fandomtownies | The Perk - Wednesday Morning

Eliot didn't go out for coffee that often, but when he did, he ordered the most expensive damn stuff the place sold that didn't involve syrups.

The Perk didn't exactly traffic in kopi luwak -- or any other similarly, uh, processed varieties -- but they did keep some Jamaican Blue Mountain around, which was fine enough for Eliot.

He waved to Vic as he waited for his drink. "Should be careful," he said. "Wrong type of person'd have no problem taking advantage of a cop's known coffee habits."

"I don't make it a habit of coming here," Vic protested. "Usually I just drink the folger's crystals instant coffee with powdered creamer."

She didn't be she figured that was good for one lecture on how what she was drinking wasn't real coffee.

Or at the very least a groan and a hard eye roll. "Were you born without a sense of taste? Is that what's going on here?"

Vic let out a small chuckle before taking a sip of her drink. "Kidding. Just seeing what kind of lecture I'd get from you," she answered. "Though when you work in a police station you're usually forced to choke down whatever they have brewed at the community coffee pot."

"You should try the crap they give you in Balkan prison," Eliot said, shaking his head. "Makes you appreciate bein' able to get your hands on the good stuff."

"Balkan prison?" Vic asked with a head tilt. "And how exactly did you end up in a Balkan prison?"

"Back in my black-ops days," Eliot said. "Was liberating Croatia. Not everyone liked that."

"Then I guess the better question would be: How did you get out of the Balkan prison?" Vic asked with a raised eyebrow. "Or is that top secret?"

"Not so much top secret as just a long story." One that landed Eliot very, very firmly on the "bad guy" end of the spectrum. "Let's just say I don't recommend going to war as a way to deal with a break-up."

"I'm more of a go to a shooting range and then eat a tub of ice cream kind of girl," Vic said half-jokingly. "Kind of curbs the urge to join the military and go to war instinct."

She took a long sip of coffee while looking at Eliot. "She must have been some woman to make you go to the Balkans."

"That and a half," Eliot agreed. "She and her dad actually ended up bein' some of my team's first clients."

"Oh? And what did you do for them?" Vic asked curiously. And then smirked "Or are you going to clam up on me again?"

"I'm discreet," Eliot said, giving her another eye-roll. "Aimee's dad's a horse trainer. One of the owners he was workin' for decided he wasn't makin' enough money on the venture and decided to liquidate his assets." You know, the horses. "My team made sure his insurance claim didn't go through and got the family set up with their own horse to start a new stable with."

How they did all that? That'd be the bit he wouldn't be keen on telling a cop about.

"When you say liquidate you mean kill the horses, right?" Vic qualified. "Jesus. What an a-hole."

She sat back and took another gulp of her coffee. "Please tell me the jerk did some time for that."

"I mean he set fire to the stable with all of the horses still in it. Only one of them survived." Eliot would have liked to do more than put that guy in jail, especially when he was so fresh and new to the whole "good guy" thing again. "Didn't manage to prove any of that, but we did ruin his career and bankrupt the bastard."

"Too bad Walt wasn't around," Vic said with an amused look. "He would have just shot him. He's not much on due process."

Especially when it came to family and horses.

"Yeah, we been tryin' to avoid doing that." What with being "good guys" and all. And, you know, mostly because Eliot didn't do guns. "We've had a lot of success with the 'bankrupt 'em and make sure they never work again' model."

Vic sat back for a second and gave Eliot a long look.

"And when you say bankrupt... Do you mean they lose everything? Or do they somehow survive financially to screw up other peoples' lives?"

And before Eliot could respond she added: "And before you say anything this is off the record."

Eliot raised an eyebrow at that one. He'd had his guesses about just how closely Vic followed the law on a personal level, already. It was interesting to get further hints about it.

"I mean we take them for every goddamn thing they've got and funnel it back to their victims. We leave 'em with nothing -- and usually the police or FBI breathin' down their necks. If they're really canny and determined, they could come back from it -- it's happened before." Goddamn Dubenich. "Most of 'em, though, they're never going to hurt anyone again."

Vic drummed her fingers on the table a bit. "And what do you get out of it?"

As soon as the words came out of her mouth she was shaking her head and holding up her hand to stop him from talking.

"Never mind. I don't want to know."

She pursed her lips in thought. "You guys only work on the coast? Or do you go wherever the target is?"

Good. That meant Eliot didn't have to roll out the line about having an "alternative revenue stream".

"We'll go wherever we need to. There was one job where we rigged a movie set in Serbia to take out a former porn star's fake orphanage operation." Eliot shook his head with a fond smile. "Never could watch her movies the same way again."

"Hmph."

Yes you were silently being judged for talking about your porn habits.

Or not so silently really but the look Vic was sending your way probably spoke volumes.

"Please tell me the kids weren't being abused in any way."

Eliot's expression took on a hint of melancholy. "They were war orphans being kept in a warehouse and dangled like carrots in front of American couples desperate to adopt," he said. Do you see why he preferred to focus on the part about the porn star, Vic? "We got them out."

Thanks to Parker. That'd been early enough on that Eliot hadn't quite unfrozen enough to care, yet.

Edited 2014-10-30 00:04 (UTC)

Vic's judgemental look slipped to something like grudging respect. "When you hear the terms fake orphanage and porn you typically think the worse," Vic said apologetically. "I wouldn't call what you do strictly legal but... Well, my boss got a confession for murder by unleashing a bear on a suspect. I really can't judge. Especially with results."

Ah. "Fairly sure I mentioned she was a former porn star," Eliot said. "Sometimes it takes a step or two outside the law to get stuff done. Otherwise, you just end up tied up in congressional hearings while a city gets hit by a manufactured plague."

Okay, now he was kind of bragging.

"Like being a retired porn star make it better," Vic smirked. "And you're just pulling my leg about the plague, right?"

Eliot smirked. "Sure."

"Hmm. Mysterious," Vic smirked back. "That doesn't worry me at all."

"If it makes you feel better, it was a really deadly flu rather than the actual plague."

Considering that the flu still regularly killed people while the bubonic plague responded to antibiotics, maybe not.

The Perk - Wednesday Morning

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