The Agency

Sara lets herself into Rowan's quarters, sure he's there--she sensed his familiar energy beyond the door as she was coming down the hall.

For a rarity, he's not waiting for her on the couch; he always knows she's on her way long before she arrives, and is usually in the living room reading or having a drink and pouring her one as well...that is, when he's home. These days it's a crapshoot whether he'll be in his own quarters or Jason's.

She can hear water running. He's in the shower. In fact, she can hear him singing, and she stifles a quiet laugh. She recognizes the song, she thinks, but she can't place it over the sound of the shower drowning out his voice. It's something she's heard on the radio recently, she's sure of it.

"Hey," she calls. "It's just me--I'm going to leave you a note, don't get out."

She knows where most everything is here, probably better than in her own quarters, as Rowan is fastidious and a thousand times more organized than she could ever hope to be. She finds a pad of Post-Its in his desk drawer and starts to scrawl out a message using one of the lovely silver pens he orders special from...somewhere. He is a creature of odd enthusiasms: body care products, fruit, writing instruments, vampires.

But then, who doesn't love vampires?

The water switches off, and she hurries: he wouldn't mind her being here, but she doesn't want to be the kind of friend who just shows up whenever.

"Need to switch our session tomorrow," she pens. "8 instead of 6? Call me. Sara."

She sticks the note to his computer monitor where she knows he'll see it.

As she turns around, she shrieks.

SA-7 is standing in the bathroom doorway in a cloud of steam, his hair damp and sticking out at odd angles, his eyebrows lifted in faint surprise.

Naked.

Before she can stop herself, she looks.

Then she realizes what she's doing and claps her hand over her eyes. "Oh my GOD!"

She hears him snort. "Oh, for fuck's sake, Sara. What are you doing here?"

The fact that he isn't echoing her shock and embarrassment, and is basically just a little annoyed, makes her feel that much more ridiculous. She's sure she's blushing bright enough to look boiled.

Sara peeks around her fingers, trying to keep her eyes on his face. "I...I came to leave Rowan a message. Where is he?"

"Here," comes a sleepy voice, and Rowan pokes his head out of the bedroom, looking tousled and sexy and only about half awake. "What's all the noise?"

He takes in the scene and laughs hard enough that he has to lean on the doorframe.

"Jason, put on a robe or something before her head explodes," Rowan insists, wheezing.

The vampire rolls his eyes and returns to the bathroom, shaking his head, affording Sara a splendid view of his spectacular, muscular ass.

"You were saying?" Rowan asks once he's caught his breath.

Sara looks from the bathroom to the Elf. "Wow."

He gives her a rather smug grin. "I know."

"God, you guys really need to have less sex--you're starting to feel like each other!" She strides back into the living room and plucks the note from the monitor, handing it to the Elf, who has followed her, rubbing his eyes and yawning. Rowan naked, she could handle, and has, dozens of times. Despite her initial crush on Jason, she'd never expected to see more than his bare shoulders. The whole enchilada is a lot to take in.

Literally. Good lord.

"Eight o'clock tomorrow," Rowan says with a glance at the Post-It. "Fine by me. Shall we have dinner first at seven? I have the whole evening free."

"Fine," she replies, backing toward the door. "I'll let you two get back to whatever it was you were doing."

"Getting ready for work," Jason says, emerging once again, this time in a pair of jeans and a snug black Keep Austin Weird t-shirt, a towel still in his hand. "I'm on shift in half an hour, thank you very much."

"Sorry. I'll go. Nice singing, by the way."

Jason blinks at her, and is it her imagination, or are the tips of his ears turning the slightest bit pink? "Um...what singing?"

"In the shower. It couldn't have been the radio. You don't sound anything like Rihanna."

Rowan gives his lover an amused look. "Oh, really? I must have slept through that. What were you singing? Come on, tell me."

Jason grabs Sara by the arm and ushers her out into the hallway. "We'll see you later, Trainee Larson," he says firmly.

"Sure," Sara laughs, loving his sudden discomfort--he didn't mind her seeing him in the altogether, but hearing him sing in the shower, well, now, that's just embarrassing. "Oh, but if you're going on patrol be careful, it's supposed to rain--or you could always stand under my umbrella...ella...ella..."

A wet towel hits her squarely in the face, and she's giggling uncontrollably as the door slams shut.