xp_logs | David & Vanessa (backdated)

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Post Operation: Teenage Wasteland. Vanessa drops in with food for a sleep-deprived and over-worked David. He offers her a lift home and she finagles him into staying (i.e. tempts him with scotch).

Perhaps Vanessa was putting forth something of an effort to be slightly more social. Slightly. She could, on occasion, admit that working all the time and being queen recluse whenever someone else didn't seek her out probably wasn't the best approach to maintaining sanity. But interacting with people was difficult at least half the time. The split focus on them and then everything else going on around her, the lack of sleep that made focus so hard to attain in the first place, the failure to make small talk since all she did was work and not sleep...she was hardly what one could call a prized companion these days.

And yet despite that she was attempting to try, which was why she had slipped into the Snow Valley offices past their cranky receptionist. Cammie...that one would not be good for Vanessa's ever shortening fuse. With her back pressed against the wall outside, Vanessa extended her arm just far enough to knock on the partially open door without being seen.

“Come in,” David called, not quite looking up from his computer, which was at that moment displaying the company accounts of a French bank. His pen moved steadily across a sheet of paper that was slowly being filled with lines of calculations and rough sketches of balance sheets. Similar pieces of paper were strewn across his desk, covering several open folders, concealing an empty pill bottle and piling up under his half-full coffee mug. “Door’s open.”

Visitors were few and far between these couple of days while the Center’s usual workers were still recovering from their recent flashbacks to the past. Most of them were holed up somewhere, either seeking solace from their significant other, or taking time off on their own to sort out their feelings. But David welcomed the quiet. Enjoyed it, even, as it allowed him to work in peace and conveniently forget what time of the day it was. He was overdue for a shave and his eyebags were as dark as smudged mascara. Basically, he looked like shit. Personally, however, he felt just fine.

Her toe pushed the door open further and Vanessa peered through the wider opening from her spot against the wall. She could see David at his desk focused on whatever it was he was doing. Likely something dull. Vanessa remembered his job being horridly, horridly dull. Which had been fantastic for her because he had seemed to fill out the office side of the job while she filled out the field side for some time after they had both come into the fold.

She edged out from her spot, then strolled casually into his office. The closer she got the more she realized it wasn't her lack of sleep making her vision fuzzy. David looked like hell. Worse the closer she got. She set a brown paper bag down directly in front of the man, obstructing his view of his computer screen and making his keyboard largely inaccessible in the process. "I hear people need to eat and figured I owed you something edible this time. Also, scumpete, I'm normally into you being scruffy, but you look like hell. Or perhaps a bit like roadkill, aye? It's not a great look for you."

“Ah, it is my sneaky kleine Kätzchen.” David leaned back in his seat, stifling a yawn that had popped up now that his concentration had been broken. He had actually watched peripherally, amused, as Vanessa slipped into his office. “Have you come with your halo of kindness to bury the roadkill then?”

With a smile that resembled more of a grimace, the spy rubbed some tired from his eyes and picked up the paper bag that Vanessa had unceremoniously plopped in front of him. A tentalising aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg wafted to his nose, and his belly muttered a small complaint at having been ignored since the stale breakfast sandwich. Or perhaps that was yesterday’s breakfast. Pen dropped and brushed to the side, David reached in and withdrew a plate of moussaka.

He laughed aloud for the first time in days, no matter how fake it sounded to his own ears, and gestured for Vanessa to take the only seat in front of his desk. “Why am I so sure that you didn’t make this?”

"Because you are a very smart man? Or perhaps because you have been in a kitchen with me before?" Vanessa glanced at the chair warily. This was Snow Valley, she had trusted nearly everyone in this building with her life numerous times. She had trusted David with it. And yet even as she stood she was angled to view the doorway. She couldn't simply not stand without raising an eyebrow and eventually a question from David, though. So she pulled the chair out further away from his desk and in the process angled it so when she sat down she could glimpse the entrance from the corner of her eye.

"Though, I was thinking more 'reinvigoration' than 'funeral services.' I'm sure moussaka would be fantastic last meal, but really," Vanessa smirked, "probably not what I would give you as a final farewell before burying you." That easy tone of flirtation was in her voice that was all too familiar between them. They were in the office she couldn't accidentally get herself into too much trouble, could she?

