du_vallon | (no subject)

(no subject)

With the good news at hand, Porthos has been wanting to celebrate quietly. It's not that he doesn't want to shout it from the rooftops because he does, but he's also read plenty of books that talk about how dangerous things can be for the first while. It's why he wants to take this a touch slow, make sure that he's not rushing to scream it. Still, he wants to tell someone and of all his mates, he knows Nikita will guard a secret like no tomorrow.

It's why he's invited her for a drink at the Tintern, setting beers on the table with pleasure as he takes a seat to wait for her. Maybe he can't tell everyone, but this is a good start. Besides, soon he'll have to start thinking about things like parties and baby proofing and his life is going to change as he knows it.

He doubts he'll get nearly enough time for drinking, then.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I'll do my best," Nikita told him, because she couldn't promise that she would, but she would try. That was all she could do, knowing that she couldn't know the future or the questions that might come up in it eventually.

"There are things I probably won't ever want to talk about."

"Then you just say that," Porthos says. "And so long as you're not actively keeping me in the dark about anything, then I'll accept it." It's not like he's very good at lying, so he doesn't really get to this the other way. He's lived his life being honest as he can be.

"Just don't lie to me about important things."

"I'll agree, but you'll probably have to tell me what the important things are for you," she admitted. "I've got some ideas, but if something's important, you might have to tell me that if I can't figure it out."

She thought she probably could, but knew that there were times when she'd been utterly startled by what others considered important.

"Things that might affect me. Us. Things that could put your life at risk," he says, thinking of Aramis telling him about the secrets he'd kept from Porthos at home and not wanting to repeat any of that here, no matter who it's with. "If there's something in your past you don't think I need to know because it won't impact us? Then, keep your secrets."

"I appreciate that," Nikita said honestly. "I appreciate that you're not demanding that I tell you everything right now. And I think I can agree that if it would affect our friendship or how we work together, I'll tell you."

If something put her life at risk but not his, she was a little less likely to tell him about it, but if it would put both of them at risk, she could agree that it was something he should know about.

"Good," he says firmly, because that's what matters most to him. "I know that sometimes, lies can't be avoided, but at the same time, I believe in honesty," he says, insistent and firm. "I know that sometimes, other people don't follow the same beliefs." It's still important, though, because it shows that people make an earnest opinion.

"Most people don't," she agreed. "God, you would never have survived there, no matter how good you can fight. Everyone was lying. To themselves, to each other, to the world. Lies upon lies."

And it had been soul killing, so he had a point about not liking lies.

He probably wouldn't have done well. He can do subterfuge and sneaking around, he's excellent at the spying, but when it comes to deceit, he can manage if it's for a job, but the minute that personal comes into the balance and lies are involved, it makes him ache a little, being dishonest and awful.

"Good thing I'm here then, yeah? Besides, Athos and Aramis are good at the whole straight-faced thing when they're lying. I just stood behind 'em and let them do it."

Nikita considered what she knew of Athos and Aramis and then chuckled.

"Well, Athos doesn't smile at any point, so I guess he'd be good at being straight-faced. Aramis, I could see either being straight-faced or so smooth that you wouldn't even notice the lie."

"He's too charming for his own good," Porthos remarks pleasantly, like he's complimenting the man instead of being wryly aware of some of his dear husband's little faults. "But it's good. In a bad situation, it's good to know I've got them at my side. And if lying doesn't work, then my fists come into play."

"That seems reasonable," Nikita agreed. "Ah, damn, I just realized something. Probably not going to be able to convince you I don't have some needed fighting skill if you want me to help with vampires or the street kids, am I?"

She said it lightly, but she also knew that Porthos would probably actually reject any future denials of skills if she tried it.

"Next time I've got trouble at the centre, you're not gonna get away with not helping break it up, no," he agrees. "Ditto for anything hunt related. Is that a bad thing?" he wonders, because if it's him, he'd just be happy to have a little fun and burn off a lot of energy doing it.

She moved a hand in a equivocal gesture. His question was one that several had asked here, especially when she'd been at fight club. Her answer was a little more honest to him than to anyone else, though.

"I'm trained to hide my skills. People start asking questions about how someone learned to fight if they're good at it. You did, remember? And I like being just a restaurant owner. I didn't ever want to be good at fighting and killing people in the first place."

Edited 2016-04-02 03:43 (UTC)

"You can be good at fighting and not have a secret past," Porthos points out. "I see plenty of women at the gym who could take me on and after talking to 'em, I found out that it's their hobby. Or maybe this place is just a little better about that."

"Yeah, maybe I'll invent an interest in kickboxing or something," she mused. "Gotta have some way to explain to your kid why the owner of the restaurant that always gives them free pie also goes to the gym with Papa, yeah?"

Honestly, she'd probably continue to keep it all to herself rather than anything else. But she would give his kid free pie.

That gets a starry-eyed, stunned smile out of Porthos. He's only just heard about the good news, but the amazement that he's going to be a father is sinking in. Hypotheticals and inevitabilities have yet to hit home, so the notion of Nikita giving free pie to his child is something he never even considered.

"When he or she is old enough, I'll start bringing them around to the gym myself. Can't have Athos and Aramis teaching them fitness, can I?"

"God, I don't even want to think about their idea of how to teach a kid fitness and fighting would be."

She actually thought they'd do a good job. They were both good fighters and knew some of the little details of fighting that might not seem so obvious to anyone who wasn't a fighter. But it would definitely give the kid a different style if either of them taught someone to fight.

"Athos gets to teach the kid how to swordfight. Aramis gets pistols. I get the hand to hand," he says proudly. "And I'll probably be asking you and Tris and Allison if it's a girl, to help me show ways for her to hurt a man without being as bulky as, say, me."

"Tris will be really good for that," Nikita agreed. "She's closer to the height of the average woman, so the way she'd toss people uses her height - or lack thereof - to her advantage. I'm almost too tall for that. I have to watch out for it in my classes because I've got longer arms and legs than half the people in there."

She had never thought she'd be able to analyze her fighting style and its strengths and weaknesses, but that was before Section.

"I've never known fighting as a short person," he reminds her, gesturing to his bulk as he lets out a mild snort. "Not that it's ever been an issue. People usually see me coming and I don't need to do anything so much as just stand there and loom. It gets me my way," he says proudly.

"Yeah, it doesn't work that way for most women," she noted with a laugh and a shrug. "I don't loom very well."

Actually she could loom decently well, but only if she combined it with an expression that had made more than one grown man start babbling at her. Porthos had never seen the full version of it and there was a reason for that.

"Nah, don't lie," Porthos chides and gives her an amused look, seeing as he's plenty sure that she can loom with the best of them. "You could scare anyone, really, if you put your mind to it."

Just for fun, Nikita gave Porthos about a half-strength version of the look that had sometimes caused Russian vor to suddenly decide they needed to be elsewhere. It had made quite a few men decide not to harass the blonde teenager, too.

Then she went back to her normal expression.

"Like that?"

"I mean, it doesn't scare me, but I've seen some extremely scary women." Milady, for one, and Constance when she's in a foul mood (though the latter is amusing to him because he's typically never on the receiving end of her anger). "Anyone else? They'd be shaking in their boots."

"I bet you have. Okay, so, that's on the list to teach any daughter you might have too," she laughed.

"Tris has her own version of that. It's a little different, but it's pretty damn scary too."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only