- Let down my guard tonight | I just don't care anymore -
SOUNDTRACK
PART 2 | PART 4
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It was two weeks into the job, and he was towelling his hair after a shower when his pager went off for the first time.
The shriek he heard on the other end of the line when she answered his call nearly caused him to trip right over as he tried to tug on a pair of jeans while cradling his phone between his shoulder and face at the same time.
“Where are you?”
“At home – oh, god, could you come help me? Quick!”
Her voice made him want to jump out of his own skin with anxiety. “Are you able to move?”
“What? Yes! Of course I can move!”
“Go somewhere safe. Leave the apartment if you have to. Close the door. Call nine-one-one.”
“Wait, why – “ she shrieked again, and Jakob dropped the phone this time, cursing as he snatched a clean shirt from a hanger in his wardrobe and picked up the phone to hear the tail end of a babbling string of words. “- could be! Could you just come, please? Please!”
“Stay calm. I’m on my way.”
Dragging his damp hair into an elastic, he pulled on his boots, grabbed his baton, jacket, helmet and keys and all but ran out the door.
The lift in her building took an eternity to perform its function and when it finally opened on her floor, he charged straight out, key card at the ready, jabbing the pin code in before shoving the door open.
“Corrin!”
The apartment was empty.
“Jakob!”
Her bedroom door burst open and she barrelled at him so quickly, he wasn’t ready, staggering almost back out the door and dropping his helmet and baton as she threw her arms around his waist.
“What,” he spluttered, stunned into awkward inactivity as he tried to figure out what to do with his arms.
“You came!”
She beamed, as though she honestly thought he wouldn’t. To his relief, she let go of his waist and grabbed his arm instead, pointing into the kitchen.
“Now go kill it.”
“What?” He repeated.
“The spider! I said there was a spider – and I lost track of it, I don’t know where it is, please, just get rid of it, please.”
Jakob gaped at her. “I thought you were being attacked.”
“I was! By a spider!”
“You –“ He shut his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face, torn between laughing and groaning out loud. He settled for sighing instead. “You can’t call my pager for things like this.”
Corrin actually pouted, and he wanted to shake her, frustration, and strangely, affection assailing him all at once.
“I’m sorry,” she apologised, looking down at her feet like a child that had been caught doing something wrong.
“It’s… it’s all right.” Something in him relented, a weight lifting from him as he settled into the realisation that she wasn’t in any imminent danger and he gently patted her shoulder with his free hand. “I suppose it’s what I do. Protect you. Even if it is… from a spider.”
She gave him a small smile and then jabbed a finger in the direction of the kitchen again.
His arm was quickly released as he stepped into the tiled area. The first thing Jakob noticed was shattered glass on the counter below an open cupboard.
“Please do not tell me you threw a glass at it.”
“I threw a glass at it!” Her voice came from the living area and he turned to see her standing nervously behind her coffee table, a distance unnecessarily far from where he stood. “Don’t judge me!”
He couldn’t hold back a small snort of amusement.
“Are you laughing at me?”
“No.”
He peered into the cupboard and there it was, wedged in a corner just behind the door, dark grey and hairy all over with alarmingly long legs.
“Your aim is miserable.”
“I panicked, okay?”
He picked up another glass from the shelf. “Clearly.”
Carefully, he hovered the opening of the glass over the spider, trying to gauge if it would be wide enough to fit over the thing. Perhaps a bit too small.
“Do you have a –“
It jumped.
Corrin screamed, and Jakob leapt a mile, a yelp of shock escaping him as he dropped the glass and frantically brushed at his shoulder where it landed. Again, she screamed as it tumbled to the floor and started to dart away and Jakob thought fuck it, and stomped down on it as hard as he could.
For a long, long moment, neither of them spoke.
It was Corrin who broke the silence by starting to giggle.
“You… you…” she couldn’t form the words, overwhelmed with laughter as she doubled over, her arms folded over her stomach.
Jakob could only sigh, huffing a small laugh himself at the ridiculousness of the entire scene.
“Broom,” he requested and Corrin staggered towards the laundry, howling uncontrollably.
She returned with a dustpan as well, and a less hysterical edge to her voice and tried to start sweeping, but Jakob took the items from her and pointed her out of the way.
