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pirateygoodnessSo today was my day to preview at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
thelittlebang, and thus we have this: 1500ish words from my Blake/Leighton 1960s spies-in-drag AU. ENJOY.
Title: My Heart Is Plotting Treason (Preview)
Fandom: Gossip Girl RPF
Pairing: Blake Lively/Leighton Meester
Notes: This piece is an excerpt from a larger story that will be posted at the end of the month as part ofthelittlebang. Stay tuned.
Blake opens the envelope, fingers shaking, and runs a hand through her hair in relief. An address, a time, and a dress code.
She's in.
Six hours later and Blake is staring herself down in the mirror, adjusting her tie and fussing with her hair (slicked back, parted down the side, and if she's lucky nobody will notice the pins keeping the long bits where they belong.). The tuxedo fits, miraculously, and she's not quite sure where Ed and his team at MI6 found a tuxedo in her size tailored quite this nicely to hide her curves, but she's not about to raise any complaints. It's some small comfort to know that at least if she gets killed tonight, she'll die damn pretty.
She checks her shoulder holster one last time, glad for the solid, comforting presence of the Walther PPK pressed against the curve of her breast. Looks at herself in the mirror again, taking a step back. Scrutinizing herself for hints of a feminine figure, tells that might give people ideas. She's confident - as she always is - that there aren't any, that people rarely see what they aren't already expecting to find. All the same, one never can be too careful.
When she walks out of her apartment building to the street, promptly at 9:00, a car is waiting for her. The driver is not one of hers, not one of MI6's, but he nods to her and motions to the backseat with a curt, semi-articulate, "Mister Badenov requests you have special service. I am car for you."
The accent is Russian, unsurprisingly, and it's no shock to Blake that when she opens the door and slides in, the seat next to her is occupied.
What does surprise her is the occupant.
Russian, again, but there's no mistaking those delicate features or that heavily-rouged, long-suffering scowl. "Miss Leighton," Blake says, mouth suddenly dry.
"Mister Lively." The girl smiles, coquettish, and offers her hand. Blake takes it in hers, not allowing herself longer than a moment to think about how warm, how delicate Leighton's hand feels in her palm.
Ever the gentleman, she nods and faces the road ahead. "It's a pleasure to see you again so soon. I trust that we have similar evening plans?"
Blake feels the girl shift in the seat beside her, hears amusement in the cadence of her voice. "Trust may not be the most appropriate word. But," and suddenly there's a hand on Blake's thigh, soft and solicitous. "It appears that we have a similar destination."
Blake turns to look the girl in the eye. Leighton meets her gaze and doesn't waver, bats her lashes once, twice as if trying for innocence. She's leaning in, eyes huge and lips gently parted and from this angle, Blake can see straight down the front of that dress. Which, to be fair, is a marvelous view, and one that Blake will be sure not to forget in the near future. But even as the sight makes Blake's breath catch ever so slightly, she covers that warm, obliging hand with her own and moves it off of her thigh, because this - the car, the girl, the driver - is calculated. Set up. Blake may not be an actual gangster, but she's met enough crooks to know that one doesn't just deliver a package and get sent a pretty, obliging girl. Especially not one as pretty and obliging as all of this. Blake laughs, and releases the girl's hand. "And what destination do you think that might be?"
Leighton, remarkably unshakeable, tosses her hair and practically drapes herself across Blake's shoulder. "The party, of course," she says, and walks her fingers up the back of Blake's neck. Blake bites her lip and thinks of the President and tries not to shiver. "Don't you like to enjoy yourself every once in a while, Mister Lively?"
"I suppose," Blake says. God, this woman. She laughs coquettishly into Blake's ear, mouth so close that Blake can feel the heat of her breath. "What about -" Blake pauses, momentarily stunned as the girl presses her tongue to the shell of Blake's ear. "What about your boyfriend? Does he like to enjoy himself?"
Leighton murmurs something vaguely like a yes, hardly listening. "I think," Blake says, and she twists away this time, pressing herself against the window in what she's sure is an embarrassingly feminine display of discomfort. "Perhaps it might be best if you pass the time with him tonight."
The girl freezes.
When she disentangles herself, it's slow, almost reluctant. Like a child denied a favorite doll. But there's a flash of something in her eyes that Blake can't quite place - surprise, perhaps? Disappointment? - as she regains her composure and sniffs, turning to face the city as it passes by through her window.
The driver (and god, Blake had all but forgotten about him) laughs, clearly watching Blake in the rear view mirror. As she thought, then. Some kind of test.
The car pulls up, eventually, at a gentleman's club. Of course. It's an old, crumbling behemoth of a building, the kind that seems to have survived the war out of sheer spite, rather than any real craftsmanship. Blake is positive, stepping out of the car, that she could find cause to arrest nearly every guest in attendance.
