Vanessa tipped her hand harder than she was anticipating. Charlie was observant and aware of the possibilities mutation might add to any situation. She was worldly, and the realization opened up Vanessa’s mind to the possibilities that might explain the web of thoughts behind those blue eyes. The depths of thought were unavailable to her, but there was enough on the surface to see age and understanding well beyond the young, taunt body she was pressed against. Charlie was no girl, but rather, a long-lived woman who did not age. Some kind of immortal? The thought was intimidating; a woman with so many foreign thoughts and so much life-experience.

Thankfully, Charlie was not entirely convinced Vanessa’s acute awareness was mutation-based as much as it was cleverness and luck. Things were getting honest, but she had no intention of getting that honest. Booker still had no clue she was a mind-reader, so the last thing she needed was that information getting out to whoever hired Charlie.

The private investigator was being a wall, withholding the information Vanessa wanted, even in her mind. She was keeping her eyes away from Vanessa, (not realizing how effective a tactic that was,) and even when she could catch a glimpse into her thoughts, they were all… well, not job-focused, to say the least. The decades (or maybe centuries) Charlie lived through had certainly given her time to have a creative grasp of sexuality.

As a ripple of sensation coursed through her body at the breathy words in her ear, Vanessa was unsure of exactly how she got into her position. This was not her thing; seducing a mysterious intruder. She was the settle down and couple up girl, even when she tried to pair up with the wrong type of girl.

Much like her evil ex Spencer, Charlie was the wrong type of girl. The difference was she had no interest in getting to know or date Charlie. The frustration of her breakup was still fresh enough in Vanessa’s body, and maybe there was something thrilling about being in such an exciting, taboo situation. Most people would find their post-breakup hookup at a bar or club. Maybe Vanessa’s came in through her window digging for dirt. Who was she to question a bizarre turn of fortune.

The kisses along her neck were making it hard to focus, and she could not let her guard down entirely, (which was a new concept that ran contradictory to her normal instincts when a woman kissed her.) Her hand brushed aside blonde hair so she could lean closer. ”I could hazard a guess of what’s on your mind,” Vanessa said in a low whisper, the tip of her tongue just barely grazing Charlie’s earlobe. ”Maybe there’s something you’d like in exchange?”

Was she really offering sex in exchange for secrets? Heartbreak and hormones brought about an unexpected side of Vanessa, but she was momentarily addicted to the thrill.

Charlie chuckled from her place against the wall. Nessa was cute when she was trying too hard. Maybe if they had met a century ago, the blonde would have tried for something other than just physicality and information, but she had too much experience to tell her that it would be a bad idea to do so. She was going to get what she had come for and then get the hell out of dodge before someone caught feelings.

She stopped kissing the woman’s neck for a minute to look her in the eyes. Her thoughts had travelled far away from any information that she might have wanted. ”Sweetheart, if you want to sleep with me, then just say so. Don’t find a way to justify it for yourself.”

No, she wasn’t going to let things happen that easily. Sure, Charlie and her clearly wanted the same thing, but she wasn’t quite that easy. She wanted to feel like there was someone putting in the work.

Charlie pushed the brunette hard by the shoulders and stepped away from the wall. She shook out her limbs and walked across the apartment. She picked up the drink that she had discarded earlier and took another sip before turning back on her heel.

”You need to learn to take what you want,” she said with a smirk as she gave the woman a once over and set her drink back down on the countertop. ”Otherwise, you’ll never get anything.”

Charlie was keeping evidence of her employer close to her chest, leaving the matter as a dead end as long as she was consciously trying to avoid the thoughts. She was smart; most people avoided a thought by trying to just not think about it, which in itself meant thinking about it. Charlie was filling her head with other thoughts, making anything hard to catch. It did not hurt that the thoughts she was enjoying were… well, vivid.

Vanessa was not going to give up on finding out who her stalker was, but she needed to approach the topic after Charlie was less focused. They needed to clear their minds, and there were plenty of ways to reach that point. Some were more enjoyable than others.

Was it dirty? Considering sleeping with her possibly immortal investigator for information? Then again, she had a point; maybe she was using one desire to justify the other. It was totally valid that she might want to find out who was gathering information on her and sleep with Charlie as two unrelated wants.

