I Seem To Have Rediscovered My Sense Of Humor
Title: The Bitter Aftertaste.
Pairing:Blair/Dan
Rating: PG
Notes:This was for vinniebolzano and it's very AU. A spy fic, if you will, inspired by a certain fictional brit who goes by the name of Bond.
He glances at the card twice to check that he does in fact have the right carriage. Yes. He does.
Seat 1.13. Train twelve. B. Waldorf.
He’s here on business- to meet the assassin whose life he’s been charged to take. The spy with no mercy, they told him and he’d laughed out loud, promising to be done by Thursday.
This appeared problematic. In B. Waldorf’s seat sat no swarthy dude. It was currently occupied by a diminutive brunette whose fire engine red lips were making him wish he’d glanced in the mirror this morning. He straightens himself up, takes off the hat and walks up to her.
“Waldorf?”
“Yes.” She doesn’t deign to look up, eyes fixed to her Vanity Fair- not till he’s slid in to the seat before her.
“I’m the money.”
Dark eyes slide over his form before snapping up to meet his own and those tantalizing lips smirk.
“Every penny of it,” she murmurs.
And he smiles. “Daniel Humphrey.” Hand extended. She holds his gaze instead. “You can call me Dan.”
“Humphrey,” she scoffs, “I do hope you gave your parents hell for that.”
His expectant look never wavers and she complies like a minx. “You can call me Ms. Waldorf.”
He shifts in his seat and reaches for the brief case, trying to appear immersed in the task of undoing its clasps. It doesn’t work and she leans forward in her seat, offering a far too impressive view of her décolleté than he considers proper.
“So what’s the plan?” There’s a glint in her eye that he doesn’t quite trust.
“Ah.” Ball rolls slowly into his court. Business. Excellent.
“You intend to have a plan then? I thought we were just gambling away our governments money on a game of luck.”
A dimple pops into her cheek. “Not a poker player, I take it.” Her body twists back in the seat, palms resting on the table between them.
“Most emphatically not.”
“So you wouldn’t know that in poker one never plays their own cards. They play the cards of the person sitting across from them.”
“That would be what you call a bluff.” His chin is propped up, elbow angled against the wood and she can tell this isn’t a game he’s played before but he hides it well.
She swirls around her glass of wine. “That would be what you call having a good poker face and being able to look past others. For example, the cut of your suit tells me that you went to Oxford or whatever but the chip on your shoulder reads the charity case. The sort with a bohemian past. Washed up artists for parents and Cabbage Patch dolls as a child.”
“Ah.” He does see. “So- from the heels your wearing - Manolos I suppose or something equally heinous and expensive- and the whiff of Chanel that I can smell and the fact that you’re reading Vanity Fair and you refuse to look me in the eye would it be correct of me to assume if I were to peer past your poker faces I would play the cards of a 95-pound, doe-eyed, bon mots tossing, label-whoring package of girly evil?”
Her lips curve fantastically and she studies him for a long moment before answering. “This would be the accountant in you, I suppose.”
“Quite the contrary, Ms. Waldorf. I was merely emulating your own skills of deduction. Have we both scored well?”
“I am a scientist of people, Mr. Humphrey. Not numbers.”
“You mean, of course, a scientist of names?” and she blanches at this.
“Tell me,” he continues, leaning in, “Do you ever look at any of the men you kill?”
She moves closer yet, till their noses almost touch.
“As a rule, no. But I’d be more than happy to make an exception for you.”
He exhales loudly and pulls back. “Which is precisely why I will be keeping my eyes on our governments money. And off your perfectly formed arse.”
“You noticed.” Her smile is almost genuine.
“Even accountants have imagination. Good night, Ms.Waldorf.”
“Good night, Mr. Humphrey.”