#i wrote this in a haze of sleep deprivation ...bone smack the teeth

[tuagonia]

mistletoe - adam du mortain x f! detective

Pairing: Adam du Mortain x f!detective Summary: The detective catches an unsuspecting Adam under the mistletoe during the division’s holiday party.  Rating: G/T (to be sure).Pretty tame, just fluff. Warning: alcohol mention. Word Count: 2.3k  Note: I just really really wanted to write this scene that cropped up in my head during a  f u n  bout of insomnia. I’d like to think this takes place teetering on the edge right before the deep romance sweeps these two fools away. Anyway i used this fic as a way to get over my fear of writing for twc and to get to know my detective... before i launch into the other ideas i have.

—

It’s not that she’s drunk.

No. Not drunk. 

Happy, most definitely, and loquacious. More than the usual amount of conversation that he’s used to. And more laughter. 

Definitely more laughter. 

It’s an unrefined, rough, pitched-at-the-end sound he’s grown used to (fond of?) over the last year. 

Where the more uncouth the subject... the more untamed it becomes, and fighting the stiff edges of his mouth to remain in place becomes an active task.

There’s something so unsuspecting about it too, like how everything concerning her has been up to now. 

Olivia dances with Felix and Nate, and his oldest friend attempts to teach her how to move with the steps that feel like a lifetime ago. Where her shoulders, ankles, hips twist and she turns on the spot.

She sways with the motions of days gone past, as if she’s caught time in her hands — the elixir to it in her mug of wine clasped firmly in her grip — and Nate praises her. 

Adam didn’t catch the name, he didn’t care for it six decades ago and he doesn’t think he’ll bother remembering it now. But he’s certain it’s something as ridiculous sounding as it looks... if she weren’t doing it surprising justice.

When she spins in Felix’s arms, the silver, sparkling discs of her dress catch in the station’s white light and he’s dazzled...more than he usually already is.

No. Not drunk.

Just happy.

In the handful of instances she stops by him during her social rounds, she asks if he wants anything -- a refill of the uninspiring wine? -- and his responses are short. Yes. No. Good. Hmm. And when he doesn’t have the words he manages a slight shake of his head or a passive shrug.

Too distracted by the smile on her face, the mischief he can see twinkling behind her eyes. Sometimes, he can believe it. That she was a troublemaker, up to no good with too much time on her hands, and not this...woman...this decorous facade of pencil skirts, unscuffed heels, and neatly ironed blouses.

He can hear it in the deep, unearthed tone she takes when she lands a passing, unassuming, coquettish comment.

The reason he keeps his answers mono-syllabic.

He watches as she hovers over the snack table, where the food has undoubtedly gone cold, compiling a paper plate of random assortments and grabbing a tin of soda. And when he can no longer see her, he follows the sound of her heels out of the main floor towards the entrance -- barely visible from the wall he’s been hugging all night.

Olivia places the plate on the officer’s desk currently on graveyard duty. He's been longingly listening to and watching the party taking place just a few steps away. But he thanks the detective kindly, playfully clinks tin against mug of wine. 

She meets his eye on the way back -- brief, ever so brief -- before turning her gaze downward.

“You should come,” she said, directing her attention to the rest of the group. She avoided his stare, almost always avoiding his stare when it came to matters of bypassing his jurisdiction. But flitted reflexively to him, and then swivelled back to Nate and Felix (briefly over Mason), and she repeated. “All of you. You’re practically honourary members of the division.”

And although she didn’t say it to him, Adam knows (hopes?) she expected him to answer the invitation. 

Earlier in the evening (much earlier because how long is this going to go on for?), Nate asks him if he’s enjoying himself and Adam muddles together a gruff answer.

His response, with the words “work commitment” hardly audible, prompts bark-like laughter from the second-in-command and claps him on the shoulder before heading back towards the crowd. 

At the end of the night, which finally arrives right when Adam decides he can’t take another rendition of the tracklist that’s been on loop for the past four hours, he stays behind to help the detective clean up.

