The IMF

The sound of people moving around me pushes me out of my sleep causing me to bolt upright, my heartrate shooting through the roof, as I try to assess the situation. My nerves calm as soon as I see the room full of familiar people. I overslept again, didn’t I?

“Look who’s up late again,” a British voice remarks. Oh fuck. I push myself out of bed, trying to get myself cleaned up and ready as fast as possible to make up for my mistake.

“Shut up, Benji.” I glance over at Ethan in response to the sound of his voice, shame covering my face regardless of the gratefulness I have for his defense.

“What? This is like the fifth time this has happened. I get to be frustrated.” Despite the fact that I understand his frustration, part of me can’t hold back from trying to defend myself.

“Look, man, it’s not my fault it’s hard to reset years of having the same internal clock in a month and the no-alarm-clocks thing wasn’t my idea.” God, you sound like a defensive moron.

“Besides, over-sleeper or not, we need them on this ****. We only have one all purpose specialist and Jaden’s it.” Ethan turns and points at me, sympathy covering his face. “You get yourself dressed and cleaned up and we all meet back up in fifteen.” A wave of quiet agreement flows through the room, before everyone but Ethan heads off to do their own thing. I glance down at my watch, seeing a big 5:45 on the face. Fuck, it’s early. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah. I’m just not great with change... Could you tell Benji I’m sorry? I’d do it myself, but I’m not entirely sure I can look him in the eye right now.” I glance off to the side, as my chest tightens up, trying to avoid making eye contact with him. God, he’s handsome.

“I will. And don’t worry about it, really. He just gets grumpy when he’s stressed. None of us adjusted to this chaos well at first, anyway. It takes time.” Ethan smiles at me, calming my nerves. If it weren’t for my still remaining anxiety, I could find myself getting lost in it. Too bad that I was far too worked up to do that.

“Alright,” I respond, nodding. “And I really am sorry.”

“I know.” Ethan smiles at me again, before leaving me alone in the room. Alright. God, that was embarrassing. Least I get to shower. That’s not always a guarantee around here.

Without another thought, I grab some clothes out of my bag and head to the bathroom. I put the clothes down on the counter and turn on the shower, before starting to undress myself. When the last of my clothes fall to the floor, I stick my hand under the running water to check the temperature. Perfect.

I get in the shower, immediately calming down at the feeling of the warm water running down my back. My muscles relax and I feel myself starting to space out, not wanting it to end. Shit. You can’t take too much time in here. We roll in fifteen, remember?

I grumble to myself and shake my head, wishing I could just stay in the shower forever. Come on, fucker, get it over with. You already overslept, you really can’t waste any more time. I quickly clean myself up and get out of the shower, not wanting to risk pissing anyone else off. I can jump out of fucking planes no problem, but mild disappointment from other people? Now that's too much. Jesus Christ.

I get myself dressed, pick my old clothes off the floor, and head back out of the bathroom. Time. I check my watch again, this time reading 5:50. Ay, I’m getting better at the unholy short shower thing... And now I have too much time on my hands, shit. That’s never a good thing.

I head back to my bed and put my dirty clothes back in my bag. I get back in bed, trying to occupy my mind in the ten minutes I have left. You know, I haven't had the time to read in like a month. Yeah, that sounds nice. I pull a few books out, unsure of what I actually want to read. I lean back onto my elbows and mumble to myself, scanning over the covers of the three books in front of me.

“Hey!” I look up and turn to my head to see a familiar face looking down at me, from the left side of my bed.

“Oh! Hey, Jane,” I respond, fighting to keep my attention on her face. Not that it isn’t nice to look at; her deep brown eyes and warm, million-dollar smile are enough to keep me busy for a few weeks. God, you’re a creep. “How’s it goin?”

“I’m alright. I’m just... No, it’s- it’s stupid.” Her expression shifts with her words; some of the light drains from her eyes, her lips separate from each other slightly, and her expression turns down towards the bed, near my legs. I cock my head and my eyebrows draw together, as curiosity spreads across my face. This is gonna be interesting, isn’t it?

