Eamon & Laurie: We'll always have Venice

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Laurie and Eamon meet up, and discuss the runner she did after events of the previous day.



Laurie waited at the entrance to her hotel building, knowing that Eamon would be arriving soon. She'd left him somewhat quickly after their ride on the gondola, with a promise to catch up again the next day. It had been a somewhat obvious plea for space, but she'd wanted to make sure of herself.

Eamon was someone she knew wouldn't take well to any games. What was more, she didn't want to hurt him because she wasn't sure of something.

There had been a meeting that morning. Negotiations of pay and stipulations and the length of the job were never that much fun. They'd come to an unanimous decision to think about it. Overall it wasn't a complete waste of time, but it also wasn't what Eamon would classify as productive either. He really should force Thom to do more of these things, his patience was higher than Eamon's could ever be.

Once out of the meeting some of the tension in his shoulders seeped away and Eamon headed for Laurie's hotel. She'd ditched him pretty damn quickly yesterday so he hadn't really been expecting to hear from her today. Her call, however unexpected, was welcome though and when he spotted her by the entrance he grinned. He did stop a bit further from her than he normally would have, not entirely sure if she was still freaked out about the previous day or whatever she'd been about it. "Ciao, bella, come stai?" His smile was easy and it matched his casual tone of voice which spoke of nothing being the least bit out of place.

"Great! Do you have the rest of the day? Or do you need to be somewhere later?" she asked, stepping forward to bring them closer. She'd made up her mind, had told Crystal not to expect her back at all today. She wanted to spend whatever time Eamon had getting to know him better, and perhaps a little more then that.

"Aye, pretty sure I have." He was watching her closely, her body language, her facial expressions. He was listening to the words she chose and the inflections of her voice as she spoke. He was paying attention to the set of her shoulders, the tension in her body and how she reacted to him. Eamon was studying Laurie quietly, figuring out where things stood because he was not going to be crossing any more lines with her.

"It's possible that I'll have something come upon short notice, but it's not too likely. Day's mine. At least this one is anyway."

"Good. I wouldn't want to keep you from anything important." she said, words trailing off as she stepped in closer and stood on tiptoe. "No hug today?" she asked, smiling shyly.

The question softened some of his calculating observation and Eamon gave her a small smile that didn't quite fully manifest. Without a word, though, he slipped an arm around her waist and picked her up. His other arm wrapped around her and he even took a few steps like that, as if he'd carry her off. "Just wasn't sure you wanted one, pet," he told her as he placed Laurie back down on her feet.

"I'm sorry I ran away yesterday," she replied, holding onto his arms once he'd placed her back on her feet. She stood on tiptoe again, and planted a closed mouth kiss on his lips, before settling back and studying him.

His face gave nothing away. Eamon wore a sort of casual contentment that could have been real but for him passed for his poker face. It didn't mean anything, it was just better for most people to look at than a neutral expression. It put them more at ease. Eamon cocked his head to the side a little and regarded her with curious eyes. "You realise that'll mean nothing if you do it again today."

"I won't," she said simply, taking his hand and pulling him into motion. "Come on, today we go places you like. I want you to show me the city."

Laurie still wasn't sure how things would go today, but she knew what she wanted and for now, it was enough to simply walk.

Eamon reminded himself that she was young and she hadn't had the life he had. Maybe her life hadn't been simple but it'd been simpler than his had been in the past twenty years. It was easy for her to say something wouldn't happen and believe it. All he could do was go with it and so he let himself be dragged off by her. "I don't play tourist well, pet. I'm just not that sort."

Laurie kept ahold of his hand, looking back over her shoulder at him. "What sort of things do you like to do when you're in an unfamiliar city?"

"Watch people," he replied simply. "Hang out in parks. Read at cafes. Be a normal person. Aye, it's sort of novel for me. You might not really understand that, though."

"My life can be weird, but usually there's more then enough time for that stuff in it. Although, sometimes the normal stuff ends up being weird stuff when things come after you." Laurie noted, a plan forming in her mind. "Picnic then? There's got to be some nice parks around here somewhere."

"Aye, there's loads of parks. Campo Santa Margherita has a market, or at least it did the last time I was here. Suppose that could've gone tits up since then, but it's probably still about. Or the Giardini Pubbicci, but farther out, away from roaming tourists and the like. Depends on what you want around, really. Giardino Giusti's got art and the like." Eamon relaxed a little more, let go of Laurie's hand and instead wrapped his arm around her. "Lady's choice."

