Title: "Feeling Peckish Pt. 2"
Author: Rebecca Bradstreet
Rated: PG
Archive: Sure
Summary: Lori lets Face into her home.
Warning: Language and tears.
Disclaimer/Notes: This is an A-Team/Forever Knight X-Over. Well, it's an A-Team alternate universe with some FK vampires in it. I don't own Templeton "Faceman" Peck or any other members of the A-Team. I also don't own Javier Vachon, Janette or any other Forever Knight characters. I do own Lorelei "Lori" Remillard, and some of her contacts. I am using // as thoughts, and ** as emphasis. It's not beta'd so all mistakes are my own. ;)
"Feeling Peckish Pt. 2"
by Rebecca Bradstreet (c) 2000"Ah, this way I think?" Face headed off in the right direction.
//Mmh…worried you might be the blue plate special? If you come calling on hungry vampires late at night you should worry.// Lori laughed softly to herself, as she trailed behind him.
Lori found him sitting on the bed looking just the right amount of embarrassed. She was tempted to stand silently in the doorway until his embarrassment was real, but instead Lori moved into the room. "You'll never get to see my notes if you insist on sitting on the bed."
"Oh…ah…." Face stood and looked truly embarrassed.
"Just a second," she told him, as she took a remote trigger out of her purse. He watched as Lori triggered a mechanism that moved the bed, and revealed the stairs to her real living quarters.
"Oh my! Very Batman…or…ah…James Bond." He peered down the stairs.
"What can I say? I've never needed money." She placed her hand in the small of his back, and started him down the stairs.
//Or rather, I haven't needed money in so long you don't want to know.// Lori continued to wonder if he knew just what he was getting himself into.
If Face had looked surprised by the stairs, he looked overwhelmed by her home. Lori tried to decide what to say to him as he stood in stunned silence. Then she ventured, "I'm sure you thought you'd searched my whole home, and I'm sure you did search the whole house, but this is where I live."
He swallowed and turned to her, "I don't know where to go from here."
//Lost in more ways than one I'll wager. I'm so hungry, and you smell so good. But I'm not sure you're ready to donate, and I know I'm not ready to ask.// Lori lead him towards her study, and her notes on the case.
"Here are all of my case notes as promised." She waved her hands grandly over the top of her cluttered desk.
"Look them over, see if anything stands out that I may have missed." Lori sat at her desk, and handed Face some of her notes off the top.
Taking the notes, he sat down in the chair opposite her desk. Face flipped through the notes not really looking at them. He made a small effort to say something but abandoned it when she spoke. "I'm going to add Murdock to these notes then you can look at these too."
Face closed his mouth and watched her write. Lori wondered if he'd try speaking again when she handed him the rest of her notes. He remained silent, so she rose telling him, "I'm still rather hungry after the club I'm going to the kitchen excuse me."
//I'm going off to have cold cow's blood, while there is a living breathing man in my study. Why did I let him in, and having let him in why am I walking away?// Lori asked herself as she went to her kitchen, or rather started to go to her kitchen. She decided, whatever Face wanted, she was in for the night, and she was going to get into something more comfortable.
As soon as Lori left the study, Face couldn't hear her anymore. He hadn't been able to hear her coming down the stairs behind him. She was absolutely quiet, and her office had no daytime hours. Her real home and how carefully she hid it, confirmed what her schedule and carefully groomed medical records only suggested. Lorelei Remillard was a vampire, but somehow she didn't scare Face. All he saw was a beautiful woman serious about her job.
//Hannibal was right she's a vampire. He didn't mention how beautiful she is. Can I tell her what I really came here for?// Face asked himself, as he put her case notes back on her desk, and slid back in his chair.
He had sometime to think about the question before Lori reappeared, and she almost crashed his train of thought when she came back in the room. She'd abandoned the outfit she'd been wearing at the club. It had been for dress up, now she was dressed for home. Lori sat down behind her desk in cut off blue jeans and an oversized T-shirt.
"I like that outfit better than the previous one." Face suppressed a smirk.
"I'm home. I'm not going out again. I wear what I like in my home." She didn't add that the cutoffs were a concession to his presence.
//Better hmm? A panda fan, or blue jean? I can't believe I'm letting this man see me in my pandas.// Lori had put on one of her favorite night shirts without thinking about it; without realizing it until Face's eye's had flicked down her front.
