wynne-york, gwenaëlle. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
trouvaille) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
maskormenacelogs2017-04-02 05:05 pm
trouvaille) wrote in maskormenacelogs2017-04-02 05:05 pm
Entry tags:
i pick up the pen and put it back
WHO: The Man In Black + Gwen Wynne-York.
WHERE: De Chima - Sweet Iron Communications.
WHEN: Early April.
WHAT: Nothing of interest, probably. Some paperwork.
WARNINGS: Stay tuned.
The appointment isn't strictly necessary.
Not in the sense that Gwen can swan in and out of Mr Walker's office at leisure; she's got enough leeway from familiarity to wait there rather than sitting awkwardly opposite the intern outside, but not so much she doesn't have to confirm the appointment actually exists first. The thing is that it's nothing that couldn't have been handled via email or over the phone - crossing ts and dotting is, giving him her last invoice, tying off the last few loose ends of the projects she's worked on and handing back the files involved along with her notes on anything that might come in useful later. Doing it in person is making a point of not burning the bridge as she moves onto something full time elsewhere.
Positive reinforcement, or whatever. Being remembered for being conscientious, for being good at the job - being remembered at all is key when you never really know when or how you might run into somebody again. Who might be important, down the track.
Her commitment to all of these very sensible ideas is starting to wane and give way to a low-burning irritation, though, the longer she sits opposite an empty high-backed chair with only a tacky cowboy statuette for company, slowly but surely running out of books to tilt her head sideways and catch the title of, lining the shelves. The aesthetics of the room are all very well and good, but she doesn't love black leather so much she was dying to spend her late afternoon tapping her fingertips against it, waiting for someone who may or may not show up.
She could have sent an email. She could be getting a pedicure right now. Drinking a cocktail. Unpacking the depressingly few boxes that had come with her to her new house. Watching paint dry.
WHERE: De Chima - Sweet Iron Communications.
WHEN: Early April.
WHAT: Nothing of interest, probably. Some paperwork.
WARNINGS: Stay tuned.
The appointment isn't strictly necessary.
Not in the sense that Gwen can swan in and out of Mr Walker's office at leisure; she's got enough leeway from familiarity to wait there rather than sitting awkwardly opposite the intern outside, but not so much she doesn't have to confirm the appointment actually exists first. The thing is that it's nothing that couldn't have been handled via email or over the phone - crossing ts and dotting is, giving him her last invoice, tying off the last few loose ends of the projects she's worked on and handing back the files involved along with her notes on anything that might come in useful later. Doing it in person is making a point of not burning the bridge as she moves onto something full time elsewhere.
Positive reinforcement, or whatever. Being remembered for being conscientious, for being good at the job - being remembered at all is key when you never really know when or how you might run into somebody again. Who might be important, down the track.
Her commitment to all of these very sensible ideas is starting to wane and give way to a low-burning irritation, though, the longer she sits opposite an empty high-backed chair with only a tacky cowboy statuette for company, slowly but surely running out of books to tilt her head sideways and catch the title of, lining the shelves. The aesthetics of the room are all very well and good, but she doesn't love black leather so much she was dying to spend her late afternoon tapping her fingertips against it, waiting for someone who may or may not show up.
She could have sent an email. She could be getting a pedicure right now. Drinking a cocktail. Unpacking the depressingly few boxes that had come with her to her new house. Watching paint dry.
no subject
Black gloves, black suit, black hat slanted low, he locks onto her with eyes that have squinted across his desk at her half a dozen times in the last few months, pale as sharp as flints in his skull.
Suspicious.
He can’t remember if she’s supposed to be here.
Rather than break out his planner, he swings the bag over onto his couch and crosses for his desk, pulling his mask of a bandanna down off his nose as he goes. There are busted threads in the buffer of his jacket that look like bullet holes, and the stink of burning grass and cordite follows with him, acrid and sharp.
The long barreled revolver on his hip is the likely culprit.
“Gwen,” he says. “Thought you’d left for greener pastures.”
no subject
...well.
She sits up straighter, eyebrows continuing to rise after her back has gone as far it goes - there were a really limited number of ways she envisioned this meeting going, and literally none of them before about fifteen seconds ago had involved 'being concerned with whether or not she might get shot'. It is not her most immediate thought - that is: perhaps this was actually worth waiting for, it turns out - but it is on the list, what with the gun and the bandana and the bag of loot and the definitely having not remembered he was supposed to be meeting her.