Mikhail is nowhere to be seen, of course, but then Blake expected nothing less. If she were a criminal running sensitive deliveries for Mr. Khrushchev, she'd run her employees through a damn few more tests than just the girl in the car.
(The girl who, after arriving at the party on Blake's arm, promptly disappeared with little more than a backwards glance. A test.)
She sees the large man - Sergei, she thinks (and she wishes, not for the first time, that there were communists with easy-to-remember names like George) and swallows reflexively. He looks sullen in a suit jacket, like a child dragged to the opera by well-meaning parents, a glass of vodka dwarfed in his oversized grip. Blake doesn't relish a second meeting, and turns away to face the rest of the room.
A waiter passes, and Blake raises an arm to order a drink. But before she's quite able, a large, hairy hand wraps itself around her arm and she finds herself staring into the widest, most sparsely-toothed grin she's ever seen. "Excuse me, sir." the man says, edging closer. "Might you be Mister Lively?"
She nods and smiles warmly (against her instincts, which are decidedly chillier), clasping the hand in her own. "I just might be. Have we met before?"
The man chuckles, not unkindly, and envelops Blake's palm in a handshake so enthusiastic she can feel it tug all the way up to her elbow. "I am your new friend, Dmitri."
Blake watches him for a long moment, hand still clasped in his. Cautious. "Might you also be a friend of our host?"
Dmitri laughs and nods, once.
"Well," Blake says, forcing a chuckle. "Any friend of his."
Just like that, the tension dissipates, and the taller man releases her arm to clap her on the back, presumably a gesture intended for comraderie. (The fact that Blake feels slightly winded is likely unintentional.) There is a low command to a new passing waiter, something too fast and guttural to be anything close to English. Moments later, glasses of vodka are pressed into their hands, complimented by a sly, understanding smile from the waiter, and Blake finds herself murmuring a toast to "the mother country," returning Dmitri's conspiratorial wink with a tight smile.
The vodka, at least, is top shelf. Blake sips gratefully, savouring the heat of the alcohol as her new friend chatters in broken, heavily-accented English about the weather and (English) football and the trouble with London women. (Evidently, their standards are unrealistically lofty, especially when they find themselves faced with Dmitri's earthy charm.)
Blake turns to the man and nods in Leighton's direction. "The girl," she says. "What about her?"
He takes a gulp of vodka and laughs, showing all his remaining teeth. He reminds Blake of a mad dog. "You like her?" He makes a lecherous noise in the back of his throat, an Blake has to fight down a surprising urge to hit him.
"She's alright."
"She's Russian, you know. You can see, it's in the hips - the Russian girls, they are - how do you say? Friendly."
Blake glances across the room one more time. Leighton is pressed against Sergei's side, smiling patiently as he pets her hair with a hand easily the size of her whole head. She looks like she could cheerfully kill him. "She doesn't look so friendly."
Dmitri slings an arm around her shoulder, his fingertips narrowly avoiding her breast. Blake tries not to flinch. "Not friendly like this. You know," he says, shaking her by the shoulder like they're comrades. "Friendly."
He gestures to his inseam with the hand holding his drink, as if concerned that he hadn't quite made his point. Blake nods and takes a long drink, hardly noticing the way it burns down her throat, and crushes an ice cube between her teeth. "Intriguing."
She lets the drink settle, because talk around the girl is giving Blake the urge to do inappropriate and downright dangerous things like defend her honor, when there's work to be done. Blake allows herself another sip - small, because this is the sort of place where a finished drink gets refilled without one even noticing. She may not look like a woman, but she certainly holds her alcohol like one, nonetheless. "Our mutual friend," she finally says, once she finds her composure. "I was told he had a project for me."
This isn't quite the truth - she was told to attend, nothing more. But the reasons for her attendance narrow themselves tidily into two categories: continued employment, or an abrupt end to any and all employment, present and future. Blake would much prefer to explore options within the former. Dmitri half-chokes Blake with another shake of the arm around her shoulders, and laughs. "The Americans, you are so business. How do you make time for your beautiful women if you are always working, hah?"
"We fit things in when we're able."
He howls with laughter, drawing stares, and motions to a new waiter. "You are funny, funny American. I like you very much."
There's a short conversation, not in English, and the waiter returns with two fresh glasses of vodka on the rocks and an envelope. Much to Blake's relief, Dmitri releases her shoulders, holding the envelope under his arm while he presses a new glass into Blake's hand. There's an edge to his movements, a layer of calculated evaluation in his gaze that would make Blake nervous were she not expecting it. As it is, when he offers a toast - "to our mutual friend" - the liquor catches in her throat a moment as it goes down.
