Morgan & Lex | Wednesday evening

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

Morgan meets Lex at the Horseman so he can apologize.

Lex put away his cell and sat outside the Horseman, waiting for Morgan to show up. Being honest, he didn't really expect her to. Not after yesterday. It had been funny, terribly so, but he wasn't sure she thought so. He shifted his chair slightly, moving his back closer to the stone wall. If she did show up, it would probably entail some form of payback.

The waiter came out and offered him another beer, which he accepted graciously. "Keep 'em coming," he said, popping the top unconsciously. He liked places that served bottles, tap beer always tasted weird to him. He took a deep draft and put the bottle on the table. Looking out across the street, he imagined Morgan hiding in the bushes waiting for him to get bored so she could ambush him. Then he remembered she wouldn't need to do that. All she had to do was transform into someone he'd never seen her as and she could walk right up to him... maybe with a beer.

He looked down at the beer, wide-eyed, and held it out to the sun. If there was anything wrong with it, it was beyond his ability to see. Even so, he thought about dumping it out and waiting till she made herself known before drinking another. He thought he was being unnecessarily paranoid, but it had saved his life in the past.

Ambushing wasn't really on Morgan's mind and she wasn't the sort to be subtle enough to spike someone's drink when she wasn't on the job. Really, if she wasn't on the job her patience pretty much went through the floor. That's why her arrival was announced by the sound of her Ducati pulling up to the place. If nothing else, at least she liked the name. It reminded her of an old, dirty bike bar even if it wasn't one. That alone made her happy. A few minutes later she strode through the door, helmet in one hand and the other unzipping her leather jacket. It was bleeding hot for all that but she wasn't in the mood to risk wiping out without proper gear.

It wasn't particularly hard to find Lex where he sat and Morgan made a mental note not to glare at him for forcing her back to the open interior. He'd actually served, unlike her, and that alone gave him enough respect from her to get away with it. She'd blame that on Eamon. In the end someone had to have their back open, you just had to hope the person with eyes on the crowd was one you could trust to watch it. It was, perhaps, more trust than Lex had yet earned from her but you had to give to receive or some such bollocks.

She stopped at the table and arched an eyebrow up at him. "You planning to fake your own death here today, pet, or's it fair estimation that I'm not going to want to twat you over the head with a chair by the end of this?" She sounded a lot more serious than she was, though it was only given away by a tiny upturn at the corners of her mouth.

"Well, I'd rather you didn't, but if it's what it takes..." He looked at her with a smile, he'd gotten over his fear of her yesterday. He noticed the way she shifted anxiously as she tried to choose a seat, it always paid to be early. "So, why don't you take off your coat and join me. I think you'll enjoy the food here. I found it last week when I was taking the jeep out for another test drive." He made a note to thank Scott for letting him work on it.

"Lettin' soldier boy off the compound unsupervised? Someone's got to talk to those people about how they run their asylum." She smirked, one corner of her mouth curling up into the expression. Her helmet was set down on the table first, then she shrugged out of her jacket and she sat across from Lex. There was no reason her back was in danger here. At least not from anyone but the man sitting across from her. But then that wasn't precisely danger either, was it? "Y'know, pet, your making an awful lot of assumptions on the eating habits of someone you don't know all that well. I could be a vegan."

"Could be, but I doubt it." He said with a wink. "That's also why I picked this place, it's got a fair amount of greek food, which means even if you were vegan there'd be something for you to eat." He smiled, a devilish little grin, and flagged down the bartender. "Bass, two of them, and a menu."

"One," she corrected before the guy could wander off. "I'm on a bike so unless you plan on hauling me and my bike back to my place I'm not drinking anything. Besides, I can't make it that easy for you to take advantage of me, soldier boy." Morgan grinned and nudged his leg with her foot under the table.

"We can always put the Ducati in the back of the Jeep." He said, an impish smile growing across his face, "I brought a long length of rope." He didn't know if she would get what he brought it for, but he felt much safer knowing that he could stun and restrain her, if she actually tried to beat him with a chair.

Her eyebrow was slowly creeping upward again. "Oh? You brought...rope?" About a half dozen reasons to bring rope went through her mind that were directly related to its use having to do with her, along with another dozen or so that had nothing to do with her. Morgan settled on the least disturbing of them. "What makes you think I'm that kinda girl, lovie?"

Lex almost laughed, "Not what I originally had in mind, but since you ask..." He left a long pause before he continued. "The original intent was to tie up the Ducati if things went well, and possibly you to it if you actually tried to hit me. I mean, the look on your face when you saw me was priceless, but it was also quite intense." He shrugged and picked up the menu again. "I think I'm going to start with an order of flaming cheese."

"Are we talking the look when I thought you'd been fucking skewered or the thought when you lost it and started laughing?" She actually picked up a plastic shaker of what she thought was pepper and threw it at his head across the table. "And why would you want your cheese to be on fire?"

