Open Case File [COMPLETED]

Quiet Night (Flashback)

Cause I can and cause so many of you have said this exact same thing. With that vague pronouncement, enjoy!

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The fire in the grate crackled, giving off warm waves of heat and helping illuminate the cabin. Outside rain tapped against the windows and danced on the roof, adding soothing background noise to the night. With rustic decorations and furniture, the cabin could almost seem homey.

Homey, if it weren't for the row of computers on one table displaying surveillance footage and processing data, the other table covered with classified files, and the gun case that sat open in one corner.

Carter sat across from Mason at a folding table. Cards and two coffee mugs dotted the top. The sound of rain and fire filled the silence of the cabin. Carter eyed her cards, seemly absorbed in her decision. But always in her mind, she waited to hear the ding of the computer, waiting for it to say a piece of data had been discovered. Something that would mean her stay in this cabin would be over.

"You know," Mason said, discarding two cards and taking two new ones. "I had a crush on you for a day during freshman year."

Carter raised her head. "You're a bit stupid to have done that."

Mason grinned. "You can see why it was only for a day."

Shaking her head, Carter returned to her cards.

"Why?" she asked a second later. "Was it because I was so attractive?"

Mason snorted. "No, there were easily two dozen girls more attractive than you."

At this, Carter cocked her eyebrows. Mason merely shrugged as if that settled the matter.

"No," he said. "I had a lapse in judgment because you were blunt and didn't care who I was or who my father was. Where everyone placated me, you didn't."

"Because I didn't care."

"I know. If it had been a tactic I wouldn't have fallen for it. But it was genuine how much you disliked me. And for a short, very short, period I thought we might have an enemies to lovers thing going."

"Ew," Carter said, staring at him. "What is that?"

"Calm down, it's where people go from hating each other to loving each other. How have you never heard of this? It's a common fiction trope."

"I rarely read fiction." Carter lowered her cards. "Besides, how is that healthy to go from hating someone to all of sudden loving them? What's the basis of the relationship? Hate? That's really promising. Also whose to say they can't easily flip back to hate after love if it was so easy to flip to love from hate?"

Mason held up his hands. "Chill, I didn't make this trope up. I'm only saying that's what I thought could happen to us."

Carter continued to look at him, skeptical then relented.

"Which it didn't," she said.

"I know, you made that clear really quickly."

"Oh?"

For a moment, Mason looked like he would elaborate but then waved the matter away.

"You did and I realized how stupid it would be to like you, so I went back to disliking you."

"Making my point that enemies to lovers means it could be lovers to enemies just as quickly."

"Drop it, it's a trope that's never going away and no one wants to hear your take on it. Especially since all you seem to read is nonfiction."