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WASHINGTON. ([personal profile] protocol) wrote2021-10-16 12:49 pm
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placeholder content up here until rocket gets his shit together

expect nsfw.
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[personal profile] covert 2022-02-16 12:10 am (UTC)(link)
[It's perfectly reasonable to ask, and - layered, to answer. As much as he's honest and open at a certain, surface level, Dick isn't really one to unravel himself for people. Most who start to get close to him find that once they're past the softer surface there's a brick wall to chisel their way through.

And that, in fact, is part of this. Not that Dick leads with it.]


Maybe I just hate leaving things unfinished.

[He sits back, folding his arms behind his head and letting his fingers knit into his hair.]

I wasn't looking for you with expectations. For all I knew, once whatever that was wore off, you might be living as a mild mannered dog walker with a sideline in artisan cheese making and a 'Live Laugh Love' decal on your bedroom wall. But there was a grain of truth to who most of us were, that week. I thought there might be a grain of truth to you. And like I said, I thought about it, here and there. I thought we were both – getting something from it.

[He huffs out a break, embarrassed enough that it shows in the faintest flush, but still not dropping eye contact.]

I don't do a lot that's casual. This place has opened up a lot I'd never have considered before, like sleeping with more than one person on a regular basis, but I still don't end up with people easily. Especially the way we –

[A flurry of movement, as he huddles back down to lean over the table again, dropping his voice.]

I mean, I'd still find it difficult to walk up to a stranger and ask if they want to slap me when I come. But it's really not just about that. And maybe it's dumb to think a couple of hallucinatory encounters and some hazy memories of a history means anything. We weren't friends. But we weren't strangers, either.

[And no matter how much he'd denied it, it had felt like they could have been just a little more. Wash had seen that more clearly than Dick knew.]

I thought we hit a few of each other's buttons. If that's still true for you then maybe it's worth following up on. If it's not, I can compliment your artisan cheese and leave you be.

Edited 2022-02-16 00:14 (UTC)
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[personal profile] covert 2022-02-16 12:52 pm (UTC)(link)
You too, even if I didn't exactly like to tell you that.

[Stoic, withholding and maybe finding a dark coping strategy for something buried deep him his own past happens to be a theme Dick's used to fitting himself around, a man he's used to trying to please, albeit very differently.

He doesn't want to lean into a psych eval here, there isn't any coffee strong enough. But he does pause to take another sip before it cools.]


I'm not into 'scenes' or whatever the formal word is. I have people here who'll go hard on me if they know it's what I want. But - without expectation, here - someone in it for what they want, even if it pushes me to the very edge of what I do is... well. I guess I like rising to a challenge.
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[personal profile] covert 2022-02-16 02:56 pm (UTC)(link)
[Maybe it wasn't the best phrasing. Being called on it makes Dick smile and duck his head in acknowledgement.]

I'm not saying it isn't mutual, just that maybe there are limits to how far they'll want to push. And I haven't hit my limits yet.

[That's one thing they might both remember. Dick's not exactly undemanding, both of himself and others. Sometimes it can seem like he can always take more, but he has a breaking point. He has several. It's just most people would take a step back from reaching it. He looks up, running a hand back through his hair.]

I guess you could say giving orders has never been a problem for me. I spend my whole life calculating what to do, and when, and how - it's hard to turn off. So sometimes I don't need to be asked what I want, I need to be told. Knowing I'll want it anyway.
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[personal profile] covert 2022-02-17 12:11 pm (UTC)(link)
It is, but - leaping's what I'm good at.

[They have a shortcut, but that kind of trust isn't immediate. Dick would have been more reticent before if it weren't set up as the way they lived their lives in a city even more hung up on the etiquette of its social structure than the real thing. It'll take time to get there, even with their head start, but why keep cards off the table now. It's a place he'd like to get.

And something about the way Wash looks at him makes it feel like there's no point not being honest with something he'd manage to draw out of him anyway. He smiles, slow, as Wash's voice drops lower.]


And, if it's okay, I think I'd like to get to know the real you, too. [Inside or outside of the power dynamics - though there's something undeniably appealing about going out with them still in play, for the most part Dick would like to take his time learning who Wash really is, behind the codename and the veneer of command. He has a feeling that might be the real challenge.]
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[personal profile] covert 2022-02-17 01:05 pm (UTC)(link)
[Well, he is a detective. Among other things.]

I can start. I've been a police officer, but I was born an acrobat.

[Because if there's fresh information to give someone, why not start with the part where you can get your ankles behind your head? He'd ached for days after that strange simulation after spending a week moving as if he couldn't fly. He even sits more lightly now, holding himself in a way that suggests a keen natural awareness of every movement, of his place in every space.

Speaking of places, Wash had asked him a question before they met today, which Dick recognised as the test it was. Though he'd suggested a buffer - this coffee shop, a place to feel each other out before feeling anything else - it still warrants an answer.

He finishes his coffee, first.]


And your place is fine by me.
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[personal profile] covert 2022-02-17 01:32 pm (UTC)(link)
And here I thought you were a travel agent. [Agent Washington. He's right about being easy to peg, on that front at least. A touch of amusement still tucked into the corners of his mouth, Dick signals his agreement to moving somewhere else by reaching to untuck his scarf from a pocket and wrapping it loosely round his neck.]

I've also been a docker. Bartender. Croupier. Museum Curator. Gym teacher in a British girls' boarding school.

[Which was a front for the international espionage he - Agent 37 - was actually working for. He stands up, reaching for his coat.]

It's less a trajectory than a pin-ball machine. But I'm always an acrobat.
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[personal profile] covert 2022-02-17 02:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Sometimes it feels like it.

