David Percival Aesthetic
“You fucking bitch! You shot me in the fucking head!!”
Lorraine was on her feet, gun in hand so very fast, that if he hadn’t already been expecting such a move, she would’ve shot him again.
As it was, he neatly sidestepped the bullet that zinged past him and embedded itself in the doorframe where he’d just been standing by the pilot’s cabin.
“How are you still alive?” she demanded, her natural American accent kicking in when she realized she was wasting ammunition trying to hit him. His suddenly inexplicable speed and agility were both intense and apparently impossible to counter in such a small space.
Not once, however, did he pull a weapon on her.
“Y’know, I ask myself the same thing, love,” he retorted. “But you just gotta go with the mystery.”
She glanced at her Handler, but Emmett remained entirely focused on M, who’d sat down opposite him, being all business and no amusement.
Despite her every belief in the man, Lorraine knew she’d find no help there. It wasn’t shocking, but it felt rather disgusting, no matter which way she chose to interpret his slightly sardonic expression.
“I killed you!” she hissed, gun still raised at David’s head. “I killed you!”
He shrugged. “Actually, I’d forgotten how much that shit really fucking hurts!!”
She expected him to do something
Make a move.
Start toward her.
Something.
But, no.
He just stood there.
Starting at her.
Like the Ghost of Christmas Past.
M sighed. “Could you two either go fuck this tension out between you, or sit down and let the grown ups talk?”
David snorted rudely. “I’m not getting my dick out for this bitch!”
“Guess I shot you in the wrong head then…” She lowered her gun to his crotch.
“Go right at it. Stuff’ll just grow back anyway.” He felt the strange temptation to wiggle his hips lewdly in her direction, but the confused gleam in her eyes offset the otherwise utterly professional expression she was wearing. “Want a drink yet?” he asked, mocking her despite the imminent threat to his manhood.
“You should be dead!”
“Already am, love. You’re just having a nervous breakdown before you’re dragged out of here in cuffs.”
She laughed out loud. “I don’t believe in ghosts!”
He licked his lips. “You should, or one of ’em’ll kill you.”
When confronted by elements she knew she was missing in any given situation, the best option was to let others talk, then piece together whatever snippets of information she’d been able to glean, and go from there. Which usually worked well enough, except in dealing with fellow spies.
And David was one of the best.
She’d give him that.
“You’ll kill me?” she mocked right back. “When I’m the one who’s been cleaning up behind your mess, Comrade Satchel?”
“Oh, please,” M interjected. “Your set up was excellent. If you’d tried it on anyone else you might just have gotten away with it, but when you put the blame on those who aren’t really as dead as you’d like them to be, they do rather put a crimp in things.”
David blinked. “Well, that was rude!”
“Honey, you were never smooth enough for the Double O Programme, but then again you were never dumb enough to play both ends against the middle. You get that from your Sire at least.”
“How very charming of you to say so,” George said quietly, coming into the plane through the still open main door.
Lorraine turned her gun to the new threat in her vicinity. “Do put that down, madam,” he replied, sounding thoroughly bored. “I can assure you I’m as dead as my protege over there, so don’t waste your time on futilities.”
David really wanted to know who’d called his Vampire ‘father’ into the situation, but he’d already figured out that it could only have been Smiley who’d disentangled the clever set up Lorraine had been hoping to frame him with.
She was immensely smart, and he’d admit to having some begrudging respect for her in that. Still, he’d rather put a bullet between her eyes than admit it out loud, given what she’d tried to turn him into.
“Young man, you should be lying down.” George gave his Childe the benefit of a concerned stare. “Who exactly let you come here to do this?”
David’s mouth fell open. “Are you seriously being all ‘parental’ right now?” he demanded, even making air quotes to enhance his opinion.
M rolled her eyes, but then again she knew only too well what it was like having boys who were ‘special’.
“Without me, you’d be branded a traitor right now, young fellow. You could at least show a little more appreciation.”
Lorraine wanted to laugh at the farcical nature of what was happening, but still her Handler just sat there in seemingly stoic silence.
She’d done far too good a job of covering her tracks and laying blame elsewhere, for some creaky old fart that MI6 had clearly dug up from the earliest years of the Cold War, to come pull it all apart like he’d been faced with nothing more than a particularly tough question courtesy of the Times Crossword Puzzle.
She needed an out.
She just wasn’t sure how to get it yet.
David grinned at her cheekily despite the gesture making his still healing face ache. “Might wanna sit down for this, love. Dad gets a bit of a rambler when he starts lecturing.”
George Smiley pushed his glasses up his nose more firmly. There were no notes or folders in his hands to call on as she spoke. He didn’t need them. He knew all the details, every last convoluted one of them.
And as his name was cleared of all wrongdoing, David remarkably felt the urge to hug him.
His own information on the real identity of the agent known as ‘Satchel’, was then icing on the cake.
With a cherry.
One of those nice juicy ones soaked in alcohol.
“Had you been working with any one but David, my dear, you would likely have succeeded, but as it is, I already knew there could be no way the Head of Berlin Station was a traitor. He’s too much like his actual father to ever be more than who he really is,” Smiley concluded.
“Hey!!” David growled, not quite ready to appreciate so obtuse a compliment.
George chuckled softly. “I shall, of course, do my best to stop Karla from making you his next target, Agent Satchel, but I can in no way guarantee success…”
Lorraine paled just a tiny bit.
“…given that he doesn’t take too kindly to people who try and kill his son.”
David sighed. “Tell me you didn’t call him yet? Please, tell me you didn’t call him…”
Smiley had the most irritating little grin occasionally.