Fic Preview: My Heart Is Plotting Treason (Working Title)

[pirateygoodness]

So, anyway. As some of you may/may not know, I've been chipping away at my story for thelittlebang, and the mods have just suggested that we post previews of our stories to pimp to our friends/loved ones/strangers on the internet.

Preview: My Heart Is Plotting Treason (Working Title)
A Blake Lively/Leighton Meester 1960s Spy AU: By The Way Blake Is In Drag
669 words

The seated man chuckles as Blake stumbles and straightens her suit - ill-fitting by design, but no less uncomfortable than if it had been by accident. This, again, says something quite important about who he is as a person. (But it doesn't speak to his character as loudly as the flash of jagged, chalk-white scar down the line of his jaw when he nods to her.) "Good evening, boy."

He twists his mouth around English words like they're foreign to him, pulling them at the ends into something that's not quite a British accent, but to his credit, he doesn't quite sound Russian. He also happens to be one of those men with a voice that sounds like it belongs to a much smaller man - high-pitched, gentle. When he speaks, it makes Blake's hair stand on end.

"Sir," Blake corrects, fidgety with what she hopes is productive energy, rather than nerves. The sleeves of her blazer are two inches too short, and it makes her feel ridiculous. She straightens her hat - it helps.

The seated gentleman stares at her face, unmoved. "I am Mikhail. Mister Mikhail Badenov. You may also call me 'sir.'" He smiles, pleased with his own cleverness, Behind him, the standing gentleman shifts on his feet, a gesture Blake correctly assumes to be a hint.

"Ah, yes," Mikhail continues. "I forget my manners. This is my associate, Sergei. He does not like talking much."

Mikhail's associate nods, a gesture that apparently requires the entirety of his upper torso, pulling the girl closer to his side as he bends. Sergei, incidentally, is the largest man Blake has ever seen outside of a circus: easily six and a half feet tall, built like a weightlifter with hands so large they look more like paws. Blake's hardly sure he knows how to talk much at all.

She waits, for a while. Neither man offers to shake her hand. "It's a pleasure, gentlemen," Blake finally says, and she knows she should leave things at that. But there's a pretty girl in a pretty dress in the room, stomping her high heels out of boredom, and Blake just has to ask. She offers her hand, and smiles at the girl. "Miss. I don't believe I've had the pleasure."

The girl returns Blake's smile, and she realizes that the girl, when she's not preoccupied with casting glassy-eyed, sullen glances at her large Russian business associates, could actually be quite lovely. After a moment, the girl also returns Blake's gesture and captures the extended hand in her own. "Leighton," the girl says, with an English accent that's clear and surprisingly posh, almost-but-not-quite hiding the Russian lilt to her consonants. Her voice is throatier than Blake would have imagined. Stronger, too.

"Miss Leighton," Blake replies, nodding and releasing the warm, delicate hand she realises she's still holding. "It's an honour."

"You misunderstand, Mister Lively," the girl says, smiling like Blake has stumbled onto one of her private jokes. "Leighton is my first name."

"Ah," Blake says, not missing a beat. "May I inquire as to your second name?"

"My second name," Leighton answers, as she opens an expensive-looking cigarette case and lifts one to her lips, "is for my friends. We've only just met."

Blake reaches into her pocket to offer the girl a light, but Leighton lifts an eyebrow like she wouldn't accept if Blake were to offer. Mikhail offers a lit match over his shoulder, and Leighton leans over his back to allow him the privilege of lighting her cigarette. Her dress, low-cut as it is, leaves nearly nothing to the imagination when she leans just so, and she smiles around her cigarette like she's well aware of that fact.

"Well then," Blake says, studiously ignoring the girl's near-perfect breasts in favor of eye contact, despite the near-heroic effort that requires. "I look forward to learning it. Miss Leighton."

Leighton sighs out a puff of smoke, and laughs. "Mister Lively."