[But he's not at the point of finding out five years of his life got stolen just yet. It all, somehow, just fits.]

Especially after working with teenage girls. I've met tigers that were easier to handle. [That much is entirely true, it's impressive he never sprouted grays. But, leaving out all his real work, he's aware it sounds like a lot. He follows Wash into the street still tugging an arm through his sleeve - hat caught between two fingers.] A few of those didn't last out a month. But there are days I need to remind myself I'm just coming up on twenty-four.

[Next month, in fact.]
Edited 2022-02-17 14:08 (UTC)
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[personal profile] covert 2022-02-17 02:43 pm (UTC)(link)
[Dick knows the public housing well, although the Up not so much as the Down. He still has a place in the down apartments he uses to monitor new arrivals. It's not so easy to do with the security the higher levels have in place, but there are ways and means.]

I like thirty-seven on you.

[He offers it simply, with an upward sideways glance. Most of the people Dick gets involved with are older - call it a natural inclination for someone who never really got to be a kid. Most people his age feel impossibly young and unformed, or all too breakable. He looks for people who've withstood a few storms. In simple terms, he'd find Wash attractive across a crowded bar. Knowing something of him only helps.

He doesn't ask about the military, not just yet. It's being out of it that catches him - like Wash, he's more out of service right now than he's ever been and it makes him feel slightly crazy.]


And got pulled out to somewhere like this? I think the lack of purpose might have me crawling out of my skin.
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[personal profile] covert 2022-02-17 03:14 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm pretty good at making work for idle hands.

[Whatever that might say about him. He hasn't stopped working here - he spends nights staking out the gangs in the down or watching those in the up who have let power go a little too much to their heads. But all of it is chump change to what he's used to. Even the villains trapped here seem to have had their teeth removed.

The one thing he'd like to fight - the city itself - hasn't given him an in yet. It feels all too much like he's banging his head against a brick wall.]


But yes.

[The elevator arrives with a jingle and the doors open empty. Dick steps in first - a liberty perhaps - leaning back against one mirrored corner, so the walls reflect him in three different angles.]

Bored as hell, all the time.
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[personal profile] covert 2022-02-17 05:01 pm (UTC)(link)
[It's certainly one way to start, and Dick would have been disappointed if Wash hadn't taken the initiative here. His height is good, just one more way to crowd Dick in even as he stretches up to meet him, the kiss just as demanding from Dick's side. Wash tastes familiar even under the bitter twist of the drink, setting up an easy flood of memories of every other time Dick's had his mouth on him. He tastes better non-hallucinatory.

Dropping the hat for lost on the floor of the elevator, Dick hitches his hands into Wash's belt, pulling him in enough to press up against, while his fingertips dip under to find the heat of his skin.

He tilts his head back, just a fraction, as the doors behind them seal shut.]


How many floors?
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[personal profile] covert 2022-02-18 02:09 am (UTC)(link)
[Dick murmurs eight back against Wash's mouth before licking his way into it, too much want in him to be gentle about it - he kisses like it's a demand and a plea all at once. He's more than pliant about being pulled in flush against him, already half hard where his hips jut up against the other man's thigh.

It's a keen reminder that he's never had Wash completely. He's been splayed out, all holes used, but not in the way he craved. Perhaps because he craved it. The thought's almost painful - he makes a small, tight sound at the back of his throat as his hands finally slip up under Wash's shirt - blunt nails digging into his back. At this point he's not quite sure how he didn't just climb over the table back at the shop.]
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[personal profile] covert 2022-02-18 12:49 pm (UTC)(link)
[Dick stays right where he's put even after Wash turns away, blinking back a little of a pleasant kind of shell shock, hard and horny and somehow already frustrated. He stays put because his first and keenest impulse is to get on Wash's heels and press him straight up against the opposite wall.

Instead he lets out a rush of breath, one word a whisper at the end of it.]


Fuck.

[Then, finally, he rocks forward on his heels and follows at a trot, the impulse not quite gone, but on a leash for the moment. He's caught up to Wash by his apartment door, leaning in against him as he works the lock. He's lighter - a little giddier - that he was, a smile lingering at the corners of his mouth.]

So why do you still live in assigned housing? Nice neighbors? Hot neighbours? Just into the whole utilitarian thing?
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[personal profile] covert 2022-02-18 05:48 pm (UTC)(link)
[It's interesting to note where they're different and the same. Dick is messy - all his apartments have been a fascinating collection of boxes and trash. But they've also never been homes. Even the loft he's in now is home because of the people - not the amount of his belongings kept there. If it came down to that he'd never have had a home at all and, as a kid growing up in a travelling circus, then an orphan in a home that didn't fit who he was, that's something that feels almost natural to him by now.

The mess, though. The mess would drive Wash crazy.]


The only person here from my world is my brother. Which is about as complicated as it sounds.

[And another brother, from another world. And another him from yet another. It's enough to give a person an identity crisis.

Dick assesses the room quickly and automatically. He doesn't need to register the exits - all the apartments here are the same and he's been in enough to know. He does look for the kind of place someone might store a weapon. Anywhere set up where someone might be concealed. Automatic. The large windows make the room feel overlooked, but that's not something Dick thinks he's likely to complain about.

He sheds his coat, noting where they hang, and steps forward to offer to take Wash's from him - the surroundings losing his attention as his focus settles back where it's been pulled the whole time. There's no other priority but re-familiarizing himself with Wash - if it takes starting from his boots and working up. But, for all the back and forth over it before, he doesn't kneel.

He doesn't do anything he hasn't been told.]


I missed you. Do I get to show you how much?

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