Work Text:
“Is this festive enough, do you think?”
Lorraine is standing in her closet, which is closer in size to a studio apartment. She holds up a shimmery gold dress on a satin hanger.
Danish is perched on a tiny velvet pouf in the corner, avoiding his own ridiculous reflection in the full-length mirror. His briefcase is on the floor by his feet, and he has a stack of papers in his lap that he’s hoping to get Lorraine’s signature on before the night is up.
That’s easier said than done.
“Uh, do you have anything green?” Danish suggests, wanting to seem helpful even though he knows she’ll just reject his advice.
Sure enough, Lorraine looks at him like he has three heads.
“Green?” she repeats with disgust. “Have you ever, in forty years, seen me wear the color green?”
Danish racks his brain, coming up empty. He’s slightly distracted by the reminder that they’ve apparently known each other forty years. Jeez, is he really that old?
“No. You haven’t,” Lorraine answers for him. “It does horrible things to my complexion.”
“Noted,” says Danish. No emeralds for her birthday, then.
He fidgets with his fountain pen. This is the type of thing a woman would normally do with her husband — choosing outfits, getting ready. Unfortunately, despite the fact that he’s currently downstairs pouring himself a drink, Lorraine’s husband doesn’t live on planet Earth. So these tasks fall to Danish.
“The gun is blue, to match the ornaments,” Lorraine muses, holding the dress up to herself in the mirror. “Gold should work.”
“Excellent,” says Danish. “Now that we’ve got that squared away, if I could just get your...”
He trails off, because Lorraine has begun removing her work attire right in front of him.
First she peels off her black jacket and carefully hangs it back up. That’s harmless enough, until she unbuttons her white blouse and tosses it into the laundry hamper.
Danish is a deer in the headlights, too stunned to look away as Lorraine steps out of her high heels. He fixates on the strip of bare skin on her back, between her black lace bra and the waistband of her pencil skirt.
It’s silly, really. Everything he’s looking at, he’s seen before — and then some. But context is key here, and unless Danish missed a memo, he was under the impression that their current dynamic was strictly clothes-on.
Some delusional part of him wonders if Lorraine invited him in here for this very purpose.
Mrs. Lyon, you’re trying to seduce me. Or some such.
When she starts unzipping her skirt, he decides he should say something.
“I can see you, you know.”
“No, you can’t,” she insists — and leave it to Lorraine to dictate what he can and cannot see. “I’m on your right side.”
It takes Danish a moment to realize she’s talking about his eyepatch.
He huffs an incredulous laugh. “That’s not how it works.”
“Well, avert your eye, then.”
Danish sighs, opting to stare intently at the document in his lap. He should probably just get up and leave, but he knows that there’s only a brief window when he has any hope of getting her signature.
Once she’s in hosting mode, he might as well throw the whole folder into Lake Superior.
“Are you sure you don’t want to reschedule?” Danish asks, still looking down. “What with Dorothy’s... debacle? Will she and Wayne even be here in time?”
“They’re on the way,” says Lorraine. “Let’s hope she changes out of her orange jumpsuit. Or will it be stripes, do you think? Maybe a ball and chain?”
“I’d like to schedule a sit-down with her, maybe later this week,” says Danish, ignoring the jabs.
“Do you think she got a tattoo in the clink?” Lorraine wonders, relentless.
He presses on: “I’ll need to hear her side of the story, so we can properly—”
“Anyway, I’m sure Mick can sort it all out.”
“Mick?” Danish looks up involuntarily to discover that Lorraine’s gold dress is only halfway up her thighs. He quickly lowers his gaze. “Mick Thigpen? The attorney general?”
“He’ll be at dinner later,” says Lorraine. “He owes me a favor.”
Oh, for Pete’s sake. This should be an open-and-shut case. Unfortunately, no matter the predicament, Lorraine is hellbent on killing a mosquito with a machine gun. Or a checkbook, as it were.
“As your chief counsel, I strongly advise against discussing today’s events,” Danish urges, before quickly adding, “With anyone.”
“Mm,” says Lorraine, which could mean anything. “Zip me up, will you?”
He takes that as permission to lift his head and look at her. She’s finished putting on both her dress and her shoes, and is standing with her back to him, awaiting assistance.
Danish tucks the neglected documents under his arm and stands up. Lorraine moves her hair over one shoulder to give him better access to the zipper. He notices his heart beating a little bit faster as he pulls on it.
There’s a sense memory attached to the gesture — not just zipping, but unzipping as well. The familiar scent of Lorraine’s perfume isn’t helping.
Once the task is done, Danish makes a last-ditch effort to steer the conversation back to business.
“Before we head downstairs, if you have a moment to—”
“You’re staying for dinner,” Lorraine interrupts, turning to face him.
She doesn’t phrase it like a question, or even an invitation. Just a statement of fact.
Danish blinks. “O...kay.”
They’re standing awfully close now, but neither of them moves back. On the contrary, Lorraine actually takes a step closer to him. His heart rate must be approaching a dangerous number for a man of his age.
Lorraine lowers her eyes, and Danish thinks, Oh, jeez. This is it.
He’s already planning how he’s going to get her lipstick off his face when he realizes that Lorraine is not, in fact, looking at his mouth.
“There’s something on your tie.”
“What?” Danish looks down. “Oh.”
There’s a tiny spot of tomato sauce against the gray — evidence of the penne alla vodka he ordered for lunch at the office earlier today. It’s a pinprick, really. Barely visible to the naked eye, unless you happen to be standing at a distinctly unprofessional distance.
Danish shrugs. “I guess I can try some club soda, or... Uh, what are you doing?”
Lorraine is in the process of removing the tie from his neck, which summons a similar sense memory as when he zipped up her dress. He might need an ambulance by the end of the night.
“I won’t have you looking like a hobo,” Lorraine says as she crosses to the opposite wall. “Take one of Wink’s. He never wears them anyway.”
She grabs a red option out of the relatively small section of the closet devoted to Mr. Lyon’s wardrobe. Danish isn’t too keen on wearing Lorraine’s husband’s tie, but he knows it’s useless to argue with her about it.
He holds out his hand, expecting her to pass it to him so he can put it on. Instead, Lorraine loops it around his shirt collar and gets to work tying it herself. Danish wonders if she can see the pounding in his chest through his dress shirt.
As she adjusts the knot, which might as well be a noose for how tight she’s making it, he asks himself why in the world she would be so concerned about a speck of sauce. Most of the time, he’s expected to disappear into the wallpaper while Lorraine steals the show. Nobody’s going to be looking at his tie, in other words.
That’s when it hits him — the Christmas card.
His heart goes from racing to swelling as he considers that maybe Lorraine actually wants him to be in the photo this year. A member of the family would be expected to look presentable, after all. Combined with her insistence about dinner, the evidence seems solid enough.
Gosh, Danish thinks. Is this really happening?
“There,” Lorraine says at last, picking a bit of lint off his lapel. “Much better.”
“Thank you,” says Danish, and he’s not just talking about the tie. “It means... well, it means a heck of a lot.”
She looks at him like he’s got a screw loose, and she’s not exactly wrong. After forty years, he’s pretty sure they’re all loose — and she’s the one holding the screwdriver.
But he can’t imagine it any other way.
He waits patiently as Lorraine checks her appearance in the mirror, combing her fingers through her hair and smoothing the front of her dress. She glances at her wristwatch.
“It’s time,” she says.
Danish sure hopes so.