He sends the rest of the unit home, much to Mason’s relief and much to Felix’s displeasure, and volunteers to make sure the detective catches her cab and gets home safely. 

Or, at least, that’s what he tells himself after Felix winks at him, corralled out of the station by Nate.

And then they’re alone... save for the officer who’s gone on his break. 

She moves about space, clearing paper cups and forgotten plates of food in a large garbage bag. And she talks, and talks, and talks. 

Adam loses track of what exactly, he’s just too busy listening to the quality of her voice. A little hoarse after all the chatting over the music and enthusiastic laughter. It gives it a new edge, one he could grow to like -- the sudden deep, tender quality of it. 

Definitely not drunk as she launches into a spiel about something or other Nate taught her last week.

She tends to do this, jabber on about absolutely nothing in particular when it’s just the two of them. And although he prefers silence, he welcomes it. Because sometimes she’s not actually talking to him, instead using the stoic agent’s still presence to bounce ideas off of. 

Not like he minds. 

He’ll be whatever she needs him to be.

Adam tenses, unaware of where the thought could have surfaced out of so easily. He shocks himself out of his trance, out of following the detective around the room with soft, measured steps. Out of the unconscious non-committal noises he punctuates breaks in her speech with. 

He stops just short of the doorway of the kitchenette. 

Olivia turns to face him after dumping a number of coffee cups in the sink. She quirks an eyebrow, wiping her hands in a tea towel before casting it aside. Her mouth opens, but whatever witty remark she has ready dies in her throat.

Adam can’t decipher the zoetrope of emotions that flicker then disappear, hiding and lurking behind a wily smile. Her mouth is the colour of wild berries, purples and reds, and the crisp jasmine notes in her perfume remind him of a frosty mid-afternoon -- low winter sun in his eyes as he wades through a forest.

He can’t look right at her.

Gleaming winks of silver, a peek of white teeth, and a twinkle behind a dark curtain of hair.

“What?” 

He can scarcely recognise his voice, mostly a husky and unexpected croak. 

A full view of pearly teeth and the stretch of Mondeuse Blanche shiraz-coloured lips.

Adam almost misses the throw-away manner she points a finger up in the space in between them. For a fraction of a second, he’s distracted from the sudden kick of her heart and flickers his gaze to where she’s directing him.

Obnoxious oval-shaped gold leaves, thickly crowded plastic branches, and pearly-coloured fake berries hover in the space he’s decidedly placed between them. His stomach lurches in immediate recognition of the artificial plant.

“Mistletoe,” she chuckles an airy sort of sound. Different from all the crass, rough gleeful noises she made all night. 

A sound, maybe, she might wield against his sanity?

Adam’s gone rigid, the heat he’s been staving off all night makes a mockery of him, only egged on by the tugging of her lips when he glances back down at her. 

She steps closer and he can’t react fast enough, genetic mutations damned under her vexatious gaze. Her heart thumps a little heavier, a chaotically determined sound he can’t fend off. 

His own heart starts up that racket he’s grown to call reckless. 

“I heard,” she begins, so close now he can see the little scar on her nose from an old piercing. Tannin, oak, and jasmines -- the sparkling and sweet scent of violet from her lipstick, “that it’s bad luck...to refuse a kiss under the mistletoe.”

The click of the ‘k’ and the hiss of the ‘s’ in that word hanging so heavy in the air, the breath of its remnants brush his cheek. Faintly, his mind wanders between two realms. One of old wives tales and superstitions where a kiss is required for every berry in the bunch and, the second, how, if it weren’t for those heels, where would that breath have landed instead?

Her sly grin is tickled by his lack of response, the stiffness creeping into his muscles and his conflicted expression.

“Commanding Agent, do you -- maybe -- want to help me…” she begins, another step closer and this time he doesn't think he wants to move, “fight off any unnecessary misfortunes?”