“No?” It smelled fantastic. His stomach cramped painfully as he tried to figure out what to do with the food. Had he been that hungry? “What would you say would suffice as a final meal then?” Lips curled in a wry smile-smirk-grimace as he pretended not to notice the way Vanessa had angled her chair. All things considered, it was a surprise to even see her here.

Sweeping everything on his desk to the side and not caring when papers fluttered off of it in the process, David sat the plate down in the middle of the desk and withdrew the takeout utensils from the bag. One set he left within Vanessa’s reach, the other one he held on to as he patted and rooted around underneath papers. When the empty pill bottle emerged, the precognitive made a vaguely disgusted sound and tossed it into the dustbin. No matter; he had another bottle around somewhere.

Out of habit he saved the data on his computer and minimised the files on it so that only his desktop was showing – a rather nostalgic picture of the Berlin Wall. Hiding a flinch, he maximised his email window and shut off the screen. “And what brings your lovely self to my side of town?”

A corner of Vanessa's mouth was quirked upward in an answering smirk when she replied on the topic of his last meal. "Somehow I suspect your last meal would not be my focus so much as your last act before death. If possible, of course. If you had your choice is a meal really what you allow you to depart this world 'satisfied'?" An eyebrow mirrored her half-smirk on the last word. In a way Vanessa knew she shouldn't imply such things specifically because the last time she'd seen David it had seemed like they were very close to getting themselves into trouble. The effort to not slide behind that safe, secure mask was far too great to properly topple her default defense mechanism. Risk or no.

"As for my lovely self..." a small tilt of the head stood in for a shrug. "Partly a case. Though mostly a burning desire to find out what it is you got up to when you woke up with your sixteen year old mind again." Vanessa's smirk went from flirting to utterly amused. "I have trouble imagining a sixteen year old David for some reason. I like to think you have always existed full grown, sprung from your mother's head like Athena."

“That would be dessert, Engel.” David waggled his eyebrows suggestively and somewhat uncharacteristically, then grabbed himself a forkful of the tempting Greek dish and shoved it into his mouth. As he chewed, he met Vanessa’s eyes and crinkled his own tired ones to convey his amusement. That suffered an immediate death when she mentioned the X Force’s recent little adventure, although the change in his expression partially masked by a second forkful of moussaka.

“Oh, you know.” Cue vague hand gestures that waved pointlessly in the air. “I climbed out my apartment window, flirted with a really hot lady, went shopping with Wade, shot him, and punched a couple of men. All in a day’s work, really. Even if my 16 year old self couldn’t appreciate the fun in that.”

As he spoke Vanessa crossed her legs, propped her elbow on a knee and perched her chin in her upturned palm. "I fully approve of you shooting Wilson," she replied in an offhand manner. "But I'm less impressed with you climbing out your window unless you have not returned to the first floor unit you had been occupying previously. You also look like hell and even the work around here doesn't do that much damage without a field trip or two. And you haven't gone anywhere to my knowledge. You're also not sleeping. Are you haunted by the spectacular but questionable orgy you had? Did you kill a man and then ship his various parts to Reno, Atlantic City and Moscow in a drunken haze? And do you really think I'm going to be fooled by that brush off?" David may have been a very good liar, but Vanessa studied people for fun and profit. Physically he seemed to be telling the truth but the lack of sleep betrayed him.

“No,” David admitted with a sardonic half-smile. “But it was worth a shot.” Even if it was a rather poor shot that went wide and apparently missed its target altogether. He put the fork down for a while, stretching his legs out under the desk as he reached up to card fingers through shaggy hair.

Inasmuch as the blonde leggy woman had managed to correctly assess the situation, David did not quite know how to explain what exactly the situation was. Fingers itched to retrieve that extra bottle of pills tucked away in the back of his desk drawer, but he clasped them against his midsection as he tried to relax back against his seat. A sudden wave of exhaustion had hit, most probably from the combination of warm food and the abrupt break in the crazed concentration he had forced himself into. He could almost feel his brain going numb, and truth be told, he was exhausted enough to realise that his usual diversion and avoidance skills were not up to their usual impeccable standards.

