He blinks and glances up at her quizzically. There's the beginnings of a frown on his face-

He chuckles warmly, plops himself down on the floor, and scoops Raina up onto his knee with one hand. Pats her on the head. "Hey, no need to psychoanalyze the man, Dr Cutiepie. The man needs a lil brandy, not a shrink with tits, am I right?" He gives Usmaan a big friendly grin. 

Serving-girls don't talk like that - that's the first time he's seen Raina really slip up. God Almighty, she must be rattled. 

Probably Usmaan's just gone a bit too hard on some of the sketchy shit he gets imported, but it is creepy. 

He laughs bitterly. "What does it matter? Yes, suppliers, superiors, yes, all the way to the top. He is the top. It goes all the way. The Soviets think to learn things- think their star-lore will help them-" he breaks down laughing again.

By Allah, this seems to run deep. He's so unnerving and she hates that Carter just had to rescue her - she's the talker, diplomacy is her thing, she's like a wraith with words only quicker, and she stiffens when he touches her again, all that open pliancy from their kiss gone. 

Gods, that kiss. She's never kissed a man before, not to mean it, and she's not sure this one counts (she's telling herself it doesn't) but it has set her head awry and she needs to fucking focus.

It's hard when Carter is so warm and smells so good and she kind of wants him to lift her back up onto that desk and finish what they started- Khan. Khan. Focus. 

"What happened to this room, Sahib? Shall we send someone to clean it up?" 

"N̴O̷," he explodes suddenly, voice cracking. "No- leave, leave, get out, GET OUT-" 

He's pushing them out the door, locking himself in behind them. 

"Okay, okay, we're leaving. We're leaving, it's alright."

She tries her best to placate him - they've pushed a little too far but this has been productive. 

Raina turns to Carter outside the closed door, as long as there's no one around, and raises an eyebrow. "He's off the rails." 

His shoulders shift and he stands up straight and he switches from dumb drunk Yankee to Agent Agan. "Big time. So leads are that fucking warehouse again, something under the city, and anything to do with the old Hindu families - anything ring any bells? You looked like you might be thinking something." 

He's not actually going to tease her for getting rattled, come to think of it. He'd probably be kinda upset if there were a crazy guy talking shit about Jesus. 

...

And fuck him it is creepy. 

Allah give her strength. It's taking everything in her not to grab him by the shoulders and pull him in again. She must be very, very stressed. 

"His guard told me they're hitting old Hindu houses. And he mentioned earlier that I was a good Muslim girl, whatever that means." She says it with enough derision that it nukes the irony.

Their work here is done, mostly. It's clear that trying to maintain a cover with Usmaan is no longer useful to their cause. However, his being incapacitated starts to raise a power vacuum... 

She looks at Carter. "How do you feel about being the next crime lord in charge of this shit hole?" 

...

Oh he knows where this is going.

"...So. You think there is something to this, then, he's not just snapped. And you think I can step into his shoes and that's how we work out what's really going on?" He looks at Raina. "You realise long-term this whole thing collapses, right? We ain't gonna have that long."

He grins. 

"I think I like it."

"It will be enough time to get what we need. A few months, maybe. It's dangerous but snooping around is getting us nowhere." There's a devilish gleam in her eyes; it makes them glint mahagony brown in this low light.

"We just need to discredit him and let the others find him. You'll step in since you know how the business works and you're already doing all the heavy moving," she plans, tapping her nails on the side table. There's a slight scrunch in her brow as she talks it all through, her mind is a million miles away.

Such a cunning mind under such a sweet face.

Raina narrows those eyes on him. "Then we sit and wait." 

He scratches his chin. "Yeah. Usmaan's a vicious bastard but he thinks he's smarter than I am. The way we play it, I'll step in when they find him, say I'll just stay with him for a while to help out, ya know. Won't be hard to make sure he stays down-" Usmaan punctuates this point by beginning to beat his head rhythmically against the door. "Until someone gives me a lead."

He looks sideways at her. 

A small smile plays about his face. 

"So you're gonna, what, put your feet up until I get somewhere?"

He knows she won't be able to stand it. He has a plan. 

Her smile is slow and sly, and she trails a finger along his forearm. "I think it's high time I get to watch you do some heavy lifting."

It sounds like hell, but at least she'll be able to supervise him. 