Laurie looped her arm around his waist, allowing herself to be pulled close as they walked. "Giardino Giusti it is then. I'm not much of an art connoisseur, but I'd rather go to some place a little more private."

She wondered if he'd hear the hint in that, or if she was coming on too strongly. She'd run away yesterday, she got the idea that whatever happened today would be her move to make.



The day continues as Eamon and Laurie enjoy time in a local park.



Laurie sat cross legged on a plaid picnic blanket, balancing a paper plate on one knee as she watched Eamon, who sat across from her.

"Mind if I ask an incredibly personal question?" she asked, popping a grape into her mouth.

"Doesn't guarantee I'll answer it, but aye, you can ask." He never saw the point of people saying they couldn't be asked a personal question. Loads of people were guarded but not everyone had the same lines where they crossed something off as personal or not. Eamon's lines were a bit wonky anyhow.

"Why mercenary work?" she asked, reaching forward to pick up the glass of water she'd poured for herself earlier.

It was something that she'd been wanting to know for awhile. She supposed she couldn't say what she thought a mercenary should be like, Nathan certainly hadn't been what she was expecting. Morgan certainly wasn't the standard picture of a cut-throat, only in it for themselves, do anything for money type either.

"Why not?" It was an easy enough answer and while Eamon knew he shouldn't answer a question with a question but it was his honest answer. "I'd been a seaman for about a decade, pet. It was what I knew. Going land bound made me twitch for a bit, aye, and I still miss being on a boat, but I'm not made for civilian life. Not really. I get too restless. I reckon if Ness hadn't gotten involved in what she has that she'd be twitching to come back to us as well. It can't last forever but I haven't any clue what I will do when I need to leave the life. It'll probably kill me first, honestly."

"I don't know, I just never thought of it as the type of career that I'd choose." Laurie said honestly, she wasn't about to lie to Eamon. "Are there jobs you won't do?" She wasn't bothered by the fact that his job might kill him some day, at least, not entirely bothered. Laurie had chosen a path that might well see her dead if things didn't go well. You couldn't always be someone who manned a desk, and there was nothing wrong with that.

"Everyone's got lines they won't cross, pet." With four people working together it sometimes made it tricky taking jobs. "I won't take assassinations, but some of the others will so those get handed off to them. I'm just not a fan of wet work. And I won't do torture without enough cause. Some are into torturing prisoners and the like just because they are prisoners and then they kill them so I won't take jobs that get me involved with that. If it's a means to an ends," he shrugged, "but if you're just a bloody sadist you can sod off. I don't need the money that badly. "

"I think I can live with that," Laurie noted, taking a sip of water and then placing it beside her. "I don't think I could do that work, but I'm glad you've got principals. I'd hate to think the guy I'm thinking of sleeping with was a bad guy."

Eamon had just bitten into an apple and was in the process of swallowing when Laurie said that. The result, of course, involved him choking in a fairly literal fashion. Several moments later when his wind pipe was clear he said simply, "Come again?"

Laurie had turned bright red, but she moved several plates and foodstuffs out of the way and moved closer to Eamon. Fortune favoured the brave, after all. She gave him a particularly serious look, or one she assumed was serious looking; but possibly just made her look silly. "You, me. The possibility of sex." she finally said, and then leaned forward and kissed him.

Eamon's eyebrows seemed to be trying to mate with his hairline, but the kiss completely distracted him. His hands went down to her hips and he pulled her up and into his lap with ease. "You can't go dangling possibilities like that in front of a man, y'know, pet," he whispered before the kiss was entirely broken.

"No teasing," Laurie promised, her hands resting gently on his shoulders as she settled more comfortably in his lap. "Well, maybe a little; but only the kind you'll like."

She couldn't believe what she was doing, she kept expecting something to go wrong. Her heart was certainly making a valiant effort to completely beat itself out of her chest, and she had to concentrate not to breathe like a day laborer lifting a difficult load.

Attack of nerves, or the start of it, was the clinical thought that ran through the back of her mind. It wasn't unexpected, as this was the first time in a long time she'd ever taken a chance like this.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph. This girl was such a bad idea. Or possibly an entirely brilliant idea. Eamon wasn't really sure yet but his arms were in a comfortable loop around her hips. "Maybe you should think on that for a while. Make sure you're not going to change your mind, 'cause if you do and we...well I'll end up without a few bits I'm awfully attached to thanks to our mutual pseudo-sister."

