patheticvillain | forty ➢ private + spam

forty ➢ private + spam

private } needy

hey which two of these things do you hate the sound of least

☐ book club
☐ art therapy
☐ cats
☐ gardening
☐ baking
☐ learning how to knife fight

gift + open spam

[Call it Christmas in July. Call it boredom. Call it a pathological need for attention. Whatever you want to call it, gifts start showing up, ever so mysteriously, at people's doors and in common rooms throughout the week of the fourteenth.]

Daneca Wasserman ] A pair of deep purple gloves (the same color her hair was when he first met her), with silver buttons at the backs of the wrists.

Cass Cain ] Ten fluffy pillows, velvety dark blue with tassels, which are less placed and more piled outside her cabin. Also brownies.

Iris Wildthyme ] Scented candles, Bertie Botts style, in scents ranging from fresh-cut pine tree to alligator breath. They are all shaped like hearts.

Mira Hidalgo ] A blank, leather-bound journal.

Horatio Hornblower ] Lots of weed. Also gloves, but practical ones, all black.

Needy Lesnicki ] A hand-width clear glass figurine of a dragon, and a butterfly knife, which arrive before his text with the message I can show you how to use it.

Chris D'Amico ] Gold cufflinks in the shape of coiled rope, to match his best suit, which, when twisted in a certain way, come apart to reveal tiny lockpicks. Also homemade dog treats.

Slevin Kelevra ] A grinning black cat keychain, key attached, no label, and another pair practical black gloves.

Gwen Stacy ] A tiny hexagonal prism on a silver chain, with little lines drawn on the side to make it resemble a titration tube.

Anya Lehnsherr ] Gauzy, metallic yarn, the kind that's almost impossible to knit with without a magnifying glass, and a note: Do you know what a blacklight party is? We should have one.

Scott McCall ] A box of condoms. Inside there are no condoms, just a note that says lol. There is also a set of four amulets - which just look like stones on long chains - labeled Scott, Allison, Lydia, Stiles.

Zane ] A möbius ladder, a couple of feet across and made of copper, and some pot brownies, labeled These are pot brownies.

[Other gifts, less personalized, show up at random in all of the common rooms - some, too, as centerpieces in the middle of dining hall tables, or balanced on treadmills in the gym. Most are made of sandstone or copper, new materials he is working with, while some are glass or ceramic, old favorites; all are about a hand's span across.]

[There is one little sculpture that look suspiciously like a three-dimensional Mona Lisa with a fauxhawk. There are many flowers, some real and some utterly imaginary. There is only one cat, the pale gray of unglazed clay, with the inscription HA HA underneath it. There are relatively few twisted human bodies in the mix, but there are a couple (though none in the dining hall). Otherwise, it's a mishmash of animals, plants, random letters, and impenetrably abstract shapes.]

[Cassel himself can be found coming and going from these drop-offs if you're very sneaky, or in the gym, where he not only works every day but practices with renewed vigor with his butterfly knife. He is pretty sure that now that Cass is back, he has something to prove with it. He doesn't know what, but whatever it is, he'll get to it just as quick as he can.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Slevin isn't exactly sure what the gloves mean - not in the way someone who comes from the same world as Cassel would be, anyway, but he has pretty accurate guesses. He's known Cassel in a lot of different worlds, after all, and only one of them didn't have some form of the same. In one of them he seems to remember some small, deep digs about the holes in the fingertips of Cassel's.

He has a pretty good idea. It's not as important that he understands completely, though, as it is that Cassel notices them and smiles a little bit.]

Well, you seem to have less of a crush on me than Chris does, so I'm going to guess it wasn't that kind of hint.

I just like to know. You know me, always poking around where I shouldn't be.

[This is both undeniably accurate and completely untrue.]

[He shrugs, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Scuffing his shoes. All that jazz. But he isn't actually shy about a thing. He wouldn't take the key back if it was forced on him.]

I thought, you know, if there was ever a flood where you were being chased by marauding . . . let's say elephants. And you had to escape down this way, but your room was inexplicably full of poisonous gas.

Or you just wanted to be somewhere no one could find you. For a little while.

I have two beds. That's all I'm saying.

[A beat. Then, with pursed lips:]

Also, you're not even that good-looking.

Excuse you, I look amazing.

[This easy, confident, while the dark of his eyes is steady and unblinking; this is the problem, but no one will listen. He cannot be anything other than what he is. He made himself this. He does good work.

The key disappears again, this time tucked up his sleeve in a very competent display of sleight of hand. He works with his hands. They work for him. Then he tilts his head.]

What if I just wanted to talk?

[That - that right there is a surprise. Not the sleight of hand, which Cassel expected and follows with a keen eye; not the darkness in Slevin's eyes, which is par for the course. No, the talking thing. That's new.]

[Which makes it suspect. The best con artists tell their marks exactly what they want to hear. Cassel tips his head, wary, to one side, and sits down on Sam's bed, so he will have to look up at Slevin, so the assassin - the other assassin - will have to look down.]

I listen all right. Assuming you're not just fucking with me.

[Slevin, indeed looking down, shrugs as though it doesn't matter. As though it's a test, as though it's part of a con. Something that can be dropped to a heap on the floor and walked away from instead of something trying to writhe to life deep in his gut, something he has cut the head off before to survive, only now he needs a different tactic.

Now he has different things to survive. Slevin's gaze is steady, his crooked smile smooth and dry.]

