“It’s one of those hipster places. I found it on Instagram.” It was a slight lie, the people who ran the place constantly sent her messages on Atlas’ Instagram account asking to come for a bite. She’d gotten a few free meals before from them, which was worth it, but she’d never been there in the dark of the night. “They’ve got a ton of after midnight specials and nothing beats cheap good food. It’s like a pound for their ‘Leaning Tower of Toast’.”
Here, she hadn’t seen Peter so bold. He had beaten her to the punch, and once again, he had surprised her. It was unsettling, a feeling that threatened to make her even more paranoid than she had been before. He was obviously anxious, obviously scared, was he putting on an act? Was he scared because he was caught? Did he not realize that technically, she had been caught too? Hopefully not. She didn’t need to deal with another person KNOWING and having that power over her.
Inspecting him for a few moments, she noticed more than she had before – a definite mistake on her part. Had she been doing her job well? Had she? It’d been impeccable, in her eyes, she’d gotten this far but had she paid attention to certain people more than others? It was apparent then that she had as she just stared him down, hoping that the more she did the more she’d understand ( osmosis, possibly? ) – to no avail. “But I’ll hand it to you, you’ve got BALLS, Pettigrew,” Dorcas scoffed, laughing lightly, the steely expression now broken only because it came as such a surprise that he was so forward. She felt the tension palpable in the air, the fear, and knew that this situation could south at any moment – she needed to find a way to diffuse it first.
“D’you like fish and chips?” Looking back down at the menu, Dorcas suddenly had the urge to buy everything on the menu. “I’ll buy whatever you want, just cool it with the cloak and dagger language nonsense ‘til I’ve eaten and I’m able to cast a silencing charm around us just in case your MESSY ARSE tracked in anyone.” Her eyes wandered to the entrances, exits, the windows, each booth, even the air vents. If someone was here, who was following him or her, hopefully they’d think it was either two Death Eaters for a late dinner, two Order members for a late dinner or just two friends possibly under the influence looking for a midnight snack. There was an urge then to think of a cover, to alert Peter to think to a cover, but he was so nervous already she didn’t need to freak him out more – she needed to ease him into this.
“You did look to see if anyone was following you, right?”
Peter immediately regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. He wasn’t confrontational, that was nothing like him-- why was he doing that all of a sudden? Yet, here she was dancing around the topic. Peter only had enough confidence to last him like three minutes of conversation before he needed to curl up and just give in. She could be anything. She could do anything. She could be with him, for him-- he had no fucking clue but it scared the shit out of him.
“Oh-- right,” Peter’s voice was just barely above a mumble. And there it went, all of his confidence oozed into the first words he uttered to Dorcas-- he very quickly returned to his usual state of hunched shoulders, a constant almost scared look, and one hand fiddling with the menu nervously. Was this the kind of thing you were supposed to eat at? Dorcas seemed intent on eating-- then again, did he even have the money to eat? Just order something, just buy food. It looks normal, it makes you look human.
There was this way that she looked at him, some kind of crazy murder look that Peter couldn’t fully put his finger on. She genuinely looked like she was going to murder him. Wonderful, fantastic, awesome. This was it. Peter felt his stomach almost entirely turn upside down, and quickly averted his eyes to the menu. Look at it. Read it. Merlin-- was she still looking at him? No, it’s fine. She was... well, she was complimenting him. Balls. That was a new one, for him at least.
Oh fuck. Peter immediately felt his cheeks go red, but not in the adorable, dorky friend way-- in the ridiculously embarrassed and slightly worried way. “Fuck,” he was mumbling again, and cast a glance behind him. He hadn’t look, he hadn’t even considered that he was being followed. He was so solely focused on Dorcas and whatever she was going to do to him that he hadn’t considered other members. Idiot. “I mean-- yeah, I did. I’m not-- I’m not new to this, I definitely did.” May or may not have admitted to something-- not quite certain what that was, but it was definitely something. “Did you?”