Eamon definitely wasn't saying no. In fact, if she moved slightly more forward she'd likely be able to fee just how much he wasn't saying no. He just wasn't sure if he should. This wasn't the sort of thing you took back and if she was just some bird it'd be one thing, but she was important to Ness and Eamon really did legitimately like her. But enough to shag her and have it mean something like it looked like it should from the expression on her face? And would that cause an attachment he couldn't afford?

It wasn't a no, and Laurie relaxed slightly into his hold at that. Not being an outright no was good. She could give him enough time, and herself time, to get him used to the idea. But that didn't mean she couldn't cheat outrageously either. She'd made up her mind now, and if there was one thing she was when her mind was made up, it was stubborn.

"Well, we've got the rest of the day. We could go check out one of the main markets, give you a chance to watch people," she said, allowing her fingers to roam from his shoulders, down his arms until she entwined them with his own. "Give me time to convince you that I won't change my mind."

"And for me to decide this is not the worst idea in the world and likely to result in me being carved into little pieces and served as shish kabobs?" His tone was wary, an indication that he really was weighing the pros and cons of the situation. Eamon purposefully refrained from saying anything about deciding whether or not this idea was worth. He already knew that bit. He knew he wanted it and it'd be worth it but it wasn't just him on the line and she was a lot younger than he was. Her reaction to the end result would likely be different from his and he had to consider that because he could in a way that she couldn't yet.

"Then I'll just have to be very convincing," Laurie noted, pulling his head down for another kiss.



Laurie and Eamon retire to one of Venice's many markets and Laurie finally convinces Eamon to stop fighting.



"What do you look for when you're studying a person?" Laurie asked, hand firmly around Eamon's waist as they walked.

She had made the excuse that it would be easier for them to navigate through the early afternoon crowds, but she didn't think she'd fooled him at all.

The excuse had been a thin one and considering her proclamation earlier it had been easy to see through. That fact aside, Eamon had no problem with having an attractive young woman attached to his side. His arm was draped comfortably about her shoulders and the pair looked for all the world as if they did this all the time, as if it were old hat and just how they were together. "That all depends on why I'm studying them."

Laurie thought about that for a time, she had admitted to herself that her line of questioning was not just to get to know him. She was honestly curious as to how he saw the crowd differently to herself, she had an idea that it might give her insight into others she knew in somewhat similar professions, and perhaps even help her as well." What would you look at if you were working a crowd? Trying to find out who the threat was?"

"You're talking about the sort of situation where there's a possible assassination attempt or a bomb threat and the like?" It wasn't something Eamon handled much. When they took personal security jobs for higher ups in any given country he and the lads, and once upon a time the girl as well, would deal with that sort of thing but they didn't get those jobs cropping up too often. "Behaviour. People look dodgy when they are up to no good generally. You look for body language, posture. People get tense when they are under stress and pulling something like that off induces a fair bit of it. You want to see where people are looking. Most people look at the ground or ahead of them as they walk. They might look about but you can tell the difference between someone who is lost, someone who is visiting and someone who is paranoid. People who fixate on the target or where they know the target to be. People with bags who leave them and walk away. People carrying any sort of package that seems inappropriate, such as a grown man with a child's knapsack. Nervousness. Paranoia. They all manifest in how a person holds themselves, where they look, how they react to things. They jump at shadows, they twitch. The ones who are old hat are calmer, more confident, but they are careful. They look around, they survey their surroundings. If they look like they are doing the same thing I am then they are either working with me, hired by the same employer or they're my threat. There's more to it than that, but that's about the gist of it."

"You've never met anyone who didn't do the things you expected them to do?" she asked, steering them toward a more secluded area of the market.

"Sure I have, and then you run really quickly or hopefully have a really good sniper with a shot." Damn, the next time they took a security job Eamon was really going to feel the loss of Ness there. She'd ended up a better marksman than any of the lads even though they'd been the ones to teach her. Some people took to certain things. The girl had a talent for shooting people. Maybe that wasn't something he should praise aloud in certain company. Like the current company.

They were moving between buildings now, a narrow lane way large enough to fit three across but no more. "How about personal wise? Anyone ever surprise you?" she asked, a teasing glint in her eyes now.

Eamon sighed, this was leading nowhere good. Well, no, it was leading somewhere very good but he may be minus his bits a few days down the line because of it. "Aye. Sometimes that involves running really quickly as well." It wasn't lost on him that Laurie was leading them through a small alley. The sort of alley that found girls with their backs pressed against the brick of the buildings lining it. That thought brought on quite vivid mental images Eamon had a hard time stuffing back down into a dark, quiet place in his head.

