hiii so i've been writing drabbles as a little palate cleanser after i post a chapter of my fic - so have this film noir-inspired au, with private eye!oscar and femme fatale!lando <3
oh and they're both girls :)
Oscar hates it when clients smoke in her office.
Poor habit in general, smoking. So many things out there that can kill you, and you’ll let a nicotine stick do the job?
But she’s gotta hand it to this one—she looks good doing it. As she sits across from Oscar, sucking intermittently on a slim Vogue, her dress doesn’t leave much to the imagination. It’s an expensive, emerald green number, and a smooth expanse of tanned thigh peeks out from the slit where she's crossed her legs.
But Oscar’s nothing if not a professional, so she flips open her notepad. “And when did you first suspect this was happening?”
It only used to take Oscar thirty seconds to read a complete stranger, back when she still had a badge. This one had taken ten, at most, when she’d pushed the door open after Logan buzzed her in.
Lando—she’d introduced herself, and her last name was only confirmation of the obvious: she has money. Loads of it, and not the kind that opens doors but the kind that makes you incapable of imagining what a closed one even looks like.
Although that might have something to do with her face, too. Oscar had clocked it the way she’d clock a poorly concealed weapon. Dangerous, beauty like that, depending on who wields it.
The next thing she'd noticed had been the ring, a thin golden band around her finger.
Which brings them to the issue at hand.
“Few weeks ago, detective,” Lando says, releasing a thick spiral of smoke. There’s a carmine stain around the filter of her cigarette. She tilts her head. “Should I call you detective?”
Oscar gives her a close-lipped smile. “Just Oscar will do.” She’s not a real detective, after all, not anymore.
“Os-cah,” she sounds it out, teasingly imitating Oscar’s pronunciation. “Quite a charming accent you’ve got, there.”
With her free hand, Lando’s twirling a thick, dark curl around a finger. She watches Oscar through her eyelashes, and her eyes are sparkling, intense.
It makes Oscar feel like prey.
“Respectfully, Mrs. Button—“
“Lando,” she interrupts, with a crinkle of her nose.
“—Lando.” Oscar taps her pen a few times, mincing her words. “You don’t look too distraught about your husband’s… night-time activities.”
A small laugh, no warmth in it. “Well that’s because I’m not.” Lando leans in, bracing her delicate wrists on the mahogany desk between them. This close, Oscar can smell her perfume, a woody, musky scent. “Couldn’t fault him for that, could I? Not when I’ve got my own ways of keeping myself busy, while he’s out and about.”
Oscar swallows. “I see. Why come to me, then, if you don’t want a divorce?”
“Oh, no." Lando widens her eyes. "I do want a divorce.”
“I said I don’t mind the cheating, 's all. If anything, the cheating’s a good thing. Because you,“ Lando nudges Oscar’s forearm, a fleeting touch, “are about to get me some evidence not even Jenson’s lawyers can argue with.”
“I haven’t taken your case yet,” Oscar points out, matter-of-factly.
“Oh, but you will,” Lando says, sitting back. “You see, I’m very persuasive, when I wanna be."
Oscar’s got no doubt about that.
Hm. It's tempting. She’s been needing a win, something to restore her confidence, and this seems like a simple enough case. It’s her bread and butter, after all, helping rich, unhappy wives catch their unfaithful husbands in the act.
So why does it feel like she’s in over her head?