Negotiations With Teeth

[ticktockgrin]

Dwayne hates this part of the act. He's pulled just about every con in the game at some time or another, some of them enough times to do them blind without a moment's warning, but this one? It never gets easier, even with the amount of trust involved.

Art items, money, contraband luxuries of all sorts, even drugs and weapons? Sure. Humans? That's one thing he can't stomach.

Next to him, Mira is just as calm as he is, probably calmer because she knows the lock on her silver collar has a quick-release that will let her get it off in half a second.

She's the quickest shifter he knows, maybe because she was turned so young. She's still too damn young... But that's what makes this work so well. The fact that she can do this without losing her shit. After all she's been through she can do the job, control her wolf, and still be rational, reliable, able to have a life outside the perversion and submission that defined her teen years? It's kind of amazing.

She can hold her own, both physically and emotionally, and he can control her if things go bad. Combined with his middle-aged, refined demeanor? They make a good team, and the pack has a lot of faith in them for taking down yet another slave dealer.

He still hates it. But he smiles anyway, genial, professional, and harmless in spite of the huge boxer's build filling out his tailored suit, copper-penny hair and beard trimmed close and neat and not showing even a hint of gray in spite of his forty-five years. A middle-aged businessman, not even a bit out of place in an upscale hotel where a little money buys a lot of discretion.

And the slender young brunette with him? Well, everyone has their indulgences, and all it takes is the right price.

Comments

[ticktockgrin]

Josh is...pretty damn cute when he does that, that look, and Dwayne has a moment of regret that this isn't a big, work-related mess and that he's not, oh, about twenty years younger. He might be a well-preserved forty-six, but he's still probably old enough to be Josh's (well, teenaged unwed, but still) father. The response gets a small smile out of him, and he rubs his palm on his pants. The suit is going to need a good pressing anyway, after the ruffle that it's been through.

He's pretty sure he's even forgiven the fact that Josh punched him in the balls. How's that for easygoing. And now that Dwayne can drop the facade, he does feel a lot better. Acts like this leave him worn-down and tired, because that cruelty and callousness is so against his nature. It takes work to pull that role off, and without fail, it always leaves him drained and a little sick afterward. The weary, practical, somewhat wry man that Josh is talking to now? That's a lot closer to the real Dwayne, though still not his usual genial self. That's a stretch so soon after dealing with scum like the fat man and knowing what he's turning Mira over to. "Some people like the idea, but they get up close with the reality and it's not quite as appealing. Wolves are tough to deal with sometimes, especially when they have a goal in mind, and they can be dangerous."

It's quiet, and matter of fact. Dwayne has over ten years of control under his belt, and he still knows when his wolf can and can't be trusted. And wolf rescue involves working with and rescuing weres a lot less emotionally and physically stable than he is. If Josh wants into an operation that's that up close and personal with the shifters' true nature, then the warning has to be given.

[tinkermoose]

Damn, that smile- The guy had always been objectively hot, but there's something about him now, despite his obvious weariness, and it's not just that Josh now knows he's not a sadistic racist bastard. Or, well, maybe it is at least a little. He doesn't feel dirty looking anymore, anyway, and he smiles back despite his still pounding head. And, hey, he suddenly realizes that he doesn't have to refuse the ginger ale on principle anymore and reaches across to pop it open and take a sip as Dwayne answers him.

"Yeah, well, most people are tough to deal with sometimes, and I grew up around mercenaries and, well-" He ducks his head and frowns, an shamed flush spreading up his neck. "Hunters," he admits, voice going low and pained. He's seen plenty of the wrong side of this trade, and plenty of wolves as well, most of them in pretty damn bad circumstances. "I'm not much bothered by dangerous... and I have some debts to settle." Even if they were mostly accrued by his father, he can't shrug off the weight of them, the knowledge of what the man had done, and where at least some of the money had come from when his 'normal' avenues of employment had begun to tail off as he became more and more erratic.