Charlie pushed away and walked back toward the counter in the kitchen. It was almost like she was goading Vanessa with all the confidence of a woman with years of experience. She had also failed to get what she came for; Vanessa gave her minimal information to help her research. It made her wonder if maybe they were both looking to take their frustrations and make the most of a bad situation.

Vanessa was tired of feeling mopey and bitter. As temporary as it was, Charlie had her blood pumping. After being down for so long, it felt uncomplicated and it felt good.

Long strides on long legs closed the gap between herself and Charlie. The drink was just being placed back on the counter when Vanessa took the investigator’s advice. ”Fine, be a b**** about it,” she muttered in a low, breathy voice as her fingers grasped at a handful of blonde hair, pulling Charlie in for a deep, aggressive kiss.

Somewhere along the way, her other hand grabbed Charlie in the same place she had recently been grabbed, using the leverage of her body to lift the woman onto the kitchen counter. (Booker would hate to know his sister’s misuse of the kitchen, but for another hour or two, she had other more… pressing concerns.)

A smile slowly crept onto Charlie’s lips. Vanessa was clearly considering her advice. Long legs closed the gap, and suddenly, they were pressed together once again. Charlie turned and put her drink back on the counter, being pressed back into a kiss as soon as she turned back around. Yes, her advice had certainly done the trick.

There was nothing loving or tender about the way that things proceeded. Neither of them were looking for any sort of real relationship, or even anything that lasted. There was an understanding that anything that happened there would be temporary and purely physical. Charlie was more than fine with that arrangement.

Hands roamed, and within seconds they were showing the kitchen counter something more than just food prep. Charlie grinned and shook her head at the woman. She was giving her something that she clearly needed; information could wait until afterward.

---

The blonde lay on her back against (formerly cold) granite, her heart pounding in her chest. Her arms rested lazily on her stomach and she stared at the ceiling for another minute, shot a glance at Vanessa, and then decided to get up. She turned her body away and sat up straight.

Charlie ran her hands through her thick hair and planted her feet back on the floor. She stood up straight and stretched out her back, the little romp through the kitchen having reached a clear end point. Neither of them had what they really wanted, but they’d both gotten the opportunity to take out some frustrations, whatever they might have been toward.

Vanessa seemed like she had many frustrations.

With her back suitably stretched out, Charlie turned back around. She’d never been one for clothes, so she felt no need to go retrieve hers from the floor. Instead, she placed her arms on the counter and bent forward to put herself on eye level with the other woman. There was clearly something fishy about her, and she still needed to figure out exactly what it was.

”Well. That was fun and all, but you still owe me some info, sweetheart,” she informed her through a sly grin as her fingers traced back up her neck. Even if she didn’t get it, at least the day hadn’t been a total bust.

Vanessa was pleased with her decision to find an apartment with a nice kitchen island. The spacious granite countertop came in very handy to the two women in the apartment.

There was a glossy coat of sweat clinging to Vanesa’s skin. As she propped herself up on her elbows, it felt like she was peeling her back off the surface. With most of her tension released, she was reflecting on what she just did. Did it really happen? The warm, fair-skinned form next to her was evidence that, yes, she just had anonymous kitchen sex. It felt like something she would have done when she was eighteen or nineteen. New hormones and dangerous women had been a reckless combination for her, but those excuses were in the past. Now, Nessa had a craving and a desire to reignite her passions, and Charlie helped plenty with that.

Vanessa looked around and spotted her phone a few feet behind her on the counter. Realizing the precarious position she was in if Booker came home soon, she grabbed the device and shot off a quick text.

Don't rush home. Gay stuff happened. In the kitchen. On the counter. Sorry.

Setting the phone to the side, she turned her attention to Charlie. Her partner for the afternoon had gotten to her feet, choosing to revel in her nudity for a while longer. Vanessa grinned as she watched the Private Investigator returning back to business as usual sans clothing. ”Certainly fun,” she agreed. ”And you sure are persistent. Whoever my stalker is, they must be paying well for you to be riding me this hard for information.” As opposed to all the recreational riding. She was aware their entanglement was its own event separate from the work aspect of their relationship.

”If you can just give me a hint about who’s asking, I’m sure I could be more compliant with some answers.” The offer was not going to work, but it was worth the effort. Vanessa was more than willing to arrange some quid quo pro to know who would go through all the hassle of hiring an investigator to follow a mid-level internet celebrity.

