tampered | Log: Complete

Log: Complete

When; August 18th
Rating; PG? Will edit as needed
Characters; Frederick Abberline and Faye Valentine
Summary; Meeting for cards.
Log;

Frederick was much more comfortable with the return of all his clothing (it was interesting that in his 'assigned' room, a wide variety of his personal belongings including a large chunk of his wardrobe had appeared in the 'oops' boxes) - nakedness on his own time in private was one thing, but to know there was simply no option due to some great cosmic prank was unnerving. Even with Victoria, most of their intimate time still involved... layers. It didn't help that he was pale (even for an Englishman) and had a history of malnutrition due to his addictions.

Miss Valentine's apparent fascination with his nude form perplexed him. However, she was friendly, and he was without a great many friends or even acquaintances in the city. He sat at a small table in the cozy, casual cafe, absently rolling a cigarette (being so expert at it by this time that he hardly had to look down at his hands), awaiting Faye's arrival.

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He delt her another card - a nine. "Damn."

"A.. bounty hunter?" Frederick looked up, clearly perplexed. The words were technically familiar, but the concept of it being a real profession was foreign, to say the least.

Faye smiled, crossing her arms across her stomach and leaning forward. She couldn't sit still. "I'll stay, I think," she replied.

Giving him a nod, she said, "To make a really long story exceptionally short... bounty hunters, well... hunt down criminals." She paused, trying to think of an easy way to explain this. "In my time,"--fuck but that statement sounded ironic even to her--"the entire solar system is populated. We're all on different planets. Earth isn't really hospitable anymore." Faye thought of Ed and sighed. "The ISSP--that is, basically the police of the entire thing--have trouble keeping up with all the crime. Small fries. Hackers. Thieves. Syndicates." She didn't know why she added the last one, but she finished up. "They use us to help catch them all. Sometimes they pay good, sometimes they don't." She snorted. "They call us cowboys."

Faye rubbed the back of her neck and said, "And that was a pretty long story in the end, wasn't it? Sorry."

Abberline was staring at her in a sort of half-daze, his mind trying to wrap around the concept of living on another planet, and even space travel. He had read about such things, so it wasn't a total shock, but hearing about it so casually was... A tiny spot somewhere inside him was jealous. The idea of that sort of freedom... He pulled his thoughts away.

"Cowboys," he said, a delayed echo. "Interesting. The only cowboys I've seen have been of the Buffalo Bill variety." He looked down at his cards, which were about in the middle - he could stay and lose, or go again and probably still lose. He put down another card. Twenty two.

"Well if that isn't just insulting." He cracked a faint smile at Faye and worked off his vest.

Faye couldn't help but laugh--actually laugh--at the way it sounded coming from the man across from her. It sounded so stupid. Cowboys indeed. She laughed again. "There was... there was this one guy. Thought he was a real cowboy, you know? Complete idiot, but it was funny. We laughed about it a lot afterward." She tapped her bottle with a fingernail. Afterward.

Better finish the thing off. She took another gulp. "The idea isn't as cracked up as it seems, though," she continued. "Bounties, that is. Especially when you have one on your own head. Yeah, that's always a ton of fun." She glanced over at him. "But what about you, Frederick? Got any skeletons in that closet of yours?"

Faye grinned and watched him remove his vest. He really wasn't half-bad looking. Not in the slightest. No, she decidedly was having a damn good time. "So close but so very, very far. Maybe this will be a winning hand?"

Abberline was laughing quietly with her, putting his vest aside. He still had his pressed white dress shirt and the rest, but he felt oddly naked without the small garment. He was about to inquire what she'd done to get a bounty on herself (though he highly suspected it had something to do with the aforementioned Poker Alice) when she asked about skeletons. He fell quiet for a moment, but only for a moment.

"Maybe this will be," he said, a slightly smile on his face. He dealt again. If she pressed, he'd answer - it was only polite - but he didn't know if this moment needed to be brought down with what he might say.

"Will be? What do you mean?" she asked with a devilish little grin that she had worked on perfecting. "Just an innocent game of cards, Inspector..." she trailed off on purpose, knowing that her desire to hear him say it was clear. It would come from him, not from her.

