annoyance (bhaltair/otto)

“One more thing, Commandant,” says the voice from behind the eerie mask–-no more eerie than all the others, but notable for the scratches and for its owner.

Otto half-turns. The several-hour meeting he's just emerged from has left him drained and irritable, and he can’t help but lose his temper just a little. “I have been ‘one more thing’ away from breaking a table with my head for the last hour and a half,” he snaps. /“What?”/

The figure looms over him, black coat and red hair washed gray and orange in the diffuse light of the hallway. Otto can’t help but glance around to make sure the coast is clear; the air feels heavy with importance.

And stays heavy.

And stays.

He isn’t saying anything, and when Otto realizes it he makes a loud, rude noise of disgust and turns on his heel.

He makes it three steps and one foot in the air before he feels something metal hook into the back of his suspenders and tug him back. He splutters and tries to turn, but the cane handle–-that’s what he knows it is, instantly, it carries the warmth of a palm still–-is already pulling him back, and he has no choice but to squawk and go with it.

One step back, two steps, three steps, and a half that pulls his back up against the operative’s torso. He feels his heart beating a little too fast, only part of it annoyance, and he thinks he can feel an answering heartbeat through the coat.

He hears the noise of a mask being lifted, and feels the displaced air of the figure leaning down to murmur in his ear.

“I made dinner,” he says quietly, with a smile Otto can hear. “It’s in the fridge when you get home. I know you like salmon, seems like a day for it.”

A moment later Otto finds himself released, and Bhaltair striding away with a spring in his step, cane tapping as he goes. He is, he’s surprised to find, a little less irritated.