“Jane, come one. You’ve lived through hell and back and haven’t complained once, I can’t imagine something would eat at you like this if it was stupid.” I put my hand on her leg trying to comfort her. She glances at my hand for a moment, before making eye contact again and smiling.

“I mean, it’s not all that serious, just one of those things that really gets to you for some reason.” I push myself up further onto my palm, straighten my head, and nod at Jane, urging her to continue. “It’s just-... Luther is so fucking impossilble.” Luther? I can’t help but arch one of my eyebrows and smirk in near amusement, completely blindsided by the turn the conversation took.

“I know. He’s so damn stu-” Before I can finish my thought, read: bitching, Jane cuts me off.

“I’m not so sure you really get what I mean.” She pauses, embarrassment flashing across her face, before flattening her expression again and continuing. “For the past few months, I’ve been trying to send him the message that I want to do... something with him. It doesn’t even have to be a date, I’d be more than okay with just fucking him-”

Despite the shocking thing I just heard, I can’t help but find my attention floating. I still manage to chime in every once in a while with vague agreement or encouragement to continue, but my eyes do wander. My attention lands on Luther, standing across the room in a group with a few other **** members. His eyes radiate with excitement as he says something that I can’t explain, adding to his almost immature sort of charm.

My eyes trace over him, getting a better look at the man than I have in the month I’ve known him. I’m instantly drawn to his smile, one that could light up a pitch-black room. While most everything else about him- his dark, enchanting eyes, full lips, deep voice, and fairly muscular build- are attractive on their own, and especially in conjunction with each other, nothing quite does for me what his smile does.

Before I find myself getting too far lost in the appearance of the man across from me, the presence of a second person at my side draws my attention. I look up to see a familiar, attractive, relatively light-haired woman coming from the opposite side.

“Hi, Lindsey,” I chime, in near unison with a similar remark with Jane.

“Hi,” she responds, shooting a glance down at me, before turning her attention up to my other companion. “Luther’s still being difficult, huh?”

“You have no fucking idea. I can’t believe someone can be so intelligent, but so dense- it’s almost impressive. Are you making any headway with Declan?” Declan? Really? I chuckle to myself, reveling in the near sitcom status of the whole situation. Practically half the **** wants to fuck each other. Jesus Christ.

As with Luther, I can’t help but feel my attention being drawn over to the Irish man talking to two other men, Ethan and Benji, in the corner. My eyes just wander for a moment, before two of his features in particular catch my attention- his ice-blue eyes and razor sharp jawline. Regardless of his tight pecs- gripped by a tighter shirt-, gentle, though still charming smile, and unreasonably and attractively unruly hair, those are the two that stand out.

I **** myself to look away and try to get back into the conversation at the feeling of something on my upper chest. I look down to see both Jane and Lindsey had put their hands near the top of my chest, absentmindedly drawing lines across my collar bone with their fingers. Before I can say anything, not that I would want any of this to stop, the sudden presence of another woman catches my attention and figuratively cuts me off.

Without verbally acknowledging me, Nyah joins in the group on the same side of my bed as Lindsey, her hand almost immediately falling on my leg. Her fingers trace similar, linear patterns to the other two women. My eyes nearly go wide at the attention coming from the trio, especially given how attractive they all are.

I silently scan across the room, trying to keep my thoughts from wandering too far away from me. Self control, while still focussed on the situation, can only take a person so far in a situation like this; keeping distracted is the best course of action in a situation like this, at least when work is involved. A little flirting and some advances are fine, but out and out sexual harassment was crossing a line that I don’t want to even get close to. I absentmindedly follow the trail of beds lined up across one-and-a-half walls of the safehouse, before trying to find something else to hold my attention.

I glance forward for a moment, seeing Ethan looking at me from some yards away. “Good job,” he mouths, before turning over to Benji. I smirk to myself, appreciating the compliment, especially from someone with his history. If he thinks I’m doing something right, I can’t bring myself to disagree with him, especially since he’s managed to score with an almost uncomfortable amount of women in this room. Well, two. But that’s still half and pretty damn impressive.