She ran her fingers through the waves of blonde hair and leaned in to kiss the spot where her jawline met her neck. ”Come on, work with me here, Charlie,” she whispered, not realizing that she had used the woman’s real name rather than her cover.

Charlie’s mouth widened into a grin as she looked at the woman still lying on the countertop. She was trying to get her own information at the same time that Charlie was attempting to get hers. It was just too bad that Charlie never, if she could help it, revealed who had hired her. It was one of her ground rules. She wasn’t about to break it just because one woman had been a little bit of fun as well as a well-paying job.

”You know it doesn’t work that way,” she smirked, her eyes trailing down the woman’s form rather than meeting her eyes. Eventually, they snapped back up toward her face, but she was still actively clearing her mind away from any thoughts of her employers. There was a still a possibility that she was pulling information from less than kosher methods.

>>”Come on, work with me here, Charlie,”

Suspicion confirmed.

Charlie was not the name that she have given Vanessa. If she wasn’t a telepath, then the only name that she would be able to know her by was ‘Cece’, but clearly that wasn’t the case. She knew her real name somehow, and it wasn’t difficult to connect the dots.

Charlie pursed her lips and turned around, removing her arms from the counter as she took slow, pacing steps around the kitchen. After a minute, she’d migrated to the other counter and leaned against it as she focused on the woman. She remained quiet as she studied her for some sort of reaction.

Eventually, she spoke. ”So how long have you been a telepath?” she asked directly, her eyes staring directly into the other woman’s. Her mind was rather focused on finding out more about her, and she was still actively trying to keep her thoughts from roaming. It was easier said than done.

Something Vanessa said caught Charlie’s attention, but she was not looking Vanessa in the eye to read it right away. Instead, Charlie was suddenly pacing around her kitchen (naked,) finding a spot on the counter across from her. Vanessa sat up, hanging her legs off the side of the counter as she tried to figure out what the woman was processing.

And then Charlie’s eyes focused in on her. The blonde was putting together what she was planning on saying, but it was going to prove to be pointless. Vanessa could already read in her eyes how badly she had screwed up. She gave herself up in a way that would be pointless to defend. What was she supposed to say? She heard once that Cece was short for Charlie? Doubtful.

Charlie eventually spoke to call her out, and Vanessa had come up with no better answers with her advanced notice than, ”…F***…” It summarized how she felt perfectly. She had gone a decade carefully keeping her secret only to expose herself to a curious immortal? Kitchen sex had made her too relaxed and she slipped. If there was a better argument against casual sex with strangers, she could not picture it.

Vanessa dropped from the counter to her feet, closing the gap between her and Charlie. What was she going to do? Threats seemed pointless when the woman was possibly immortal. She suddenly had no leverage, so it was time for a good old-fashioned appeal to empathy. ”Listen. Charlie. I’ll give you other information. I’ll give you what you need. You can’t report that. No one knows. My friends, my exes, my brother.” Vanessa suddenly regretted not telling Booker about her mutation. He should have been the first to find out, and instead Charlie would forever hold that honor.

”I’ve kept this close to the chest since I found out. It just kinda… happened when I came out to my parents and they would have kicked me out if they knew, so I just never said anything. To anyone.” Vanessa glossed over what she came out as, because she saw no reason to give up her two biggest secrets in life in one day.

Charlie’s assumption had been more than correct, not that it came as any surprise. It was hard to lie away anything at that point; she hadn’t given her her real name, and there was no other way that she could have come up with it. There was nothing left to do other than what Vanessa did: swear and therefore confirm her accusation.

Charlie had met a few psychics in her time, and she wasn’t exactly a fan. Her brain was enough of a mess without someone else digging around in there, and it wasn’t exactly great for her job to have someone reading whatever was on her mind at the time.

The bright side was that she clearly wasn’t a very good psychic if she hadn’t figured out who had hired Charlie yet. That meant that all she had to focus on was keeping that information off the surface of her brain and buried. Keeping information buried? That was what her brain was best at.

Apparently, being outed as a telepath held more weight for Vanessa than just Charlie knowing what to watch out for, though. Charlie blinked as she offered to give her what she asked for, just like that. The only catch was that she wasn’t allowed to reveal her mutation to her clients. As it turned out, Charlie was the only person that she had ever told about her mutation.