Faye looked at her cards with a smirk and tapped the ashes off her cigarette. Five. "Another, please," she said.

"Maybe it will be a winning hand," he said quietly, giving her a tiny, teasing smile.

He dealt her a card; a king. He ignored the fact that he had no earthly idea what the number value of said card was, and assumed she would enlighten him shortly.

She raised an eyebrow coyly at his smile. "Ah, but whose winning hand will it be?" she asked, and accepted the king. "Makes fifteen. I think I'll take another, if you don't mind. Just to see."

Faye finished off her drink and studied him, waiting.

He sat down another card - a seven.

"Ahh, that number likes us." A slightly coy smile.

"Too bad it's unlucky in this game," Faye muttered, although she was smiling, mirroring his. "So do we see it as a bad unlucky or a good unlucky?" She probably wasn't making sense. It didn't really matter.

She took a moment deciding which piece of clothing to give up but eventually made a great show of pulling off a stocking and dropping it on the floor.

Abberline chuckled and shook his head at her display. Pretty soon they would have to call an end to the game - Faye hadn't many articles of clothing left. He wasn't about to let her undress to the nude infront of him, nor was he about to strip for her. Ideals of decency may have changed but his own had not.

"At the moment?" he said, standing to once more replenish their drinks, "I'd say lucky. For me. Would you like to deal again?"

Faye took the alcohol gratefully, crossing one leg over the other. "Lucky, indeed," she replied. "At least you're straightforward about it. No dancing around the truth for Frederick Abberline."

She glanced at the cards. "Why not? You know, I'm entirely too sober to lose this game, and it feels like it's taken forever to get this far." She wiggled her toes, kind of uncomfortable. "Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but would you mind all that much if I took off this stocking, too? It feels weird to only have one on." Faye didn't know why she was asking. After all, it wasn't his decision. But she felt like being polite.

"Mm yes, I don't like being drafty. Lucky, lucky indeed." He spoke as if he had no inkling that seeing Faye naked might be something he'd look forward to - mostly because the woman seemed to find his aversion to sensuality somehow interesting, and he was entertained by it. She was a beautiful woman, and her company was very pleasant, but he wasn't jizzing himself in excitement to see her naked.

"Of course not," he said, taking a drink after.

Abberline sounded unfazed, which surprised Faye but didn't bother her. To each his own, she supposed, and removed her right stocking with much less gusto, dropping it by her other and feeling better because of it--it had been far too long since she had gone barefoot. She took a quick swig and laid out the cards.

She remembered to reply as well. "Well it's not exactly drafty in here," she said, wiping imaginary sweat off of her neck. "At this point I might lose on purpose just to feel cooler." Not that he should have any qualms about it, his blatant little interest aside. Abberline seemed perfectly comfortable, though, and Faye wondered if she couldn't hold her liquor as well as she thought.

Abberline might be able to drink a great number of people under the table, in the right circumstances. He found the current beverages a little weak, though. He'd have to consume a significant amount more to get any sort of buzz going. It was a little surprising, giving his size, but he wondered if his blood stream had just eventually mutated to accomodate is stupidity.

"The temperature here is much higher than I'm used to," he said. "Thirteen. Hit me."

She hummed her agreement. "This whole city is too hot for its own damn good. Of course, space is cold, so I thought that maybe it was just me, but if you're agreeing..."

Just for kicks, Faye thought about reaching across the table and actually hitting him. Just a light little smack on the shoulder. Just to see what would happen, what he might do, to see if it would make her laugh about that too. But she didn't play with the idea much outside of it being only an idea, and she laid his card down practically. "Eighteen," she said.

"I suppose I'll stay," he mused.

"England is rather cold. Or humid. It has some nice weeks, but mostly it's just gloomy and cold. Anything above 'bleak' and I find myself otu of sorts. A few days ago, I went with a woman named Scarab to the beach, and nearly died of heat stroke."

Faye, upon turning her cards over to discover that she had an even ten, was in the middle of dealing herself another card when she heard the word 'beach.' She had been listening to him before, and briefly thought about asking how something could be cold and humid at the same time when she heard the word.

