patheticvillain | thirty-eight ➢ private video & spam

spam } horatio

[When Cassel picks the lock on Horatio's door and slides inside, silent as a cat in the dark, he finds the man asleep in a hammock hanging gently above creaky floorboards. For a moment he regards him in the dim light coming from the hallway, considering all of his options. He could easily turn Horatio into something unspeakably vile as punishment. It might even be right.]

[Instead, he pulls a black silk cloth out of his pocket and, leaning up on his tiptoes, ties it around Horatio's eyes and behind his head. Then he sits in the corner of the room, legs crossed and eyes half-open, waiting for the man with his naked hands to wake up.]

private } daneca

I need your help with something. Or someone, I guess.

What do you do for blowback? I have some techniques that I used on my mom, but - you probably have better ones. She never really tried to control it.

private } needy

[In between all of this, he's almost surprised by the arrival of Needy's file. He's still a warden here. Even though Czeslaw's gone, he gets another chance.]

[As he reads it, a smile grows on his face. Nothing he's reading is good, but it's not - foreign, either, even when it technically is. He doesn't feel lost. He feels - intrigued.]

[He's still half-smiling when he opens the feed, cocking his head at her through the connection.]

So. You pissed?

open spam } gardens

[He sits under a tree, making statues.]

[Maybe this will frighten people, now that they have some context: he's got his gloves off, folded carefully at his side. There is scrap metal - soda cans and piles of paper clips - by his knee. This he uses to build his statues, long, thin, somewhat overwrought looking things, melded and twisted by his transformation into something vaguely human.]

[Occasionally he pauses and takes a sip of the open mug of steaming coffee at his other knee. Then he goes back to building ugliness.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Elena is trying not to coop herself up in her room too much lately. She feels that the last time she was here, she did a lot of hiding from both herself and other people. Some more than others.]

[She can't claim to have that much of a traditional friendship with Cassel. Or much of a friendship at all for that matter. But they have...something. A weird sort of understanding that they used to be worse people than they are today. Cassel is still somewhat of a work-in-progress. Elena feels she is some days and some days she's doing just fine. But that understanding is decent. It's even good enough once in a while.]

[She stops, watching him for a moment as he builds his little statues. Elena isn't as uncomfortable watching him work as she expected she would be. But she's also not as comfortable as she would like either.]

Mind if I sit?

[He glances up at her when she arrives and gives her a smile that is neither welcoming nor distant. It's just a smile, like normal people smile at each other. He nods to her question.]

Anywhere you want. I only need a little space.

[This one has long fingers, like an aye-aye's. He strokes its arm and watches them lengthen before his eyes.]

I didn't realize it was gonna be a show. I would've brought popcorn.

[Elena sits down cross-legged a little ways away to give him that space. She folds her hands in her lap. She has a faint smile as she watches him.]

I wouldn't buy any though. You'd just overcharge.

[He smirks, putting the finishing touches on it. When he pulls his hands away, it turns a burnished bronze.]

Yep. I sure would.

I was considering maybe just leaving them on people's doorsteps, when I get back to the world. You know. For shits and giggles.

Hoping they'll step on them barefoot?

[Because those would definitely hurt more than stepping on a Lego.]

Or be struck dumb by my artistic prowess first thing in the morning. Either or.

Truly you have the spark of maniacal genius, [she says with a roll of her eyes.]

[He smirks, like, I know. Because he does. He knows what she means, which is 'bullshit', and he even sort of knows why she's here. Here with him, not here on the Barge. There's something to be said for making acquaintances from enemies, even if they never quite get to be friends.]

So if I'm a maniacal genius, what does that make you? [A sideways way of asking, How are you?]

Does it make me way too much of a teenager to say I'm still sorta working on that?

[Things feel steady under her feet for now, but with this place it's always up to chance how long that will last. And besides, things are only just now starting to feel a little normal again.]

At least I quit the femme fatale thing when I turned my humanity back on.

Good. The femme fatale thing is boring.

[He says, hypocritically.]

But you're not femme normale either. Too many vampire boyfriends.

[You're lucky doesn't know about Lila or Cassel, she'd super call you out.]

Okay, one, I'm pretty sure femme normale isn't really a thing. And two, I don't have vampire boyfriends anymore. Even if I did, I'm a vampire. Don't you think that counts a little more?

I mean. I guess. But you're still Elena.

[Elena is quiet a moment. It shouldn't mean much coming from Cassel. He never knew Elena before she became a vampire, before she turned her humanity off. Granted, Elena hadn't managed to bury or strip herself of who she used to be as well as she thought she had when her emotions were locked away tight until she could cope with it better, but still. Cassel could never really claim to know her.]

[She's not even really sure if he meant anything by it and maybe she was giving him too much credit. But that seems to be Cassel's raison d'être: keep them guessing.]

[And in the end, it's still nice to hear.]

Yeah, [she says with a small nod.] Yeah, I am.

[By some small miracle. She's changed and grown, but she's still Elena.]

[Elena brushes some of her hair back behind her ear before she points to one of Cassel's little statues.]

Can I have that one?

[He smiles wide at her, one of those sunny smiles that coming from him could mean the truth or a lie or pretty much anything in between. But he's happy. For now, he's happy, because there is a girl sitting here who used to be his enemy and now - isn't a friend, but isn't an enemy, either. Not really. They have reached detente, and now he can say things that make her look at him like he's a person. Maybe he is, at that.]

[She is, has always been, Elena, to him, in all her complexity. All her different guises. It's all part of the same girl. Not even Salvatores can change that.]

[He pushes the statue towards her, lowering his eyes to watch it go.]

You can have whichever one you want. It's like a peace offering. Right?

[Elena picks the statue up, turning it over in her hand a moment before resting it in front of her.]

Right, [she says with a nod and a smile.]

[Elena isn't sure if they'll ever necessarily be friends. There was a lot of damage done there, most of which was Elena's doing. But they don't need to be enemies with each other anymore. They don't have to be looking over their shoulder where the other one is concerned. Something like that on the Barge is a big deal all on its own.]

[It's great and it feels good.]

But you decide to start pulling pranks on me or something like that, it's absolutely full-on war again and I won't accept any surrender.

Well, at that point, I'd be asking for it. So war would be cool with me.

[He grins and tips his chin up, indicating the statue.]

What're you gonna do with it?

[Elena's quiet while she thinks of where she could put it in her room.]

I think I'll put it where my diary goes. [She picks it back up.] It'd make a nice guard, don't you think?

[Elena makes a face, turning the little statue to face Cassel and wiggling it a little before laughing and setting it back down.]

thirty-eight ➢ private video & spam

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