"Am I that scary?" she asked, pulling them to a stop. She hadn't removed her arm from his waist, but now she turned into him more. "Don't you want me, Eamon?"

That was dirty pool, she knew, but she wanted him and she wasn't playing to lose.

"I answered that question yesterday, pet." Eamon took a step, forcing her back a step. Another and her back was exactly where he'd been picturing it a moment ago. His arm slid from her shoulders, hand trailing down her side until it rested lightly on her hip. "In two languages, no less. You ran away shortly after, if I recall correctly."

"I'm not running now," Laurie replied, leaning into him and running her leg up the back of his. She raised her arms and gripped the back of his neck, pulling herself up slightly. "I won't."

"Aye, and you realise what you're asking for? Not just the act, but the person. And what can, or more like what cannot, come afterward?" Eamon didn't remember knowing that many girls into the casual sex thing when he was Laurie's age who didn't already carry the slag title. Laurie didn't qualify for that category and he still didn't know her quite well enough to know if she'd really be okay with a one time thing. Yet despite all those worries his hands were moving down to her thighs and lifting her up so that her legs wrapped around his waist.

"Will you stop talking to me afterwards then?" Laurie asked, winding her fingers into his hair and pulling him down for a brief kiss. "Treat me like you've never seen me before in your life?"

"Won't much have to try, will I? Always somewhere new," he told her, watching her with serious eyes. "Somewhere dangerous. Don't get a lot of time and when I'm somewhere safe it's just to negotiate the terms of another dangerous place. I won't ditch you, but you've no future with me for anything beyond a shoddy friendship at best."

"I've never been with someone before," Laurie answered honestly, knowing that for some men that would stop this in its tracks, whatever this was. "And the things I'm training to do may mean I end up somewhere dangerous, or badly injured. Just being a mutant means someone may try to kill me someday soon. I don't do casual, but if I were going to chose someone to be my first, I think that someone who respects me enough to tell me the truth and let me say no on more then one occasion is a good choice."

She didn't like the idea of sleeping with Eamon and then never seeing him again, but she also didn't like the idea of never sleeping with him at all. Sometimes you had to do something crazy, something that was completely unlike yourself and damn the consequences. Laurie was on the holiday of a lifetime and she'd sworn to herself that she would step outside of all her comfort zones if it were possible to do so.

Besides, she would kick herself from here to forever if she never gave this a shot just because it couldn't last beyond the one night.

Now that was something new to consider. Eamon hadn't once thought that she was talking about him being her first. That was insane. Sure, he wasn't exactly a stranger but that was the sort of thing you remembered forever. How many people forgot their first time or the person it was with when they'd been sober for the actual event? She was putting herself in a position where in four years he might not remember her if they weren't still in touch but she'd never forget him. Eamon wondered if she realised that. Then again, she wasn't stupid and she'd obviously thought about it.

"So then you're really sure about all this?" In the end it was her virginity. It was her choice if and when and to whom she gave it up. And it was her choice if this happened. Here he was being all honour bound and she was telling him that she wanted him in her knickers. When did his priorities get so messed up? Probably right about the time Ness had adopted the girl he had wrapped around him as her sister. Fucking Ness.

"If I wasn't, I wouldn't be working so hard to convince you," Laurie noted, definite amusement lacing her tone as she pulled him down for a serious kiss. And all without a hint of her power, she'd made damn sure she had a tight rein on it. If this happened, it would be because he wanted it, not because she'd forced it.

Eamon let the kiss distract him from his honour and his morals and whatever else was being stupid enough to get in the way of just giving Laurie what she wanted. She was perfectly capable of shutting off his brain with lips and tongue and the legs he had wrapped around him. "Aye, well," he pulled away from the wall but did not put her down, "sometimes people ask for things and realise later they didn't actually want them. They regret and wish they'd done it differently. I've reason to be cautious."

"I never would," Laurie noted simply, letting her fingers curl at the nape of his neck. "I'm young, I know. There's lots I don't know about the world or myself yet. But if Morgan has anything to say to you about it, you can tell her that I told you that I never would. Now, are you going to take me somewhere more private that has an actual bed, and give me what I want, or do I have to get tough?"

Eamon laughed and began to walk off with her. "I didn't just mean Morgan, but aye ma'am." He stopped so that he could kiss her without tripping and causing them both to go sprawling to the ground. With a bit of a smirk he confirmed, "A letto con noi."