"Yes," after a slight pause, uncrossing her knees and sitting forward, the tilt of her head still more inquisitive than is rational for someone who has not previously demonstrated a tendency to take gun-wielding lunatics in stride. He's not a gun-wielding lunatic, though, she's - like, talked to him, he's not intolerable. He's suddenly more interesting is what he is, with the caveat that she is also interested in not getting shot.
Her head tilts very slightly to the other side, taking in the...everything. Well, the stupid statue makes a bit more sense.
"Yes, I was--"
What reaction is she supposed to be having right now. What's the normal thing to do. What would someone with normal reactions do.
"Do you need a first aid kit?"
no subject
The vest he has on beneath is unscathed. So’s the shirt, black over grey textured coarse against the slick polish and stark form language that defines his office.
Getting casual from this starting point is a process; he’s polite enough to slip his gun out of its holster and into a top drawer before he does anything else.
That just leaves the knife. He watches her while he peels his gloves off, rather than unfasten the oversized blade just yet. Still standing. Measuring.
“What can I do for you?”
She’s an imPort.
Most imPorts have seen some shit.
no subject
"It's housekeeping," she says, deprecating; something in her shoulders released slightly when the gun disappeared from view, allowing her gaze to linger with less complicated curiosity on the knife he has yet to put away. Its size seems unnecessary, which she's inclined to approve of, and it's sort of arresting when she's trying to remember why she's here and why it seemed so important to be here in the first place.
A beat passes. Stop looking at his knife, you're making it weird.
(What the fuck does making it normal look like? It'd probably involve a noise only dogs could hear.)
"I thought I'd tie off the last loose ends in person and...gosh," a little bit dry, "it does seem trite all of a sudden to thank you for the opportunities." Hey you know what opportunity would be great, the one where she continues breathing after this.
She wonders if there's liquor in his desk.
no subject
He slaps the gloves down together after his jacket.
“Well,” the drag of his drawl renders professional regret cozier, somehow -- more personal. “We’re sorry to see you go.” Said like he means it, brow puckered in earnest understanding for the need. It’s just business.
“But I appreciate you -- taking the time.” Tactfully put.
Losing the knife in a way that doesn’t immediately read as a threat feels more complicated than it ought to be. A beat passes in queer stillness while he thinks on it, slightly off balance.
In the end, he hooks his thumb to unfasten the gun belt entirely, black leather studded with bullets loosed up and dropped atop the pile like a lead-weighted snake. His clothes are fitted -- made to measure, same as most everything else he wears. No danger of his pants dropping without it.
He sits himself down all the same, and settles in to watch her from beneath the shadow of his hat.
...
“You drink whiskey?”
no subject
Sometimes people - men - in offices like this one ask questions like that and mean it as a test; it is invariably impossible to guess on short acquaintance what the 'right' answer they're looking for is, because it's always particular. The responsible answer, irrespective of whether or not this is a pass-fail situation (seems like a weird time to spring one of those, so probably not except insofar as you can always find a way to fail, interacting with another person), is definitely something in the vein of 'no', because there's no developing an alcohol tolerance when your physiology is fundamentally different to what liquor has been designed to affect. The answer she actually gives, because nobody likes a quitter, is--
"Only straight," wryly, which generally speaking also means 'frequently', in the series of things not unrelated to how easily it is that she relaxes the less immediately armed he becomes. Sure, there's still a bag of Probably Loot and describing this entire tableaux as 'a bit shady' is like describing the Sahara as 'a bit warm', but he wasn't robbing her. And he isn't pointing anything's business end at her except what might just be a good impersonation of sincerity -
and she'll take that, even if it isn't real. Either it is, and she'll take the compliment from a man with self-evidently high standards, or it isn't, and she'll still take the admittedly slightly less significant compliment that she's worth the time and effort it takes for him to lie to her. The time people take means something, that's all. You can measure a lot of things in how much of it you get.