So David shrugged, a careless lift-and-drop of his shoulders. “It was so easy being sixteen again. I’m only glad it was sixteen and not eighteen or, Gott forbid, nineteen.” Because that would have been a complete disaster that would probably have ended with a massive amount of bloodshed. The German man rubbed the heel of a palm against a bloodshot eye and snorted. “I am an old man, Liebster. Sixteen was so long ago. I think my brain is still reliving the years from then till now so I am afraid that it will be a while before I can get uninterrupted sleep.”

"Are you an old man?" Her question came with what looked and sounded like genuine surprise until her lips curled into a smile. "Perhaps, ursuleţ, you should be grateful sixteen was easy. It was not so for everyone." Vanessa shuddered to think of the potential reverting back to her own sixteen year old self. No one wanted to meet that girl, not even Vanessa.

She leaned forward a bit, maintaining her pose as she did so. Vanessa's eyes moved over David's face once again. She took in the small lines of his face, the bags under his eyes, the exhaustion there in his eyes that rippled out over his face. He looked about as good as she usually did. Maybe worse, actually. He really did look haunted. "Should you decide you want company not sleeping you always know where to find me." A flash of a grin. "Or at least how to get in touch with me if I'm not there. Sometimes I'm working late, but the rest of the time..." She shrugged. "I have an entire case of very good Scotch as something of a 'grateful you're alive' gift from my best friend. It helps with the sleeping some of the time." So did company, but she let the warmth of her tone and the touch of fondness in it say that for her. She'd worked her way up to asking Garrison to stay over so she could finally sleep for more than forty minutes at once. She wasn't sure she was up to inviting David so explicitly just yet.

“I am a very grateful old man,” David agreed easily enough, picking up his fork to poke at his dinner again. Did he not just say that? To be sure, he did not know what exactly all of his teammates had experienced, but life at 16 had not been as easy for them as it had for him. Especially for certain individuals. Even so, the whiplash from the memories, and damn it all, the reminders of the past, had sent most of them reeling, caught up in the flood that had resulted from breaking of several dams. It was a large mercy that Remy had not been affected. “In fact, I would be more than grateful to partake in some of your scotch and delightful company as we spend time not sleeping.”

Blue eyes crinkled once more, a small, barely-there affectionate quirk to David’s lips as he prepared another forkful of food. Whether company would help him sleep was an unasked and unanswered question, but alcohol had always been his best bet and companion when it came to voluntarily knocking himself out. As an added bonus, Vanessa tended to not grate on his (admittedly cranky) nerves. However, the last thing he wanted to do was to interrupt her precious sleeping time – what little of it, as far as he could tell – with his violent nightmares. It was wholly unsurprising that the spy typically never felt comfortable sleeping in the company of another, although it was arguably one milestone the unlikely pair had already cleared. Brushing the back of his hand against his overgrown beard again, David shook his head ruefully. He really must look like utter crap if even Vanessa was willing to indirectly offer him her company. “Perhaps I could repay your kind offer with good brandy and a home cooked meal.”

"I would never decline a home cooked meal by someone who can actually cook," Vanessa returned. She was unsure if the scotch and the brandy were meant to be companions of the same night or if David had just arranged for two different nights of drinking and not sleeping together. Did it really matter if he had? Either way, her nights would be spent sleepless and awake for the most part and he was good company to have. Any company was better than the streaming paranoia in her own head, really. Well, perhaps not any company exactly.

Turning her attention back to the German across the desk from her, Vanessa's lips curled into a smile slowly. "One day someone will overhear us and get the wrong impression about us with all of our not sleeping and all. Unless you care to make that the right impression." She laughed, the sound silky and relaxed though Vanessa was far from relaxed with the open door behind her. She was mostly kidding, of course, though part of her warned her that she may have just propositioned him a little too directly for most people to know whether or not she meant it. Not for the first time she wondered if sex was the sort of distraction she could use. Her mind went to Warren, of course, to them falling into bed with one another days after she had broken up with Lex, to the easy and comfortable distraction he had provided. As much as she didn't want to be that person Vanessa wondered if it would be easier somehow. Fuck until the thoughts quieted.

