thirty-four ➢ voice + spam

[patheticvillain]

Czeslaw's gone. His door and everything is blank.

. . . I don't really think he made many friends while he was here, but. I'm going to light a candle for him, if anybody wants to join me.

spam } chapel

[It's quiet and still in here, which is good; it matches how Cassel is feeling. Quiet and still, like a windless world. He doesn't know what to make of this reaction. He can feel himself grieving, but it's muted, as though muffled by layers and layers of cloth.]

[With aching fingers he carves Czeslaw's name into a white candle, uses his lighter to light it. After a moment of watching the flame, he carves another name - Slevin's - into another candle, and Daneca's into a third, and hopes (doesn't pray) that they wake.]

Comments

spam }

[patheticvillain]

[He glances up at Bond, and a smile flits across his face before burying itself somewhere far away. There's some comfort in the man's presence, even if it's strange comfort. Even if neither of them wants to put a name to it.]

For Slevin and Daneca. I want them to wake up.

[He sounds small and childish, but doesn't bother to correct his tone. It's true. He wants them to wake up. He wants them to be around for him. He wants not to be alone.]

spam }

[lastrat]

[Bond nods, and for once doesn't put his thumb on the tone. Cassel isn't just a kid, but he's not very far from one at the same time. He can't wish Cassel into different coping mechanism. Coming to a stop beside him, James takes in the candles and the names carved into their sides. It's not faith, he thinks. Just hope. The candles are for Cassel most of all.

Sliding one hand out of his pocket, he rests it firmly on Cassel's shoulder.]

I can't say I miss Daneca as a judgmental drinking partner, but all the same.

spam }

[patheticvillain]

[All the same. He smiles wryly. All the same what? Bond never says the true heart of what he means, even if he thinks it really loudly. All the same, he wants her to come back, judgment or no.]

[Cassel isn't sure Bond understands what he's doing, but the important thing is he's not treating him like a fool for it. Somewhere along the way he let Bond into the same place his father previously occupied - where he would crumple in shame if he was not approved of.]

[It's not as bad as it used to be, but it's still not exactly healthy.]

You miss her. In whatever weird way you miss people. [In whatever way Bond would miss him.]

spam }

[lastrat]

[Since when do either of them know what healthy is?

They're both still learning.

Letting out a breath of a laugh, Bond shrugs and lets his hand fall from Cassel's shoulder.]

It can't be that strange.

[He misses Elena, sometimes, when he lapses and lets himself think about anything but the present. It's easier to lapse here than it is at home.]

Maybe I do.

[A beat.]

But don't tell her that.

spam }

[patheticvillain]

I won't tell her a thing.

[He might, still. But Daneca is a better person than he is, and around her he tries to be better, too. So maybe he won't.]

[He looks up when Bond laughs and leans towards him a little. Not touching this time - his head almost exploded last time - but close enough to take comfort from his physical proximity.]

I think she needs to be here. You know? I think . . . there are things some people can learn from this shitty place even when they're not strictly speaking bad people.

spam }

[lastrat]

[He doesn't answer right away, because it's too close to his mark. He could learn a thing or ten here. He just doesn't want to. He would rather dig his heels in out of sheer stubbornness.

Which is probably one of the things, but when does dwelling ever help?

Eyes flicking to Cassel as he leans in, Bond lets out a long breath through his nose and shrugs his shoulders in an effortless gesture.]

What do you think she needs to learn?

[Besides absolutely everything, since she's only a teenager.]

spam }

[patheticvillain]

[He worries his lip, shakes his head. Secrets. He is a little tired of secrets, especially secrets that he doesn't think Daneca should have to keep. But he keeps them for her anyway, though they exhaust him. She's kept enough for him over the years, for worse reasons.]

She needs to learn she doesn't need to be fixed.

[One of those things Cassel had to learn in his own way, too. He learned to, if not love his work, at least see it as something that is part of him, not something that casts him out.]

[Daneca hasn't yet. He wants her to, so desperately - it's important to him in a way he realizes he has no right to. But for someone so whole, she seems to feel so fragmented by something that's intrinsically part of her.]

[If she wants her work taken away, so be it. But Cassel wishes she would have the time to see that she doesn't have to.]

spam }

[lastrat]

If she did, she'd be an inmate.

[It's not that he's inherantly bad at offering comfort. He's still terribly unused to it, even after all the time spent here. Bond prefers the people who will laugh off coddling with dry remarks, the sort who push on and do their job, and to hell with everything else.

That's not remotely what he's done here either, though, and he knows it.]

That girl is one of the few I've seen here with her head on straight.

[He doesn't ask. He knows a secret when he hears one. He does wonder what the hell is going on in her head.]

spam }

[patheticvillain]

[Cassel just smiles. Yeah, she seems like that, doesn't she. He knows better, but he didn't learn through any kind of honest means; it's not his secret to share. It just makes him wonder if maybe everyone is less together than they act like they are. Maybe he's not so unusual for all that.]

[He looks forward again, and drums on the pew.]

She's smarter than both of us put together, that's for sure.

spam }

[lastrat]

I wouldn't go that far.

[But Daneca in twenty years? Absolutely. He smiles a little, eyeing the candles and suppressing the vaguest urge to light one for Vesper. He's not mourning her, not anymore, and he certainly doesn't need to pray for her. She's home safe.

He stamps down the flare of absurd jealousy that accompanies that thought.

Reaching up to clap Cassel's shoulder again, James exhales, and turns as if to go.]