repay me. Because that--" she waved her hand around generously, including David, Colby, and the evening in its entirety, "--was a pathetic excuse for a date. Anyone can sweet talk. Let me see some action."
David's eyes in the rearview mirror went wide in a terrified, entertaining kind of surprise. "Some-- What?"
"A goodnight kiss? Ever heard of it? It's kind of a tradition. Perfect ending for a date. If you don't want to put out, that is."
She could see Colby's throat working as he swallowed. David turned his head, then Colby did, too, and, hey, they really wouldn't have to move very far to kiss.
Neither of them moved, though, and there was that maddening wordless communication thing of theirs going on again. In all the silence that was suddenly flying around, the sentiment, 'We're not going to back down from her, are we?' came through loud and clear. Also, there was, 'Dinner really was ridiculously expensive,' and, 'This is insane' which summed up the situation nicely. The challenging, 'Are you chicken?' caught her by surprise. It was followed, of course, by an air of, 'I'm not chicken! Are you?' which evoked a determined expression on David's face and the hint of a smirk on Colby's lips.
Wait. They weren't seriously thinking about-- Yes. Apparently, they were.
David reached out a hand and, after a moment of indecision, placed it where Colby's shoulder met his neck. Colby leaned in, or he was tugged in, it was impossible to tell. Their lips touched, briefly, and barely parted after. Someone let out a breath. Any second now, one of them would lean back and declare the goodnight kiss finished and the bet a win. Or maybe both of them would lean at the same time, because that was the kind of thing Colby and David did these days.
And then they both did lean, but not away.
Christ almighty.
The angle was bad (tilting his head like that really would give Colby a crick in his neck if he kept on doing it), and the space was severely confined (David's right arm was wedged in between the front seats in a way that had to be painful), but they didn't seem to mind. The streetlamps outside didn't provide much light to see by, but Nikki recognized tongue action, even when it was badly illuminated. Then David made a needy sound in the back of his throat. Colby's hand slipped towards the back of his neck, pulling him in, and David's hand was grabbing hold of Colby's shirt, fisting it, and-- whoa.
This was worth every cent of her three hundred dollars. Nadine from IT support would probably have sold her grandmother to be in Nikki's front row seat for this.
Colby was making sounds now, too. And-- hey! She cleared her throat. As much fun as this was – really scorching hot, actually – there were limits. "Guys."
They were either willfully ignoring her or had completely forgotten she existed.
"Guys!" she yelled. "Hands where I can see them! Please?"
Colby emerged, looking glassy-eyed and kind of shell-shocked. Not at all triumphant, like he'd just gotten one over Nikki, which was what this whole thing had been about in the first place. He didn't quite meet her eyes. Or David's, for that matter. "I-- Er. Goodnight," he said and fled, climbing from the car and hightailing it for his apartment. She couldn't really blame him.
The car door fell closed. David rested his forehead on the steering wheel. His breaths were still coming a little faster than usual. For once, Nikki was at a loss for words. It didn't happen often, and she didn't like it at all. She had to do something, so she unbuckled her seatbelt, got out of the car and climbed in in the front again. That killed about twenty seconds of silence.
David didn't lift his head from the steering wheel for a long time. "Happy now?" he finally asked.
"Yeah." Everything was just sinking in, and she couldn't hold back a grin. "That was very-- convincing."
"You really are enjoying this a lot, aren't you?"
"Seriously, two hot guys french kissing right in front of my eyes? What's not to enjoy?"
He sighed and sat up straight again, then glanced at her sideways. "Look, I'd appreciate it if--"
"My lips are sealed." She even meant it, even though it was a real shame to let such great gossip material go to waste.
"Okay," he said and started the car.
They didn't talk for the rest of the drive. His hands were still a little nervous and shaky when he pulled over in front of her apartment and waved her off with a short, "See you on Monday."
Nikki watched the tail lights disappear around the far street corner, shaking her head to herself.
Why was she surprised?
She'd seen the smoke.
Hell, everyone had seen the smoke.
And she had been on the job long enough to expect to find fire underneath it.
* * *
story_lottery round two, I've managed to finish four so far. The deadline on Sunday is a little too close for comfort for me, actually.Aaanyway, here's number five, for the prompt "smoke":
Numb3rs, tag for 6x02 "Friendly Fire". PG-13, David/Colby, humor, 2000 words.
Thank you so much,
snarkydame, for the mother of all beta sessions!The vodka wasn't making things any better. In fact, the continuing assault on Nikki's taste buds ruined what would otherwise have been a fine steak dinner. Well, she had brought it on herself. She couldn't very well complain.