If he were most people, David might have choked on the mouthful of moussaka in his mouth, or taken Vanessa up on her proposition that seemed almost genuine despite their penchant for over the top flirting. Granted, it was tempting, especially since there was currently a certain need for some kind of distraction from his own thoughts. However, he recalled their last drinking session, and the observations that he had made on the blonde and merely arched a single brow as her too sweet laughter filled the small room. There was little room in his mind for doubt that the observations still applied, despite Vanessa’s excellent skills in the art of deception. “Perhaps one day, Süsser,” he commented lightly with his trademark smirk once he was no longer in danger of rudely speaking around a mouthful of food. “When you actually mean it.”

It was said with a slight challenge, although there was a clear warning in the undertone. Of course he always enjoyed their private games, but it was clear that he was currently a little too out of it to keep up just then. Really, what would happen when two emotionally stunted insomniacs with a fondness for alcohol got thrown together? “And I know you can’t mean it,” he added, a little mischievously. “Because of your taste for something a little finer than roadkill.”

Proceeding to finish off the last of the food, since he was hungry and Vanessa clearly did not intend to eat, David wondered if he should return to the brownstone for a night of listless tossing and turning or if he should just camp in his office again. He had spare clothes beyond the ridiculously colourful rags he had bought with Wade and there was a shower by the gym. Survival was guaranteed. Alternatively, he could probably see his friend home and perhaps scam her of some scotch before the night ended.

"You do look a bit like you may land in hospital if I tried to have my way with you," she lamented. Vanessa recognized that she should not entertain her dark thoughts too much. She knew where that path could lead and she didn't necessarily like the destination. Then again, it had been fine with Warren. It had turned into a relationship she wasn't really sure either of them wanted at the time. She still wasn't sure she had ever felt for him what she thought she should feel for him. But then David claimed to be heartless. He hardly held the risk of feeling more for her than she for him. But he just looked so tired.

Vanessa looked him up and down as if she could see him perfectly despite the desk. "It really is a shame. I've got a bit of a thing for older men, but stamina is so vitally important with me." The slight grin appearing wasn't even intentional. "You'd never last. Dar, staniu tăietor de lemne, even if you were up for it you'd never really know if I meant it or not, would you? Something of a Catch-22, assume I don't mean it and you'll never be in a position to find out for sure. Maybe if you were ten years younger..." She winked, the nature of her smile indicating she was kidding more than her tone did.

David rolled his eyes. It wasn’t a habit of his to try to see the inside of his skull, but her casting of aspersions on his ‘stamina’ seemed to warrant it. “There is much to be said about stamina and control,” he reminded her blithely, returning her smile and tossing the empty container and the plastic utensils into the paper bag. “If you’re not careful, the young ones may come undone at your slightest suggestion.” Rather a man who lasted an hour than a man who came three times in an hour, impressive though either may sound.

The paper bag went into the rubbish bin beside his desk, tossed carelessly in without much of an effort to aim, and the spy began to sort through the papers, bending to retrieve the loose ones on the floor and sending some through the shredder conveniently placed by the bin.

"I suppose that may be one of the reasons I don't make a habit of sleeping with virgins and the woefully inexperienced," she returned, smile still in place. Vanessa could not help but think of Sam. She had never told anyone of anything they had or had not done, but something about virginity seemed a little too sacred to violate. Either that or she was astoundingly impatient and didn't like having to educate from scratch, even if there were certain benefits to such an approach.

Meeting her eyes, the corners of David’s lips quirked upwards. “Poor virgins,” he mocked, amusement layered in his tone even though he understood the sentiment. The picture of lazy amusement was wrecked, however, as another yawn came over him and he scrubbed the heel of his palm against slate-blue eyes. Mechanically, he stacked the papers in an order only he would understand, and more of his actual desk came into view. David made a mental note to clean off some of the scribbled calculations on the lacquered surface.

“Do you need a lift back?” No, he was not hurrying her away. But he may as well go on a drive since it did not seem that Vanessa (or his traitorous brain, for that matter) would allow him to return to his work for the next couple of hours. Perhaps it was a good thing they were no longer working together. No one else seemed vaguely inclined to make sure that he did not kill himself at his desk. After all, he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Obviously.