If I’m honest with myself, I really wouldn’t mind getting this kind of attention from him; who would, really? He’s nowhere near unattractive and the combination of his sharp, square jawline, captivating smile, and gorgeous, sparkling eyes would be enough to make practically anyone swoon. Even excluding everything else about him, his face would’ve been enough to get most people into bed with him; when you consider his natural charm and incredible body- large, muscular arms and tight pecs and abs- I can’t think of a person who could resist his advances.

You’re staring.

I startle myself out of my own head, before trying to turn my attention back to my companions, who’ve all continued talking to each other, still completely ignoring me. Thank God. As much as I try to keep my attention on them, I can’t help but feel like something’s off, distracting me. After a moment, the specifics of what’s wrong sets in. Someone’s staring at me. That’s not Ethan, is it? I do my best to shake off my thoughts, though I can’t help but think that it would make some sense.

There has always been sexual tension between the two of us. Between him and pretty much everyone in the room. Myself, too, if I’m being completely honest. You don’t get to the position I’ve just gotten myself into without at least a few people around wanting to fuck you specifically, even if something about you would make them not want to; it’s just not possible. You could even say... impossible... How the fuck are they into me?

After a few seconds, I try to shake off my thoughts, not wanting to make myself seem any weirder than I already have. You’re just paranoid. Before I can get out of my head or fall further into paranoia, Ethan yells something from somewhere else in the room that steals away my attention.

“Everyone!” I turn towards the familiar voice, seeing the man standing on the table off to the left of the room. “Get your asses over here. We have five minutes to get everything sorted, then we roll.”

“Language,” Luther yells back.

“Fuck off,” Ethan responds, before jumping down off the table. I snicker to myself, hearing my companions clearly sharing my own amusement, before we all get up together. The four of us head over to the table with the rest of the group.

Out of collective habit, we all circle around the table in the same order as always; Ethan at the ‘head’ of the table- as much as a circular table can have one-, with Luther to his left, followed by Benji, Brandt, Jane, Nyah, Hannah, Sarah, Jack, Zhen, Lindsey, Declan, and then me, right by Ethan’s other side. Another fun coincidence, I guess.

I shake off the strange suspicion rising in me about the whole ‘seating’ arrangement, trying to stop my cycle of unfounded paranoia before it can truly start.

“Alright, we got, at very most, ten minutes to get everything sorted out then we roll. Y’all got that,” Luther asks, scanning the faces of everyone around the table. A quiet wave of agreement mixed with a few, barely discernible comments, flows across the table, giving Ethan the go-ahead to brief everyone and get all of us out the door.

“Great,” Ethan comments, giving a little nod, before giving us the rest of the rundown.

“I have an information pick up at the record shop on Oxford, Benji and Sarah have an undercover mission at the Capital, Brandt and Jane have a second information pick up at a park a few blocks from here, Zhen, Lindsey, and Declan have an extraction job a few hours away, Nyah and Hannah have a, uh... perimeter security check at an ‘empty’ office building a few streets away, and Luther, you-” he interjects, pointing at the other man “and Jack are helping with the tech side of that.”

“We also have a bunch of unmanned-” Jane clears her throat at Luther. “Right, unfilled missions on the table.”

“Right. We can probably deal with those later,” Ethan responds, before turning to face me. “But, anyway, you-” he points at me “-aren’t tied to anything right now.” Does that mean-?

“So I have free choice on this one?”

“Pretty much, yes.” I should not have that much power.

“Oh boy,” Luther mutters to himself, looking down at the table. Ouch. Fair, but Jesus. I shrug it off, not wanting to get anymore down on myself than I already had earlier or stir up anymore shit over my own self imposed reputation on the ****. Ethan nudges the taller man in the side and glares at him, before turning his attention back to me.

“So, what are you thinking?”