“The sound you made!” She perched on a stool at the counter and tried to imitate him, waving her arms in a goofy, exaggerated manner and starting to laugh all over again. “I would have never expected that from you.”
He shook his head and continued to sweep. “I suppose I’ll leave you to deal with it yourself next time, then?”
Corrin propped her chin in her hands and watched him clean, seeming remarkably content now that the threat had been eliminated. “Thank you for coming,” she said, her voice softer. “I know this isn’t part of the job description. I just… I didn’t know who else to call.”
He located the bin in the corner and dumped the spider and the shards of broken glass. “I don’t mind.” And he realised that he truly didn’t. He glanced at his watch only to find that it wasn’t there, having been left behind in the rush to get here. The digital display on Corrin’s fridge read eleven minutes past seven. “Technically, I’m still on duty.”
“Well, thank you, Jakob, for doing your duty.”
He tucked the broom back into the handle of the dustpan, a thought occurring to him. While he was here, he felt like doing something else outside of his job description.
“Have you had dinner?”
Corrin’s eyes widened in what he was starting to recognise as her playful expression. “Are you asking me out? You know that’s against the rules.”
He forced himself to refrain from smiling, even though her teasing made him want to cover his face with his hands and just grin from ear to ear.
“No, Miss Nohr, I’m asking you if you have eaten, and if not, I’d like to know what you intend to do about it.”
“No and nothing.” She folded her arms. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing,” he deadpanned, walking out of the kitchen and to the laundry to return the dustpan and broom. He felt her watch him, staring as he picked up and collapsed his baton, scooped up his helmet and headed for the door. As he pulled it open, he turned back.
“I’m joking. Get your keys, I’m going to make you dinner.”
The smile that replaced her look of dismay lit up the entire room.
---
“What is the simplest thing you know how to make?”
Corrin watched in interest as Jakob added a bunch of basil to their trolley.
“Cup noodles,” she replied honestly. “Tea.”
Jakob cast her a sidelong glance. “Do you really want to tell an Englishman that you know how to make tea?”
“Fine,” she rolled her eyes. “Cup noodles.”
He picked up and inspected a large onion. “Well, by the time I’m done today, the simplest thing you’ll know how to make will be this.”
Corrin gave him a small, uncomfortable laugh. “You’re pretty confident for someone dealing with a person who has never cooked in her life.”
“How have you survived this long on your own without cooking?” He pulled a tray of beef mince from the cold shelf and was wheeling the trolley past the rest of the cold and frozen foods when the display reminded him of the expired eggs in her fridge.
“Do you actually eat eggs?”
She stared at him, wide-eyed. “I have eggs?”
He chose to leave them alone for today.
Down another aisle, he pointed out a jar of tomato paste for her to retrieve and then, further along, some dried pasta. She wasn’t quite tall enough and he watched fondly for a moment as she stood on the tips of her toes and attempted to nudge it down, before reaching up to grab it for her.
“Ah, thanks.” She stepped quickly out of the way and almost knocked over a row of rotini. “Sorry, sorry!” She grasped at the falling bags, scrambling to straighten the display.
It seemed that there was never a dull moment around Corrin Nohr.
The groceries amounted to two bags of items that Corrin insisted she pay for despite the fact that Jakob had been the one to suggest they go shopping.
“You shouldn’t be doing this anyway,” she pointed out.
“You make it sound like a violation of terms.”
She waved a hand, mumbling something about a bad idea.
Back at the apartment, Jakob showed her how to cut an onion.
She took to the task with enthusiasm, but frightening recklessness.
“Stop, stop –“
He quickly reached around her to take her hands.
“You’re going to lose a finger if you do that.” He gently bunched her fingertips together and moved them to rest on top of the onion. “Keep them where you can see them. Like a claw.”
Suddenly, she pulled her hands away, scattering bits of onion as she ducked under his arm and darted behind him.
“I don’t like this, it stings!”
Concerned, he turned to check on her. “Are you all right?”
Her face was bright pink and she sniffled as her eyes watered. “Yeah… I’m sorry. Maybe I should do something else.”
He got her to boil pasta.
Corrin helped him put together the rest of the sauce, obediently following his instructions and otherwise hovering just out of the way. As he finished, he beckoned her to come closer, dipping a clean spoon into the pot.