An eyebrow arched slowly. "Are you really in any shape for driving, bătrân?" The blonde leaned back in her chair, the corner of her eye still taking note of the happenings just outside his office door. "Though I suppose it may be worth the risk." The mischievous half-smirk was back. "After all, there is the potential for getting you to my place, plying you with Scotch and then convincing you to stay. Sure, you have that stamina problem but at least I'll have eye candy, aye?"

A low growl rumbled in his chest and David stood, rolling his chair back and putting his computer to sleep. Rebooting the computer took too damn long for the feeds to load again, although he usually made sure to turn it off for the weekends. Then, as he stood to move around his desk, he narrowed his eyes at the blonde and adopted a distinctly disgruntled expression. “I have ample stamina. But if I find that I cannot continue, I’m sure you’ll rise to the occasion.”

* * * * *

It had been easy enough to convince David that his car would be perfectly safe in the lot next door while he came inside to indulge in some of her Lagavulin. After all, the promise of alcohol to David was much like the promise of naked women to most men. Or so it seemed in Vanessa's estimation. He really did look like hell and she had no intention of letting him drive anywhere. He could stay or he could embrace the subway or perhaps walk it off. Granted, Vanessa was likely running on less sleep than he, but she had months to adjust to her state. He seemed to be running on less than usual and unaccustomed to it. So she poured more than was strictly necessary into his glass and brought the bottle with her to the couch. If he was drunk enough he wouldn't drive. And he might even sleep.

Vanessa leaned over him from behind, slowly so as to not spook him, and held his glass out with her arm draped over his shoulder. "For you, scumpete."

“Danke,” David accepted the glass graciously, having given in to her none-too-subtle manoeuvrings since she had hesitantly walked through his office door over an hour ago. He took a generous mouthful of scotch from the more than generous serving and swished it in his mouth, vaguely recalling that he probably should not be drinking heavily given the large dose of Ritalin he had taken over the course of the day.

“How many bottles of these did you say you had, Glühwürmchen?”

"Once this one is depleted? Seven." Adrienne had given her an entire case of it. Vanessa was careful to work through it slowly. Some nights it was the only way she got any sleep at all. She offset it with others whiskeys and Scotches, helping preserve the bottles of Lagavulin for longer. Vanessa set the bottle, which she had just opened this evening, on the coffee table between them and folded herself up onto a cushion of the couch with her own glass. Even now there was something tense, almost feral about her. She was ready to spring into movement for the smallest of reasons if need be.

“You have a very generous friend,” came the idle comment. David did not really mean anything by it, having relaxed into the sofa without any of his companion’s skittishness. His lids felt heavy even without the alcohol, but his brain, though sluggish, still refused to shut down completely. So he took to staring at the glass as he swirled the liquid in it, watching its markings against the glass. “This is good alcohol.”

He did not really want to fall asleep in Vanessa’s apartment, almost sure that he would awaken in cold sweat and subconsciously swallowing his screams. “But perhaps not good enough that you’re actually sleeping regularly,” he continued after a pause, as though to remind Vanessa that though he was sleep-deprived, it did not make him blind.

Vanessa shrugged. "I don't get black out drunk or even really pass out drunk almost ever. In order for one to sleep due to alcohol one must be willing to drink enough of it. I'd rather have my wits about me." Being able to notice and respond to things was infinitely more useful than sleep. It was a bit of a Catch-22 since sleep itself would make her more alert when awake but there was no sleep for those who scrutinized every small, often meaningless, sound that came to their ears. Vanessa had accepted that much, at least. "And it would be a shame to waste Scotch this good on getting piss drunk and passing out."

Mirroring her shrug, David tipped more of the liquid into his mouth, enjoying the burn down his gullet. He wanted to point out that passing out and sleeping were not exactly the same thing, but then thought the better of it. Instead, he hummed in vague agreement and shifted in his seat so that he was slouching slightly, crossing his legs ankle to knee. “It’s going to be a long night, then,” he commented, a corner of his mouth curling slightly in a lazy half-smile. Because neither of them were going to succumb to Morpheus anytime soon, it seemed.

"Suppose we'll have to find a way to entertain ourselves then," Vanessa returned, the possibility of a smile tracing her lips but never quite coming out before she sipped her drink. Innuendo and potential chased one another through her tone and across her expression until she gave David a rather placid smile.