It took her until after dessert to realize that she wasn't even mad at them. No, she was cursing her own stupidity. Of course David and Colby would pull a stunt like this. Of course they would scheme and find a loop hole in the conditions of their bet and use it to hang her out to dry. She'd known, and she hadn't cared up until two hours ago, when she'd still had a date – and a famous and impressive one, at that.
Three delicious courses, a serving of expensive wine, a bottle of bad vodka and a three-hundred-dollar bill later, Nikki was just about ready to explode. If Colby called David 'dear' one more time, there would be consequences, possibly homicide. Or maybe not, considering that she wasn't carrying her weapon, and that she was a little too drunk to be sufficiently coordinated to take either of them in a fistfight right now.
So Nikki handed her credit card to the excessively polite waiter and glowered at her dinner companions.
"This was a pleasant evening." Colby leaned back in his chair, looking impossibly smug. "Thank you for inviting us. Wasn't it nice, David?"
"Yes," David said. The smugness in his voice was less obvious, but still very clear. "Yes, it was. Thank you, Nikki. We very much enjoyed ourselves, didn't we, Colby?"
"Oh, we sure did. This might have been the best filet I've ever eaten. It was a very good choice," Colby said, smiling earnestly at David. "You have great taste."
"It's very nice of you to say that. Thank you," David answered and reached out to squeeze Colby's forearm briefly.
It was all very John-and-Judy-two-point-three-kids, to the sickeningly sweet nth degree, and it made Nikki want to either slap them, or burst into giggles, or just put her head on the table until they both quietly went away. None of the options were dignified behavior for an FBI agent, so she gritted her teeth and went for acceptable option number four: payback.
"Glad you enjoyed it," she said cheerfully, and forced a smile of her own. "And I'm glad to see you're happy together. Because, let me tell you, Liz had her doubts. And me? If you'd asked me, I would have said, 'Not even a week'. But it turns out Amita was right. You two really seem to have hit it off. And here I was thinking that was just the hopeless romantic in her talking."
It was deeply satisfying to see Colby's eyebrows rise in badly concealed surprise.
David blinked. "Uh. What?"
"Oh, come on," Nikki said, feigning hurt. "We're trained investigators. We're supposed to notice these things. And you weren't exactly subtle. More like a disgrace to our profession."
And that wasn't even a lie. Considering the way one always eyed his cell whenever the other wasn't around, and the fact that they were scarily good at that silent communication thing, and the fact that they enjoyed going on stake-outs together (which really was the most boring duty known to mankind), their marriage only seemed to lack the official papers.
The waiter returned with Nikki's credit card and the receipt before David could ask the, "What things?" that was so obviously on the tip of his tongue. Colby and David exchanged a look. A very brief one, and, ha! Not so comfortable and sure in their heterosexuality now, were they.
The weirdest thing was: she had always known there was nothing to it, even though David and Colby seemed to be doing their damnedest to make the talk around the water cooler interesting. And, okay, yes, maybe she had added to the gossip, too. Once or twice. Inadvertently. But, really, half the time she was certain the guys were doing it on purpose anyway, only to go and have a beer and a good laugh at their colleague's expense afterwards. They were sneaky and juvenile like that, after all. With any luck, their waiter of the evening would turn out to be a second cousin to the wife of the hairdresser of a forensic scientist from second floor, and tales of this dinner would fuel the rumor mill at the office for weeks to come.
Nikki pushed her chair back and stood. "I hate to impose on your alone time, but can you two lovebirds give me a ride home?"
It took Colby a few too many seconds to form an answer. "Sure. No problem."
David regained his footing soon enough. It was a shame. She would have liked to watch him squirm a little longer. So maybe the fueling of rumors really wasn't intentional after all. That made this just more fun.
David helped her into her jacket like the gentleman he usually was – whenever his mind wasn't preoccupied with-- well. Colby, in this case. Colby, who still seemed just a little off balance, steering them through the restaurant towards the exit and taking a wrong turn twice, despite David's guiding hand on the small of his back.
They were back to their cutsy-couple ways by the time Colby held the car door open for Nikki – the back door, so chivalry probably really was dead. "Do you want me to drive part of the way, dear?" Colby asked over the roof of the car, his voice tinged with the appropriate amount of genuine concern. "You must be exhausted, and I wouldn't mind."
David turned down the offer with a smile, and Nikki suppressed the strong urge to deck Colby, who happened to be the closest of the two at the moment.
Then streetlights and houses and traffic lights rushed by, and somewhere along the line a wicked, perfect idea emerged from a part of her brain that only ever lost its status as a completely restricted area when alcohol was involved. She grinned to herself. She was diabolical. Had anyone ever told her that?