He coughed, she smiled, and gathered her case notes together on her desk.
"Lori, the hospital staff was the same as the bystanders at the other kidnappings, unhurt but unable to remember the kidnappings. Lori…I…I was there when whatever happened happened. I mean I know I was, but I don't remember anything between going in to get Murdock, and coming out without him." Face let her see his confusion and frustration.
"Face, Mrs. Benning hired me to find her daughter. Her daughter was stolen from her side at one of her dinner parties. She's tried to get her memories back, and hasn't had any luck. Don't blame yourself." Lori came out from behind her desk to put a hand on Face's shoulder.
He caught her hand with his, and caught her eyes with the blue ones she couldn't resist, "Lori…I…I'm sure you're a vampire. Hannibal thinks the kidnapper is a vampire. Have you tried to get Mrs. Benning's memories back for her? Can you try for me?" Face let her know what he'd really come for.
Lori took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Mrs. Benning had hired her as a hunter's hunter, she expected Lori to find her child, but she wasn't about to trust Lori with her mind. Face wasn't just making a request he was making an offer, and just because he knew what she was didn't mean he knew what he was offering.
"Face, do you know what you're doing? You're not just asking me to help you, you're offering to let me take control of your mind. I can tell you to remember what you've been made to forget. I can tell you to do a lot of other things too." Lori knelt at his feet letting him continue to hold her hand.
He looked at her silently, collected her other hand, and asked, "Mrs. Benning didn't trust you to try did she?"
Lori shook her head, surprised at the tears of hurt the question drew from her. "No, no she didn't trust me to try. She hired me to hunt, not to open her mind."
//I can't believe I'm crying, just because Face is offering me more of his trust than Benning the bitch.// Lori fought to keep a grimace of pain off of her face.
Face pulled her up off the floor, onto his lap, into his arms. She didn't weigh very much. Lori was a slender 5'5" tall red head. Her skin was cool, the war she waged against her tears visible only to the perceptive. He wasn't sure what to say to her.
//It could just be an act, she is a vampire, but I don't think it is -- don't feel it. She isn't a heartless bitch vampire.// Face was glad he'd told her the truth. He'd been at the hospital. He was just gaining her trust, he was glad he hadn't lied to her and hurt her himself. He missed Murdock. The kidnappers had taken his memories of the last time he'd seen him.
"Lori…your smart, and beautiful, and you've been honest and patient. I'm the one who gave your house a thorough once over. I think I know what an untrustworthy character is," Face told her with gentle warmth.
Lori stopped fighting the tears. She cried softly into his shirt. Inspiration had walked into her life, he might help her solve her case, feed her hunger, but right now he was just holding her while she cried.
Face rocked her softly as she cried. //This isn't how I was expecting this to go. Of course it is going better than Hannibal said it might, she hasn't bitten me, or broken any of my bones. I wonder if she'll ask me to stay the day.//
Lori stopped crying slowly. She looked at Face quietly, and he looked back in equal silence. Finally she said, "Thank you, Face," and kissed him.
He wasn't awfully surprised by her words, or the kiss, but he couldn't help thinking, //I can't feel her fangs. I have so much to learn about vampires.//
When Lori broke the kiss and leaned back, he asked her with a tender smile, "Feeling better?"
"Ee...yah," she answered him with a grin that looked as silly as she felt.
//Oh Face, I needed inspiration…but this? I don't know if I have the strength to ask you to stay the day, but I know I can't let you go without asking.// Lori brushed her hair back from her face, and let the fact that she was sitting in his lap sink in.
//I wonder how old she is. She looks 20 or 25, but her paper trail is older than that. She hasn't moved to get back out of my lap. I wonder if she'll get up, or let me carry her to her bed.// Face realized he wanted to find out what her real bed looked like, and he wasn't sorry about it.
Lori held on tight to his jacket, stared into his mesmerizing blue eyes, and asked the question she doubted she could, "Face...do you have to be somewhere today, or can you stay the day?"
Face kissed her. "I was hoping you'd ask that," he told her nose to nose.
Her courage building, she kissed the end of his nose, before she asked with a playful grin, "Does that mean I can get out of these cut offs?"
Face laughed and nodded, "I thought you wear whatever you feel like in your own home?"