Dmitri finishes his vodka in silence, three large gulps, and waits for Blake to do the same. She can feel her palms grow clammy against the glass. "This," he says, when Blake is finished and ready to trade her glass for the envelope, "is the delivery."
thelittlebang, and thus we have this: 1500ish words from my Blake/Leighton 1960s spies-in-drag AU. ENJOY. Title: My Heart Is Plotting Treason (Preview)
Fandom: Gossip Girl RPF
Pairing: Blake Lively/Leighton Meester
Notes: This piece is an excerpt from a larger story that will be posted at the end of the month as part of
thelittlebang. Stay tuned. Blake opens the envelope, fingers shaking, and runs a hand through her hair in relief. An address, a time, and a dress code.
She's in.
Six hours later and Blake is staring herself down in the mirror, adjusting her tie and fussing with her hair (slicked back, parted down the side, and if she's lucky nobody will notice the pins keeping the long bits where they belong.). The tuxedo fits, miraculously, and she's not quite sure where Ed and his team at MI6 found a tuxedo in her size tailored quite this nicely to hide her curves, but she's not about to raise any complaints. It's some small comfort to know that at least if she gets killed tonight, she'll die damn pretty.
She checks her shoulder holster one last time, glad for the solid, comforting presence of the Walther PPK pressed against the curve of her breast. Looks at herself in the mirror again, taking a step back. Scrutinizing herself for hints of a feminine figure, tells that might give people ideas. She's confident - as she always is - that there aren't any, that people rarely see what they aren't already expecting to find. All the same, one never can be too careful.
When she walks out of her apartment building to the street, promptly at 9:00, a car is waiting for her. The driver is not one of hers, not one of MI6's, but he nods to her and motions to the backseat with a curt, semi-articulate, "Mister Badenov requests you have special service. I am car for you."
The accent is Russian, unsurprisingly, and it's no shock to Blake that when she opens the door and slides in, the seat next to her is occupied.
What does surprise her is the occupant.
Russian, again, but there's no mistaking those delicate features or that heavily-rouged, long-suffering scowl. "Miss Leighton," Blake says, mouth suddenly dry.
"Mister Lively." The girl smiles, coquettish, and offers her hand. Blake takes it in hers, not allowing herself longer than a moment to think about how warm, how delicate Leighton's hand feels in her palm.
Ever the gentleman, she nods and faces the road ahead. "It's a pleasure to see you again so soon. I trust that we have similar evening plans?"
Blake feels the girl shift in the seat beside her, hears amusement in the cadence of her voice. "Trust may not be the most appropriate word. But," and suddenly there's a hand on Blake's thigh, soft and solicitous. "It appears that we have a similar destination."
Blake turns to look the girl in the eye. Leighton meets her gaze and doesn't waver, bats her lashes once, twice as if trying for innocence. She's leaning in, eyes huge and lips gently parted and from this angle, Blake can see straight down the front of that dress. Which, to be fair, is a marvelous view, and one that Blake will be sure not to forget in the near future. But even as the sight makes Blake's breath catch ever so slightly, she covers that warm, obliging hand with her own and moves it off of her thigh, because this - the car, the girl, the driver - is calculated. Set up. Blake may not be an actual gangster, but she's met enough crooks to know that one doesn't just deliver a package and get sent a pretty, obliging girl. Especially not one as pretty and obliging as all of this. Blake laughs, and releases the girl's hand. "And what destination do you think that might be?"
Leighton, remarkably unshakeable, tosses her hair and practically drapes herself across Blake's shoulder. "The party, of course," she says, and walks her fingers up the back of Blake's neck. Blake bites her lip and thinks of the President and tries not to shiver. "Don't you like to enjoy yourself every once in a while, Mister Lively?"
"I suppose," Blake says. God, this woman. She laughs coquettishly into Blake's ear, mouth so close that Blake can feel the heat of her breath. "What about -" Blake pauses, momentarily stunned as the girl presses her tongue to the shell of Blake's ear. "What about your boyfriend? Does he like to enjoy himself?"
Leighton murmurs something vaguely like a yes, hardly listening. "I think," Blake says, and she twists away this time, pressing herself against the window in what she's sure is an embarrassingly feminine display of discomfort. "Perhaps it might be best if you pass the time with him tonight."
The girl freezes.
When she disentangles herself, it's slow, almost reluctant. Like a child denied a favorite doll. But there's a flash of something in her eyes that Blake can't quite place - surprise, perhaps? Disappointment? - as she regains her composure and sniffs, turning to face the city as it passes by through her window.
The driver (and god, Blake had all but forgotten about him) laughs, clearly watching Blake in the rear view mirror. As she thought, then. Some kind of test.
The car pulls up, eventually, at a gentleman's club. Of course. It's an old, crumbling behemoth of a building, the kind that seems to have survived the war out of sheer spite, rather than any real craftsmanship. Blake is positive, stepping out of the car, that she could find cause to arrest nearly every guest in attendance.