It all had to do with how she discovered it. Coming out was apparently a big deal for people in the twenty-first century when they had any sort of living relative… like parents. The ones that had hired Charlie.

...s***.

The blonde shook her head and kicked her heel against the floor. There went her cover. If Vanessa could read her thoughts, then she would already know exactly who it was that had sent her. It was too late to backtrack. Lowering her head, Charlie tried to think as she rested her thumb against her bottom lip.

”Well. If you’re not the s***iest telepath in existence, then you’ll know that it was your parents who sent me,” she sighed and met her eyes again. ”And you probably already know that I have a bit of a connection to the mutant cause. So, that being said, I’m willing to make a deal with you.”

Charlie crossed her arms over her chest and walked out of the kitchen, bending down to pick up her clothes that had been strewn across the room. There was no need for distractions anymore; they had levelled the playing field. As she dressed, she filled in the rest of the details. ”You answer any non-mutation related question I ask, and I won’t say a thing about you being a sneaky mind reader to your parents.”

Stunned silence.

It was the only appropriate way to respond to the telepathic revelation Vanessa had pulled from Charlie’s mind. She had theories on who went out of their way to hire a Private Investigator to look into her life. She was well-known enough to warrant some interest from obsessed fans, which would have been its own kind of nightmare. The thought of an ex-girlfriend crossed her mind, because she was not on good terms with all her former lovers. Specifically, she wondered if Rebecca would be probing into her life to check on the woman she broke, but the redhead had her own shiny new-old love life to be concerned with.

What Vanessa had not considered was the possibility her parents would be sending someone to dig up information on her. It had been years since her last contact with her parents, and Vanessa burned that bridge and never looked back. She had to wonder what interest her family had in her new life. Maybe Charlie was mistaken about her target? Some other girl with parents who gave a damn was spending the day unquestioned because Charlie chose the wrong fire escape.

Charlie was explaining the terms of a new agreement as she gathered her clothes, but Vanessa was still remembering the last fight with her parents. There was yelling and pointed demands telling the young girl to give up on her “phase” before she made a “stupid decision she would regret later.” Those were the spoken words; the thoughts in her parents’ minds had been what pushed Vanessa to the point of crying and running away. If not for the support and loyalty of her brother, she would have given up her ownership of the concept of family.

”You’re wrong,” Nessa said quietly, clearly rattled. ”You have the wrong girl. My parents… they have no use for me and the feeling is mutual.” Suddenly, feelings Nessa had buried years ago were resurfacing, and her eyes were stinging, reliving the sense of betrayal and abandonment of her youth. She was not going to cry; not in front of Charlie and not about the people who brought her into the world.

It was preposterous to think Charlie was right. And yet… ”Why?” She took a steadying breath, returning her gaze to Charlie’s blue eyes. She knew Vanessa was a telepath but had no reason to believe her powers were ocular. ”I’ll answer whatever questions you have if you can tell me why my family would send you to look for me. Why, after all this time?” Were they looking to find her alone and miserable? Or maybe they wanted to punish her for being an ungrateful child? If Vanessa’s parents were appearing again after so many years, she was most concerned with their intentions.

Charlie’s vetting process of her clients was short and sweet. There were a lot of weirdos in New York, and if she took the time to thoroughly go through each of their histories and requests, then she’d never actually do a job. As long as she deemed them to be an acceptable amount of skeevy, then she would take the assignment. Usually, it was stalking a husband to see if they were cheating or something along those lines, but occasionally, she would get something different and interesting, like following Vanessa Bookman around.

Vanessa’s parents were pretty normal, all things considered. They told her that they had a child that they wanted to know about. They wanted to know about their lives and how they were doing in general. That was that. Charlie didn’t bother to ask more questions beyond that; it just wasn’t her business.

With a bit of digging, she learned the address of the brunette, but there were things that could only be answered by observation, or, in that case, in person. Was she happy? What was work like? Who was the man she was living with? There were things that she was sure that her parents would be glad to know if she could get her hands on the details. It was just proving to be a difficult task to do so, considering the fact that she was dealing with a telepath.