Ducking the shaker, because he'd been half-expecting a reaction of that nature, he said, "Both. The first was almost too much, but when I lost it... you were livid." He brought the menu up like a shield. "I mean, come on, it was like you thought someone important had died." He prepared himself for a kick below the table, "and cheese on fire tastes fantastic. It brings out so many flavors you wouldn't expect to be hidden within the mold."

Her eyes narrowed and he got that kick under the table. The heel of Morgan's motorcycle boot connected with Lex's shin sharply. She didn't have the leverage to kick him hard enough to fracture anything so she also didn't go easy on him with it. She might feel bad about that later. "Oddly enough, killing people when I'm not on a job matters to me. Funny that." More so, killing someone where children were supposed to be safe mattered a great deal. She ignored the comment about the cheese. It was cheese, how did fire bring out flavors?

Grunting, Lex thought about his next words very carefully. Another couple of those kicks and he might not be able to drive. "Well, that's good to know," his words were sincere, "It just seems like you can be a little detached sometimes, and I find humor is the best way to bring one back to earth. Mainly, cause pain is often too harsh to really work." Not knowing how she'd react he decided to make a show of good faith and put the menu down in front of him. "For what it's worth, I wouldn't have done it if I knew you were going to take it quite like that."

"What, so you got the Forge education that mercenary equals heartless, mindless bitch with no regard for human life and thought 'yeah, that's probably the way to go'?" She shook her head. "The shit you don't know about me could fill volumes, Lex. Maybe you shouldn't make so many assumptions about people. Next time you might get hurt for them and do you really want to explain to Doctor Voight that you're in medlab because you're a twat with a shoddy sense of humor?"

"That would not be pleasant." He said, "And the education I got on mercenaries was first hand, they killed with impunity, and we had to watch..." He didn't think of her as a mercenary, not really, but he thought that if she was going to call herself that he might at least clarify the statement. "I didn't do it because I thought you were heartless, and definitely not mindless, though in hindsight it might not be nearly as funny as I thought."

"Funny, I've seen soldiers do the same," she told him, eyes serious. "Some day you might even know me well enough to find out what soldiers do when they capture a mercenary in a war. We're not protected by any international laws, you know. We get caught there's nothing saving us. Guantanamo Bay's a bloody resort compared to some other places you can end up." Morgan shook her head, she didn't much feel like following that line of conversation. "So you did it because it was the best way you could think of to get me to attach? Attach to what?"

He couldn't deny her accusation about soldiers, so he simply sat there quietly for a moment. He hadn't been thinking too hard when he decided to play the trick on her and, with the direction the conversation had taken, things were looking grim for his chances of getting out of the restaurant without a thorough beating, if only verbally. "Looking back on it, I'd say reality, but then I'd just be making up excuses to justify what I did." He thought for a moment. "Honestly, I thought it'd be fun, and that you'd take it in stride. Before yesterday you seemed, unflappable."

She leaned back in her chair and the look she gave Lex was flat. "There are children there. If someone is getting hurt where they are that means they could be hurt, too. I get that people don't realize I've got a soul all the time but those kids matter to me. I told that little bint Cammie I'd put her through a wall or something equally hospitalizing if she hurt any of the kids when she first showed up. Yeah, I flap. Sorry I ruined the illusion."

"I think I like this version of you far better," he said instantly, and then realized she might perceive it as being a leading statement, "At least I'm no longer afraid that you might kill me in my sleep." Though at this point I probably should be, he thought, but left it unspoken.

He waited a moment before speaking, wondering if it was cliché to be hoping the waiter would stop by and interrupt them."Look, I'm not good at this sorta shit, which is why I invited you to a place I thought you'd enjoy, away from the mansion..."

"I'm sorry that I scared you, and I'm really sorry I misjudged you."

"You could have apologized over the phone. It would've done the job just as well." That wasn't true and they both knew it. If you couldn't muster the balls to apologize to a person's face then you didn't deserve to be forgiven. Maybe that was just Morgan being detached again. But she did mean it, he could have just called. He could have bloody emailed her. She'd be annoyed still but she'd get over it. She usually did.

"That's not my way." He said, if you had something important to say it should be to them, not at them. "I also thought you might appreciate this more, flaming cheese aside."

"Flaming cheese vibe really isn't my vibe. Kind of at all." Which she felt a little bad about since she understood he was trying to apologize. She was right though, he really didn't know her. Morgan couldn't exactly hold that against him.

"Yeah, what would you like then? My treat, and if you want to drink, we can step outside and use the rope to secure the Ducati." His wink was quick, and he didn't think she'd catch it, but it was there as an attempt to lighten the mood.

"Sweetie, if you'd offered to use the rope for something else we might have a deal, but I guess I'm gonna have to think about it." She smirked at him, joking entirely. The fact she was joking with him, however, meant that he was forgiven. "Don't worry, soldier boy, I'll make sure it's something tame enough so you can keep up."