It was only sensible for David to take Colby home first. Geometry and geography dictated it, unless he wanted to either drive almost twice the distance, or spend the night with Colby. Which he wasn't planning on, apparently.
"Goodnight. Drive safely, honey," Colby said with a grin and moved to climb out of the car.
"Stop," Nikki said. David eyed her suspiciously through the rearview mirror, and Colby turned to look at her over his shoulder. "I want my money back," she informed them. "Your share. You're gonna repay me. Because that--" she waved her hand around generously, including David, Colby, and the evening in its entirety, "--was a pathetic excuse for a date. Anyone can sweet talk. Let me see some action."
David's eyes in the rearview mirror went wide in a terrified, entertaining kind of surprise. "Some-- What?"
"A goodnight kiss? Ever heard of it? It's kind of a tradition. Perfect ending for a date. If you don't want to put out, that is."
She could see Colby's throat working as he swallowed. David turned his head, then Colby did, too, and, hey, they really wouldn't have to move very far to kiss.
Neither of them moved, though, and there was that maddening wordless communication thing of theirs going on again. In all the silence that was suddenly flying around, the sentiment, 'We're not going to back down from her, are we?' came through loud and clear. Also, there was, 'Dinner really was ridiculously expensive,' and, 'This is insane' which summed up the situation nicely. The challenging, 'Are you chicken?' caught her by surprise. It was followed, of course, by an air of, 'I'm not chicken! Are you?' which evoked a determined expression on David's face and the hint of a smirk on Colby's lips.
Wait. They weren't seriously thinking about-- Yes. Apparently, they were.
David reached out a hand and, after a moment of indecision, placed it where Colby's shoulder met his neck. Colby leaned in, or he was tugged in, it was impossible to tell. Their lips touched, briefly, and barely parted after. Someone let out a breath. Any second now, one of them would lean back and declare the goodnight kiss finished and the bet a win. Or maybe both of them would lean at the same time, because that was the kind of thing Colby and David did these days.
And then they both did lean, but not away.
Christ almighty.
The angle was bad (tilting his head like that really would give Colby a crick in his neck if he kept on doing it), and the space was severely confined (David's right arm was wedged in between the front seats in a way that had to be painful), but they didn't seem to mind. The streetlamps outside didn't provide much light to see by, but Nikki recognized tongue action, even when it was badly illuminated. Then David made a needy sound in the back of his throat. Colby's hand slipped towards the back of his neck, pulling him in, and David's hand was grabbing hold of Colby's shirt, fisting it, and-- whoa.
This was worth every cent of her three hundred dollars. Nadine from IT support would probably have sold her grandmother to be in Nikki's front row seat for this.
Colby was making sounds now, too. And-- hey! She cleared her throat. As much fun as this was – really scorching hot, actually – there were limits. "Guys."
They were either willfully ignoring her or had completely forgotten she existed.
"Guys!" she yelled. "Hands where I can see them! Please?"
Colby emerged, looking glassy-eyed and kind of shell-shocked. Not at all triumphant, like he'd just gotten one over Nikki, which was what this whole thing had been about in the first place. He didn't quite meet her eyes. Or David's, for that matter. "I-- Er. Goodnight," he said and fled, climbing from the car and hightailing it for his apartment. She couldn't really blame him.
The car door fell closed. David rested his forehead on the steering wheel. His breaths were still coming a little faster than usual. For once, Nikki was at a loss for words. It didn't happen often, and she didn't like it at all. She had to do something, so she unbuckled her seatbelt, got out of the car and climbed in in the front again. That killed about twenty seconds of silence.
David didn't lift his head from the steering wheel for a long time. "Happy now?" he finally asked.
"Yeah." Everything was just sinking in, and she couldn't hold back a grin. "That was very-- convincing."
"You really are enjoying this a lot, aren't you?"
"Seriously, two hot guys french kissing right in front of my eyes? What's not to enjoy?"
He sighed and sat up straight again, then glanced at her sideways. "Look, I'd appreciate it if--"
"My lips are sealed." She even meant it, even though it was a real shame to let such great gossip material go to waste.
"Okay," he said and started the car.
They didn't talk for the rest of the drive. His hands were still a little nervous and shaky when he pulled over in front of her apartment and waved her off with a short, "See you on Monday."
Nikki watched the tail lights disappear around the far street corner, shaking her head to herself.
Why was she surprised?
She'd seen the smoke.
Hell, everyone had seen the smoke.
And she had been on the job long enough to expect to find fire underneath it.
* * *