She looked up at him, her hair falling into her face. She didn't care. "There's a beach here?" she asked, feeling like she might have shrieked it. "And, more importantly... you almost got heat stroke?"

Faye hated being hot, but being hot on a beach was a completely different kind of hot. It was the kind of hot that made her want to cry tears of joy. Or propose, whichever came first.

Abberline jumped a little in his seat, and gave Faye a look like she was crazy. "Ah, yes. A bit oddly arranged, I admit, but a beach ... with ... pirate ships..." he stared more, a bit taken aback by her enthusiasm. He found the thing too hot, too sandy, and too... tropical. "Yes, heat stroke. I was overdressed, apparently."

Faye was so happy she could barely stand it. A beach. A beach. She hadn't lain in the sun for so long that it was disgusting. Abberline, though, was looking at her like she had just grow nine more heads. "A beach is a beach, whatever arrangement. And having pirates just makes it more interesting," she said, and indicated her card, continuing as if it were part of the beach conversation, "Nineteen. Miss Valentine wins."

She grinned at him, suddenly not thoughtful, not concerned with winning or anything. There was a beach. Everything else seemed to pale in comparison. This stupid city had something innocently decent. "You're always overdressed," she said, looking up at him. "You'd be overdressed in a snow storm."

Frederick gave the cards a disdainful look, as if they were conspiring against him (or as if the tropical beach sun would leap out from behind his countertop and fry him the moment he removed another garment).

"Nonsense," he said, standing and undoing his collar, then untucking his shirt from his trousers. "I'd need gloves and a scarf and a much better coat in a snow storm. You, however, would die. Immediately." He pronounced this with a sort of awkward look on his face as he finished unbuttoning his shirt, set it aside with his other garments, and settled back into his chair, whitish skin now exposed for God and the world. And Faye. Mostly just Faye.

Faye laughed at his comment and the way that he threw it in her face. "Touche," she only said. She liked people who could match her stride for stride. It was a bad quality that she had. They were probably the wrong sorts of people to like. She gathered up the cards and dealt them while Abberline removed his shirt, looking a bit strange as he undid the buttons. He was just as pale as she had become, probably more so, but it wasn't like she wasn't used to seeing skinny pale people.

He looked a little awkward, but Faye said sweetly, "That isn't so bad, now is it?" She had a feeling he would only truly start to feel weird when she was forced to remove either top or bottom, if he let it get that far, which Faye hoped that he did, if only to see the look on his face.

"Not bad at all," he said, but his voice sounded a bit strained. He was having a bit of an internal conflict - he'd been amongst naked women before, of course. The oriental girls who worked the opium dens rarely wore much besides silk jackets thrown uselessly over bare shoulders. But they were girls working in pits of sin. They lived above the unfortunates, but morally, were looked down upon even more. Such women were soulless. He didn't want to put Faye into that category in is mind. He respect her - and thus, didn't feel like demeaning her by seeing her naked. He as no artist, he wasn't privy to that sort of thing.

"Well now, shoes and stalkings to shoes, jacket, vest, shirt.. I think you win, darling."

Faye couldn't help but feel a small surge of triumph, despite the fact that Abberline was probably only throwing her the victory because he didn't want to lose anymore--or for her to lose anymore. And she was surprisingly fine with that. Hell, it meant that she had won, and Faye Valentine would choose winning over being naked any day. "I think I do, darling," she said back, giving him a snort as she stressed the last word. No one ever called her darling.

She gathered up the cards, saying, "Pretty soon this is going to turn into a weekly thing. Like old women and their bridge games." She doubted it, but it was fun to speculate regardless, and she bent down to pull on her boots.

Abberline chuckled quietly. "Perhaps."

He felt relieved that Faye was letting it go. She seemed to be very forward, vivacious woman. He didn't want to offend her, but he also didn't want her to think he was trying to do anything innapropriate.

"Thank you for the company, Miss Valentine."

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glock30.livejournal.com - 2006-08-23 04:57 (UTC) - Expand

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