Mikhail is nowhere to be seen, of course, but then Blake expected nothing less. If she were a criminal running sensitive deliveries for Mr. Khrushchev, she'd run her employees through a damn few more tests than just the girl in the car.
(The girl who, after arriving at the party on Blake's arm, promptly disappeared with little more than a backwards glance. A test.)
She sees the large man - Sergei, she thinks (and she wishes, not for the first time, that there were communists with easy-to-remember names like George) and swallows reflexively. He looks sullen in a suit jacket, like a child dragged to the opera by well-meaning parents, a glass of vodka dwarfed in his oversized grip. Blake doesn't relish a second meeting, and turns away to face the rest of the room.
A waiter passes, and Blake raises an arm to order a drink. But before she's quite able, a large, hairy hand wraps itself around her arm and she finds herself staring into the widest, most sparsely-toothed grin she's ever seen. "Excuse me, sir." the man says, edging closer. "Might you be Mister Lively?"
She nods and smiles warmly (against her instincts, which are decidedly chillier), clasping the hand in her own. "I just might be. Have we met before?"
The man chuckles, not unkindly, and envelops Blake's palm in a handshake so enthusiastic she can feel it tug all the way up to her elbow. "I am your new friend, Dmitri."
Blake watches him for a long moment, hand still clasped in his. Cautious. "Might you also be a friend of our host?"
Dmitri laughs and nods, once.
"Well," Blake says, forcing a chuckle. "Any friend of his."
Just like that, the tension dissipates, and the taller man releases her arm to clap her on the back, presumably a gesture intended for comraderie. (The fact that Blake feels slightly winded is likely unintentional.) There is a low command to a new passing waiter, something too fast and guttural to be anything close to English. Moments later, glasses of vodka are pressed into their hands, complimented by a sly, understanding smile from the waiter, and Blake finds herself murmuring a toast to "the mother country," returning Dmitri's conspiratorial wink with a tight smile.
The vodka, at least, is top shelf. Blake sips gratefully, savouring the heat of the alcohol as her new friend chatters in broken, heavily-accented English about the weather and (English) football and the trouble with London women. (Evidently, their standards are unrealistically lofty, especially when they find themselves faced with Dmitri's earthy charm.)
Blake turns to the man and nods in Leighton's direction. "The girl," she says. "What about her?"
He takes a gulp of vodka and laughs, showing all his remaining teeth. He reminds Blake of a mad dog. "You like her?" He makes a lecherous noise in the back of his throat, an Blake has to fight down a surprising urge to hit him.
"She's alright."
"She's Russian, you know. You can see, it's in the hips - the Russian girls, they are - how do you say? Friendly."
Blake glances across the room one more time. Leighton is pressed against Sergei's side, smiling patiently as he pets her hair with a hand easily the size of her whole head. She looks like she could cheerfully kill him. "She doesn't look so friendly."
Dmitri slings an arm around her shoulder, his fingertips narrowly avoiding her breast. Blake tries not to flinch. "Not friendly like this. You know," he says, shaking her by the shoulder like they're comrades. "Friendly."
He gestures to his inseam with the hand holding his drink, as if concerned that he hadn't quite made his point. Blake nods and takes a long drink, hardly noticing the way it burns down her throat, and crushes an ice cube between her teeth. "Intriguing."
She lets the drink settle, because talk around the girl is giving Blake the urge to do inappropriate and downright dangerous things like defend her honor, when there's work to be done. Blake allows herself another sip - small, because this is the sort of place where a finished drink gets refilled without one even noticing. She may not look like a woman, but she certainly holds her alcohol like one, nonetheless. "Our mutual friend," she finally says, once she finds her composure. "I was told he had a project for me."
This isn't quite the truth - she was told to attend, nothing more. But the reasons for her attendance narrow themselves tidily into two categories: continued employment, or an abrupt end to any and all employment, present and future. Blake would much prefer to explore options within the former. Dmitri half-chokes Blake with another shake of the arm around her shoulders, and laughs. "The Americans, you are so business. How do you make time for your beautiful women if you are always working, hah?"
"We fit things in when we're able."
He howls with laughter, drawing stares, and motions to a new waiter. "You are funny, funny American. I like you very much."
There's a short conversation, not in English, and the waiter returns with two fresh glasses of vodka on the rocks and an envelope. Much to Blake's relief, Dmitri releases her shoulders, holding the envelope under his arm while he presses a new glass into Blake's hand. There's an edge to his movements, a layer of calculated evaluation in his gaze that would make Blake nervous were she not expecting it. As it is, when he offers a toast - "to our mutual friend" - the liquor catches in her throat a moment as it goes down.
Dmitri finishes his vodka in silence, three large gulps, and waits for Blake to do the same. She can feel her palms grow clammy against the glass. "This," he says, when Blake is finished and ready to trade her glass for the envelope, "is the delivery."