The telepath didn’t seem to believe her that it was her parents that had sent her. Charlie straightened up, flattened out her crumpled jacket, and met her eyes. She knew that they were estranged, but she didn’t realize exactly how much bad blood was between them. Charlie didn’t remember much about her parents, but she was pretty sure that no matter what, they had wanted her to be alright. She did remember something about them throwing her a funeral somewhere along the lines. It had just been awkward when she’d had to announce that she wasn’t actually as dead as they thought.

The blonde threw her hands up and raised an eyebrow at Vanessa. ”I’m not lying, love. Go ahead and read my mind,” she said, pulling up the memory of her meeting with Mister and Missus Bookman. She wasn’t making any of it up for one of the first times that evening. ”They wanted to know whether you were doing well or not. You know, what you’re doing with your life and whether you’re happy or not. That sort of thing.”

She had to credit Charlie; the woman did not shy away from eye contact. It was the sign of someone confident, and she fully believed herself to be in the right. Peering into those blue eyes, Vanessa was shaken to her core. It was all true; her parents hired Charlie to check in on her and look into the details of her new life to find out, of all things, if she was happy.

Why? There was some missing piece Vanessa could not see, because she refused to believe her parents just wanted to make sure she was in a good place. Did they regret how they handled things when Vanessa was still a teenager? If so, good; they deserved the sense of regret, knowing they made a mistake for the rest of their lives.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of her phone chiming. The noise startled her because, for the first time in years, she honestly wondered if she would read a message from her parents. Instead, she saw a message popping up in a small window under Booker’s name.

Bleach. The kitchen better smell of bleach and only bleach when I get home later.

Her brother was annoyed, but his response did a lot to diffuse the tension Vanessa was dealing with. ”I just don’t get it,” she admitted with a heaving sigh, ”But a deal’s a deal. I’ll give you anything you need to bring back to them. Consider question and answer time in session.” With Booker out of the apartment a while longer, Vanessa was just going to put off getting dressed a while longer. Who did not enjoy a naked Q&A?

They touched everything of interest. (Well, when it came to questions and answers.) Vanessa’s job (Playing video games and making content for an internet production company.) Her living situation, (a nice New York apartment she shared with her brother.) Her romantic situation, (moving past a breakup, but not doing too poor for herself, recent events considered.) She clarified that she had a few good friends and a handful of enjoyable acquaintances, she was not lacking for money, and not going hungry. Charlie was going to be able to piece together a comprehensive report for her parents without the need for words like “mutant” or “telepath.”

Vanessa finally slipped back into her bra and started pulling her legs through pants. ”So I guess when my parents ask, you can tell them their daughter is happy.” Her wording was pointed when she called herself their daughter, which was silly, because from what Vanessa could gather, Charlie was unaware that she was transgender or the familial fallout associated with her gender identity.

”And they can do whatever the hell they care to do with that information. So… we’ve got a deal, right?” Vanessa was putting a lot of faith in Charlie to keep news of her mutation a secret and Charlie had done little to prove she deserved such faith and trust.

By the time that they were done with the question and answer period, Charlie’s notebook was brimming with information. There was plenty to bring back to her parents, even without mentioning that she was a mutant. Coming to her apartment had clearly been a bold, dangerous move, but it had paid off for her in the end. She was coming back with more information than she’d ever have been able to dig up on her own, even if she’d been doing it for a long time. Straight from the source was always the best way to get information.

”Sure, tell them you’re happy,” Charlie nodded distractedly, glancing over her notes as she attempted to mentally compile them into a presentation. She had a feeling that they were going to be pleased with all that they found out. ”Happy, living a good life and s***. I’m sure they’ll eat it up, if that’s what you want.”

With her job completed, Charlie picked up the last of her clothes and belongings and gathered it into the same positions that she’d come in with them in. She was ready to leave, and she was still flipping through her notebook as she walked toward the window.

>>”And they can do whatever the hell they care to do with that information. So… we’ve got a deal, right?”

Charlie looked up and narrowed her eyes at the woman. ”Are you doubting my trustworthiness?” she asked, lowering the notebook. ”Don’t worry, sweetheart, we have a deal. Scout’s honor.” She even saluted just to make that fact clear. ”Now, I doubt we’ll see each other again, so it’s been a slice. Have a good life.”

With that, she turned with a dramatic dip and unlatched the window. Charlie then slid out the same way that she came in and made her way down the fire escape.