“Always taste.” He blew on the spoon and offered it to her. “Remember that this is being added to –“
Whatever he meant to say vanished from his mind, his chain of thought snapped cleanly apart as he watched her lips close around the spoon, her tongue dart out to catch the sauce at the corner of her mouth.
“It’s a little salty.”
“Yes,” he agreed, feeling breathless.
Bad. Bad, badbad, this was a mistake.
But it was salvageable, he thought, dropping the spoon in the sink. He could let her eat, clean up quickly and just leave before –
“Would you like a glass of wine?”
No. No.
“I at least know that Merlot can be paired with a red pasta sauce. Camilla taught me that.”
She smiled proudly, and Jakob would have rather dug the damn spider back out of the glass-ridden trash and swallowed it than said no.
Corrin wandered off to retrieve the bottle, leaving him with no choice but to serve a dinner for two.
Determined to eliminate the suggestion that this was in any way enjoyable, Jakob sat quietly across from her at the dining table, carefully directing his gaze at the view, but she was like a beacon even against the brilliant city skyline, irresistibly distracting. Corrin had a talent for conversation, and two glasses of wine in, Jakob was telling her things not even his colleagues, whom he had worked with for years, knew of.
“How long have you been in security for?”
“Two… three years.” Brief answers, no detail. Don’t get too involved.
“What did you do before that?”
“I was a Lieutenant for the Royal Marines.”
“The British military!” She took a long sip of her wine, sitting up straight with attentive interest. “Why did you leave?”
It was his turn to drink deeply from his glass. “Personal reasons.”
“Okay, I won’t ask. But it must have been really personal for you to leave the country entirely.”
He let a mouthful of pasta be his excuse for avoiding a reply.
“So are your family all in England?”
For the briefest of moments, he considered being a jerk. But she was refilling his glass with a gentle smile, and it couldn’t hurt, surely, to just tell her. He had to spend so much time with her anyway, it would be better to sate her curiosity than maintain this clinical indifference.
“I have no family. My parents abandoned me when I was very young.”
“Oh,” her face fell. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. It doesn’t matter much to me.”
“Still,” she said more to herself than in reply, “it must have been lonely.”
He shrugged. “I’m used to it.”
He was drinking too fast. He felt warm when Corrin stared at him and the way the soft lights caught her hair made him a little disoriented, almost dizzy.
God, the flush of wine in her cheeks made her look so –
“I think I’ve had too much,” he muttered.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she stood, coming around the table to take him by the arm, and it didn’t make much sense, but he let her lead him to her sofa and sat down, feeling strangely comfortable as she sat next to him and turned on the television.
“Penguins,” she announced, indicating with the remote, the documentary on screen.
They were such ridiculous animals, absolutely not made for movement on land, and he might have said so, because she laughed, and the sound went straight to his head, down into his chest where it beat like bird trying to escape.
“Hey,” she said softly, as the commercials came on, “I’m sorry if I brought up some bad memories.”
Jakob sighed. “Don’t apologise. You apologise too much.”
“Sorry,” she repeated, and giggled to herself. “But thanks for telling me. I can’t believe you were a Lieutenant. I guess that’s why you have such good posture.”
“You notice strange things.”
She nodded slowly. “I’m good at that.”
The low drone of the television was soothing, and Jakob felt his head slowly clearing the longer he sat there. It would be a while before he could comfortably take his bike, but it was getting late, and the time at which it should have been appropriate for him to leave had come and gone. With a yawn, he made to stand, and froze.
Corrin had fallen asleep, her legs tucked beneath her and her head tilted sideways against the back of the sofa, as if she had drifted off while watching him. Her cheeks were still pink, her lips parted slightly as her chest rose and fell with deep breaths and her eyelids fluttered as she felt Jakob move beside her.
“No,” she murmured, reaching for him, her arm falling about his waist, and with a heady rush he knew was not the wine, Jakob realised with sudden, startling clarity that he was trapped.
Caught beneath her unknowing embrace, tangled in the thought of her kind eyes and gentle laugh.
And to his absolute horror, he didn’t want to ever be set free.
Since I’ve drawn badges of male Robin and Corrin, and I figured I would go ahead and draw their female counterparts. This was actually my first time ever drawing female Robin, and my second time drawing female Corrin! I also included Lysithea, that way this little group would be all white haired girls! I’m only going to do six badges in this batch, so I should be able to start coloring them soon!
