InsaneJournal

Fic: Take it Down (Baccano!, Graham/Nice)
I uh. Am no longer sure what prompted this pairing. I still really like it, though! And I think it works pretty well, really. ^__^

Also, first try at writing Graham! His voice may still be rough, but I consider this practice. :D

Baccano!, Graham/Nice, 1.2k words. Worksafe.
Nice investigates. Graham is unpredictable, but in a good way. There are explosions, because it's Nice, and there are always explosions.

Take it Down

Nice tries to approach quietly. If no one's in the warehouse, she'll have a look around; if someone is, it might be better to come back later. The door's still open, but the place looks so run-down that doesn't mean anything. It wouldn't do much good to close it anyway, since the hole she blew in the wall the other day is still there.

She edges around the side. She thinks she hears metal scratching sounds inside, but it's hard to—

"Is that you, Jacuzzi Splot?"

Oh well. So much for that plan. Sneaking has never been her style anyway. Nice walks out into view.

"O-ho! No, it's Jacuzzi's clever explosives girl! I don't recall inviting you. What could you be doing out here? Perhaps you've come to apologize for damaging my warehouse? Consumed with unbearable regret that you damaged someone else's property?"

Nice puts a hand on one hip and raises an eyebrow at him. "Considering that you kidnapped our friend, I think any apologies should probably go the other way."

"Aha, firm in your resolve to confront me, with no apologies." He stands, and a screw from whatever he was working on hits the ground with a clink. "That's okay, I wasn't really that bothered about it anyway. It does bother me some, though, that you just blew it up like that. I mean, look! It's just an ugly hole taken out of the wall! You should at least offer me symmetry. Yeah, why don't you do that?"

Nice is quiet until she's sure he's done talking, then realizes that she has no idea what he meant. "What?"

"Heh." He drags his wrench on the ground with a grating sound as he walks over to her, then says, low, "Take down the opposite wall, too."

Nice's fingers twitch before she can help it.

"Or can you not? That would certainly be sad. Did you come here unprepared to do this for me, explosives girl?"

"My name is Nice Holystone," Nice says matter-of-factly, trying to keep her eyes on him and not on the opposite wall. "And of course I'm prepared. But I didn't come—"

"Then do it! Take it down! Destroy it! Knock it down! You want to, don't you? We can talk afterwards. I, Graham Spector, will never turn down the wants of a pretty girl." Graham slings his wrench back over his shoulder with a grin.

Well, of course not, when you suggested it, Nice thinks. But instead of arguing—because how can she argue?—she walks over to the wall, reaching under her shirt for a couple of bombs and her lighter. She rolls them around in her hand while she looks—and yeah, the wall's old and worn on the inside, too, the bricks uneven enough for what she needs.

"You may want to back off," she says, but doesn't wait to hear Graham get out of the way before she lights both fuses at once. One bomb she drops to the ground, off to the side a bit to balance; then she carefully balances the second in place on an outcropping of brick, her heart beating faster as she hears the fuses hiss.

When it stays she moves away quickly, dancing steps backward, not taking her eyes off the lights of the fuses. She judges her distance perfectly, and when they explode—almost at once, the upper one a split second ahead—she can feel some of the heat and dust across her skin, and the concussion booms in her ears.

"Very nice," Graham says, from too close behind her, and Nice jumps. Immediately after, she feels a touch to the small of her back, fingers under the edge of her shirt. "But you still have one more bomb. Why didn't you use that one, too, I wonder?" The leather of his gloves is rough against her skin, and it's a split second too long before she moves away.

She tries to give her smile edges even though her body's still singing. "Actually, I have three more."

"Oh? Very interesting. But that's no good—you shouldn't keep things in reserve. When life gives you an opportunity like that, you should take it for all it's worth, or it's no good. Take the every opportunity to use everything you've got, so you can be the most dramatic part of the story." He strolls away towards the smoke, swinging his wrench up to hit one of the remaining bricks along the edge of the busted hole. It falls loose, and hits the ground with a thud. "Also, there's still some of the wall left."

Nice blinks and crosses her arms. "If I'd used even one more there might not have been enough wall left to support the ceiling. You only asked me to take out that section."

"Ah, so I did. And I do appreciate precision. There's only so much precision you can have when you're using explosives, of course, but I do appreciate what precision you employed. And it is, after all, a wall, not a machine, so much harder to take apart. And it is nearly symmetric. So thank you." He moves back to her, leaning to one side so he's looking up at her slanted. "So, what is it that makes you happy? How does this go? Do you enjoy the destruction, or is it explosives in particular?"

This is not how this visit was supposed to go at all. "What do you want with Jacuzzi?"

"Ah." Graham stands upright and brings his wrench to his shoulder again as he frowns deliberately. "That is an entirely different story. We weren't talking about that; we were talking about you. Life has so many different threads to it—you need to keep them all separate, or you'll go insane."

"..." Nice isn't sure what to say to that.

"In any case, you didn't answer my question." Graham smiles again. "That's okay, though. We can do this the direct way."

Graham's weight shifts suddenly, the head of his wrench dropping, and Nice tries to go for her knife. She only barely gets her arms uncrossed before she can't move further. But Graham didn't attack—instead he has his wrench behind her, hands gripping it on either side. The metal presses at her lower back as he pulls her closer, and her hands land on his chest for balance and a lack of anywhere else to go. Her heart thuds from the spike of adrenaline.

He leans in enough that she can feel his breath on her ear. "There, how about this?" This close she can smell him over the tang of the explosion. He smells like sweat, metal, and motor oil—and that shouldn't be a good smell, but she can feel her blood heating.

"I—should go," Nice tries, and moves her hands away. "There's something I need to do." She can't meet his eyes.

"Hmm," Graham says, slowly, and for a minute she thinks he won't listen to her. But then he moves away, completely away, strolls back across the warehouse toward whatever she was doing when she walked in. Suddenly Nice feels a bit cold. "In that case, we can continue our talk later. I extend the same invitation to you, Nice Holystone. Feel free to come by any time," he purrs, and that shouldn't make her flush again, but it does.

"Right," she manages, and turns to go.

"And you can bring Jacuzzi with you, if you want." Graham offers over his shoulder as she leaves. "That could be an interesting story too."

Nice's blush at that is lost on anyone but the wind outside.