Adam doesn’t recognise himself. He doesn’t know where it comes from, or how he’s sanctioned the movement of his body. It’s minimal, but to Olivia, who has spent the last year fighting off the hunger from the nearly nonexistent mementoes, it’s colossal. 

The smug smile on her face nearly slips.

It’s the tiniest, faintest, barely discernible half-nod as his gaze refuses to leave the curve of her lower lip. Fuller, rounder... he’s thought of the seam of her mouth longer than he’d like to dwell on.

She moves forward and there are no thoughts just the drumming in his chest that pounds a deafening beat. Her hand finds his first, a comfort from the heat roaring inside him, and he responds by tracing the lines of her palms with jittery fingertips. 

Olivia shivers and why does that thrill him? He wonders how long until she decides to put him out of his misery.

Please. Please. Please. The thumping against his ribcage wants to meet the erratic pulse of hers.

Roused by his response, her other hand so warm and soft draws a curious path up his arm, over the swell of his bicep and past his shoulder before it hesitates to fully press at the back of his neck where he knows she can feel fevered skin. 

It takes her an eternity, staring up at him with hooded eyes, dark fluttering eyelashes almost touching the tops of her cheeks. And he’d wait until whatever comes after that eternity.

This is the closest she’s ever been to him and he can’t help but revere the details he once took for granted. 

Olivia rises and the hand behind his neck cautiously coaxes him to meet her. 

And then, right as he thinks the world beneath his feet as he knows it will be thrown off its axis, she tilts her head a fraction and the hot press of her mouth meets his blushing cheek instead.

She lingers and everything amplifies. 

She is a dizzying bottle of Chianti, left out in the sun too long, and warming him all the way down with each indulgent sip.

A field of blooming shrubs of jasmines.

Warm, brisk, spring morning sun.

He hears her deeply inhale, and does he have the same effect on her like she does on him?

His heightened senses register the moment she parts and moves away, suddenly cold and left with the weight of the cream of her lipstick.

Her touch is deliberate, soaking up the feel of his skin, the fine hairs at his nape, under her gliding palms -- and she settles back on her heels.

The imprint of her lips remains on his cheek, willing it to singe him -- mark him -- so he never has to forget what they feel like. The pressure of her mouth, the moment her breath shuddered. 

Olivia makes to touch his cheek, to wipe away all evidence with the sweep of her thumb, but Adam stops her. He catches her wrist with reflexes she’ll never get used to.

He closes his eyes and he tunes in to the demanding call of his heart, thundering, thundering, thundering. And it won’t still. 

Just a moment longer. 

Is what it would ask.

Just a moment longer, so he can memorise the feel of her mark on his skin -- of the instance she cherished him, made room for him, during a fleeting blip that will be her life. 

Olivia moves again, fighting against the gentle strength of his hand, and she rubs the pad of her thumb once, twice, three times. Until the smudge of her affection is reduced to a memory.

She smiles, unlike the smiles she shared earlier. There is no arrogance, no teasing, no playful ridicule. 

She smiles -- with those lips that have touched him.

A sharp ringing echoes in the tiny kitchenette and, like he’s waking from a deep sleep, he blinks away the haze of their bewitchment. 

As if nothing happened, Olivia digs into her purse, sources her mobile and answers. The conversation is brief, he doesn’t follow any of it, still reeling from her magnetism.

“My cab’s outside,” she says when she hangs up. 

Still paralyzed, Olivia meets his eye and grins, before she drops her gaze to the floor.

She shakes her head and releases a small, anxious laugh. She touches his arm when she moves past him, out of the kitchenette, and heads for the exit.

He watches her leave, listening to the light click-clack of heels, still shaking her head and-- he practically hears the smile in her voice when she calls out behind her. 

“Happy holidays, Commanding Agent du Mortain.”

--

Note II: Yeah, it’s The Twist. Nate was teaching Felix and Olivia the twist....because I said so and because i hc N being really into the 60s/70s music scene....long legs.....in....flared....jeans. So many typos. But if I didn’t post it when I did I was never going to post it.