She sets the file folder she'd brought along down on his desk rather than sifting through it's contents - he can do that later, if he's of a mind, or hand it off to some underling if he isn't. In the meantime; "I'm going to guess you forgot the appointment. Going out on a limb."
no subject
Gwen’s answer is a good one. Tongue run past his teeth, the CEO of Sweet Iron Communications nods as he reaches low to the drawer that -- inevitably -- contains exactly the size and shape of decanter to be expected of an office like this one. He plants it on the desk between them, and follows it up with a pair of glasses, freshly printed with the kind of evidence the Heropa Police Department would kill for.
“No,” he says, as he breaks off the top to pour, “I pay people to forget appointments for me.”
Interns, specifically.
He doesn’t seem angry.
Two fingers to each glass, he places one down within her reach before he tips his hat off and drops it over his belt.
“Was it Baelish or Vorkosigan?”
He fuckin’ knows it was Baelish.
no subject
Professional pride is what prevents him from mismanaging it out of spite, she's relatively certain; she's already offered her slightly too blunt suggestions on improving his business model and he was not amused. Although if she ever sees him sponsor and attend a charity event for a dog's home, she's absolutely sending him an invoice. Just to see if she can hear the noise he makes when he opens it from wherever she happens to be. The antipathy isn't mutual, but it probably isn't very nice of her to find it such a convenient source of idle entertainment.
That's fine. Lots of things aren't very nice of her, it's her cross to bear.
"I will be forgetting appointments," she will not, "on behalf of the ambassador in Maurtia Falls." For quite generous sums of money, not all of it paid over the table. Her gaze lists toward the canvas bag, on that thought, and it's very visible while she does the math on whether or not she's going to ask.
no subject
There’s a rhythm to the way he speaks on the subject -- like he’s carving out a soundbite for a magazine interview. One shaped vaguely like a middle finger.
He sees her peeping the canvas bag. Doesn't seem to mind.
“That new library of his your doing?”
no subject
She cocks her eyebrow at him - "You should bid on something, Mr Walker, I can see that you're good for it." Also he paid her in full and on time, but like, while he's not minding her peeping his loot. What the fuck is that about, my guy.
She contemplates the whiskey. The situation. That he's way less boring than previously imagined, and that he hasn't thrown her out of his office.
Amends, "William."
no subject
And there’s no doubt that’s out of courtesy alone.
“I already cut him a check.”
She would’ve had a hell of a time getting him to put in appearances at his own events before -- nevermind the pageantry of others. Doesn’t look like he’s in any hurry to slip out of that routine for this particular dog and pony show.
A pause of realization serves as his own amendment, glass tilted in his hand. Now he gets it. “You mean I can afford it because I just robbed a bank.” The approval in his half a grin is a little crooked, and a little tough to read.
Funny joke.
no subject
"The thought crossed my mind." Because she's hilarious. "You could be one of those types who likes the thrill and wouldn't actually take much so much as enjoy knowing someone else knowing you could, whenever you liked. I'm not sure if I think you're more pragmatic than that or just more inclined to keep score."
Money is a good way to keep score, in all manner of ventures.
(The tap-tap-tap of her fingers against her glass; if he's refraining out of courtesy, so is she, probably, because that is a tell.)
Sunnily, "I don't generally theorise on the motives of bank robbers to their faces, but maybe it was only lack of opportunity. Did you get anything good?"
Bitches love safety deposit boxes.
no subject
“Cash.” Dismissive, to match her casual reception.
Boring.
He drains his glass, thoughtful in the beat that last bolt of liquor takes to percolate. The moment hasn’t quite passed, and he reaches to refill it without sitting up. Comfortable where he’s at.
“We could go rob another one,” he says, as he squares the bottle aside.
Like, If she thinks she can do better.
No word on the subject of motive.
no subject
Wait.
"I think I might have had too much to drink not to fuck that up," she says, looking down at her glass, lips pulling to one side in a moue of displeasure. Or: Gwen Wynne-York, administratrix to the powerful and strange, momentarily reduced to pouting over the notion of not getting to do baby's first bank robbery. How great would that be. And he's like a professional, probably.
She really wants a cigarette. Also, to rob a bank, now that the idea's in her head.
"I practise and practise and still, the tolerance of a toddler."
Not that she's ever given liquor to a toddler and compared the results. Just regular adults, and it was mostly drugs rather than alcohol, and she really wanted to know exactly how many things she reacts to slightly differently than humans, it was pretty much science, which is morally neutral. It's amazing how many things Gwen can define as 'morally neutral' when she doesn't discuss them with anyone to be contradicted.