“Why is it again that you’re not at work?”

“It’s my day off.” Came the reply in a perfectly British, perfectly manicured, almost believable voice over the telephone line.

“We don’t HAVE days off,” Eddie replied in a voice that managed to hold both humor and brevity. A voice that was, to put it simply, very Eddie Arlette.

“Maybe you don’t.” There was a pause, and Eddie tried very hard not to distinguish the type of noise he was hearing in the background. “But I do.”

“I don’t remember being briefed about days off. I do remember asking about said days off, but being shot down with amazing quickness.”

Inspector Pippin let out a short little laugh that could have been misheard as a cough; Eddie waited while Pippin hacked and then slugged some water down his palate. “You’re allowed days off.”

“When?” Eddie took a sip of coffee, made a disgusted face, and set it back down again onto the table in front of him. It had gone stone cold since he’d dialed the phone four minutes prior. He would have mumbled about British coffee, but knew it was his own fault since he hadn’t drank it within its fifteen minutes of proper coffee stage.

“When you don’t go into work.”

A huge grin spread across Eddie’s face; he shook his head in a fond sort of way and hung up without any farewell. In the split screen, Inspector Pippin was also smiling, but looked immensely proud of himself.

Fiona came into the kitchen, then, dressed in impressive looking work clothes; her hair was still wet from the shower, but this didn’t make her look any less menacing as she strutted to the coffee pot and poured herself a cup. Eddie didn’t bother to mention the fact that the coffee was at least two hours old, and was probably colder than England in the winter due to the fact that he had shut it off directly after it had finished percolating. This was something he didn’t normally do, it was usually her job, but he’d been running late and knew that if he didn’t shut it off right then, he wouldn’t have remembered to shut it off at all.

“Aren’t you late?” She asked, as she dumped her mug down the drain; her voice was filled with dislike and utter contempt.

“Apparently, I get a day off.” Eddie stood up, crossed the kitchen, and dumped his mug out as well.

“Since when?” Fiona turned away from him to butter some toast. She did this out of hunger, but also to mask the sexual tension in the room; the level of which had soared since he’d crossed the kitchen.

“Well,” he propped himself against the countertop and watched her. “According to Pippin, you have a day off if you don‘t bother going into work.”

“Or more than a day,” she replied briskly. “Because you’ll get sacked.”

He didn’t bother telling her she made a good point, though he thought it in his head; without words, he went to the front door intending to go to Pippin’s flat and drag him to work. As it turned out, he didn’t have to rush, because Pippin was standing on the doorstep, waiting patiently. He looked as if he’d been there about twenty minutes, which would have only been possible if he’d called Eddie from his mobile.

Pippin held his mobile up. “Are you ready? We’re late.”

If he hadn’t looked so cheeky, and yet non-cheeky at the same time, Eddie probably would have slapped him. Hell, because he looked so non-cheeky, he wanted to slap him…but he held back. Pippin was not the type of man you slapped. He was too…well, Eddie couldn’t think of the word to describe Pippin but he thought a woman might use ‘adorable’ whereas a man would use ‘annoying.’ Or perhaps even a word that combined the two.

“I thought we were having a day off,” Eddie commented lightly as they ascended the outside steps and got into Pippin’s awaiting car.

“We were,” Pippin affirmed, jumping into the driver’s side. “It’s over.”

“That was a short day,” Eddie stated, half laughing.

“Yes, well, be glad you had a few hours of freedom. Thanks to good old, Inspector Pippin.”

“Don’t refer to yourself in the third person.”

“Why not?”

“It makes you look uncool.”

Pippin nodded seriously. “Right. Uncool. Thanks.”

It was hard to miss Eddie’s smirk and silent laughter as they rode to work.

The remainder of the ride was rather short, and silent; once they’d parked and were mounting the elevator, Eddie turned to his counterpart.

“What kind of a name is Monty, anyway?”

Pippin turned, his face stoic as usual and his voice the same. “A family one. What kind of a name is Eddie? Who calls their child Eddie? I know dogs by the same name.”

“Very funny.”

A few silent moments as they went past floor number three. “Seriously, though.”

“Edward.”

“Pardon?” Inspector Pippin leaned towards him, thinking he must have misheard.

“It’s short for Edward.” He turned away as the elevator doors announced, with a quiet ding, that they were opening.

Eddie and Pippin were greeted with the not-so-welcoming face of the big boss, Superintendent Johnson. In true Johnson ways, he barked at them, rather than spoke quietly like some might. “Where have you two been?”

With charm supposedly resonating off him, Eddie shrugged and smiled benignly. “We had half a day off from work?”

“You don’t get days off,” Johnson retorted, the vein in his forehead protruding in anger.

Eddie glanced to Pippin as Johnson walked away. “I told you we didn’t.”

His response was Pippin shrugging in a non-committed type of way, before he followed Johnson down the hallway.

Squaring his shoulders, Eddie followed. “Alright, Arlette,” he mumbled to himself. “Time to kick some London arse.”