Shoaib is either going to think this is the best or worst idea ever. 

He smirks. "Trouble is, it's gonna get suspicious if you show up any time things get interesting and then vanish like smoke. How'd you like to be the kingpin's, uh," he falters for the right word for a moment, this is his, like, sixth language, "concubine?"

She cocks her head at him, and she's definitely drunk or in shock or high from the adrenaline but her hand wraps around his wrist and pulls him in, slowly, her gaze locked on his. Her hands skate up the plane of his chest, solid and strong. 

"Tell me, Carter, how much does this amuse you?" 

His breath catches. Her long fingers are surprisingly strong where they hold him, and the warmth radiates from her. 

"Enormously," he breathes. "I'm still waiting for you to make me pay. Dollface."

She pulls a face - it doesn't translate very well to French, either. She has a suspicion that it would be quite charming in his American accent, though. 

"Oh, I'm still planning on it, darling." She draws close, angling her head just so, blinking big eyes up at him, close enough that if he swayed forward she could touch his lips with hers again.

It reminds them both of that kiss in the study, hungry, yearning, how her hands dug into his skin and how she leaned into him as if she might share his very body. 

"But first, I want you to tell me..." Her lips ghost to his ear. "What the hell happened to make you so strong." 

-remember the rules-

-green and silver steel and the cutting-

-the burning-

-smile-

He convulses on the spot, it's like being plunged into a frozen lake. 

He backs away sharply, a glint in his eyes. 

"That's classified." He snaps the words out, but in his eyes there is panic, plain and obvious to see - he's shivering, clutching at himself-

Raina stares at him incredulously. "Everything we do is classified. You've been in my home and I don't know a single fucking thing about you. How the hell do you expect me to let you touch me around other people?"

Ah. 

It makes sense, now. All the times she's been the whore of Babylon, she was the one approaching him. Every time he's done something to keep with the cover, something she hadn't initiated, she's shied away. 

She's never liked men who were strong. And Carter seems to be the strongest of them all. 

He stares at her, trying really hard to stop trembling by an effort of will. (An ordinary man's bones would crack under the strain.)

"Uh, to keep our cover? Your whole vixen thing wasn't my idea, you know - wanna tell me the worst thing that ever happened to you?" He hadn't meant to say that. 

Her fire snuffs out in an instant and her voice is like stone when she says, "You truly do not wish to know."

But she can hardly demand honesty from him while withholding information herself, can she. It's unfair, she can see it even through her hurt and embarrassment and anger.

"A white man." 

He stares at her for a second. Not him, surely, but- "...Right."

He drags a hand down his face. 

"...I'm sorry. It's not- I don't talk about it much. Truth is I don't totally know myself. I kinda get fragments. There was- there was this woman. Scientist. German refugee or some shit, dad gave her a job. She was... she was weird. Creepy. You know sometimes you meet someone and it's like some part of you just- yeah." He swallows. "She had these theories, honestly I didn't get half of it, but I know it was weird shit. I'm... honestly I'm not that sure why it was me she ended up testing it out on, you'da thought- anyway. Don't know if it was dad's idea or what. But it wasn't great. I remember bits of it sometimes. It..."

His voice finally fails him. 

remember the rules-

The indignance in her stance falters, and the adorable furrow in her brow is back. "That. That sounds awful, Carter - your father just gave you up like that?"

She's starting to hate the sound of this guy. 

He shrugs awkwardly. "I don't actually know. He kinda went quiet, disappeared for a couple days before it happened. Don't know why. He doesn't... doesn't really talk about it. You don't mention it in front of him or he just... I don't know, it's weird, it's like he shuts down."

He gives her a tiny painful smile. 

"Your turn?"

Raina's eyes shutter, but the effort it takes her to push through them is monumental. She swallows a huge lump in her throat, and her voice sounds shaky. "Not here. Not now. I will, I promise, just not somewhere like this."

Not somewhere that the violence she's seen screams at her and terrifies her. The state of his room was like an animal had trampled through it, frenzied and rabid. It still sends a shiver through her.

She glances back at the door. "Are you ready to put this into motion?" 

He nods, uncertainly. 

Something about the woman just - leaves him off-balance, that's it. 

He manages the ghost of a smirk. "Yeah. Let's go."