Always assume I'm just fucking with you. It's easier on everyone involved. [This, as much as his tone makes it coy, is the god's honest truth.]

So seriously: why now? Why this?

[It might be the truth, but Cassel doesn't honestly think it'll be easier. It's almost impossible for him to imagine being on the Barge without Slevin hanging around, talking shit, pissing him off and making him smile in turns. He takes Slevin seriously. If he'd wanted to cut out that particular dangerous behavior, he would have had to have started ages ago, because now it's taken root.]

[He smiles at Slevin anyway, shoots back that liar's smile like it's the only language they share, like neither of them know how to speak love. Like this is all one game with low, low stakes that neither of them are invested in.]

Because you called me on my shit, I guess. And because - it's dumb.

My grandad told me once that real friends won't lie to you to make you feel better. They'll call you an asshole to your face, if you're an asshole. I think that means something.

Because I - [His face goes carefully neutral, now.] Because I like talking to you.

[It's only because Slevin is a white collar bullshitter that his smile doesn't slip when Cassel gives him what even he recognizes as an unfailingly honest answer. At least, the bricks used to build it are honest: when Slevin remembers that he doesn't know this because Cassel told him, it just pisses him off anew.

He never asked to remember what it felt like to belong to someone. He never asked to be reminded anew what it feels like to lose that without any choice in the matter whatsoever.

When he frowns, it's because he chose to, not because his mouth does it when he's not paying attention to it.]

So you think we're real friends. [His tone is arch, careful, but not particularly scathing. Not dismissive. Just bemused.]

Yes.

[This Cassel says without any hesitation at all. Yes, he thinks - doesn't know, but thinks - that they're real friends. He isn't an expert in the matter; he hasn't had very many, and almost all of them are here. Back home, he wouldn't know a real friend from a hole in the ground. He treated Sam like shit, treated Daneca worse, and Lila . . . well, that doesn't even bear mentioning. He was cruel and selfish with all of them, because he didn't know how to be anything but cruel and selfish.]

[Now he knows better. Even if Slevin doesn't, or if he doesn't want to, Cassel does, and he knows what friendship feels like now. This, what there is between the two of them, with all its complications and feral skepticism, is friendship.]

[His expression is still mostly blank, but a smile begins to curve on his lips, mostly on its own. He lets it. He is happy, in this little way, like a child, thrilled to have a friend.]

Do you disagree?

I don't know.

[Slevin shocks himself with an honest answer, and it shows for a flash of a second before he straightens up slightly, hides it away again, but it's there. Cassel already knows more than he should, knows Slevin doesn't have anyone waiting for him back home, knows he hasn't had anyone for years outside of Goodkat.

He thinks of Saul, who played with him in the dirt when they were kids, who looked him in the eye and didn't know him; who took the money of the men who killed his parents. Who would have, were reported to have, killed him. He never knew if Saul knew. He never asked. He never will.

He shakes his head.] No. I guess not.

So what now?

What now?

[Cassel almost, almost shows the same surprise that Slevin showed a moment ago. What now is not the sort of question a normal person asks when they find a friend. It is, however, a familiar question, one that he asks every time he finds someone he thinks could understand him. What now? What's the trick? Where's the catch? When will it be over, and how much will it hurt when it ends?]

[His smile grows slow and sticky, like cotton-candy-covered fingers in summer, like the hands of children who play in the dirt and don't think to question that they have friends, that they deserve friends, that they won't be betrayed. Memories that he never had, that for Slevin are tainted. Memories that probably matter, but not as much as this, right now.]

Now you get a key to my room, genius. You answered your own question.

[Slevin, of course, doesn't entirely trust that smile or that answer; he is wary, watching the idea cultivate, watching the possibility unfold directly before him. He twists his hand, the key catching against the cuff of his glove, reassuring himself that it's there subtly.

He has a key to his friend's room. That's what now. Slevin smiles a little bit, then, and glances over his shoulder for a chair to ease down into. If he's going to commit, well.

Few people commit like Henry Mason.] That's right, I am.

[He adjusts the gloves on his hands as he settles, lays them in his lap, tugs the fingers a bit looser and then tighter again, looser and tighter. Flexes them, straightens them, and then frowns at them a little.]

They have Columbo where you're from? [This abruptly, but when he glances up, there's no deception in his expression. There's so much else that is the same, he's inexplicably eager for this to exist there, too.]

[The question takes Cassel by surprise. But there's significance to it, there's got to be. Sometimes Slevin does things by accident, but he never says anything by accident. His words have purpose.]

[Or maybe that's wishful thinking. Maybe it's just small talk. The fact is, though, that Cassel wants it to be big talk. He always wants big talk with Slevin. He wants them to understand each other.]

[He quirks his lips curiously, half-shrugging.]

Yeah. I watched reruns sometimes. Why?

[Slevin's shoulders relax. He's not sure why he was so against wanting to try to explain about Columbo, but he's relieved not to have to; maybe Cassel will understand after all.

Maybe he can help Slevin understand.]

I just... you know how no one ever saw him as a threat? Like he's just this perfectly ordinary guy that seems to stumble into the middle of a crime, and it's almost like he's not even supposed to be there, and he's never surprised, and he never stops?

And then he's just like "oh and one more thing" and just spits out the entire story like he's reading from a script, like it's no big deal? I mean, he is, but... you know.

And that's it. That's the game, just like that.

[Now he smiles, a big shit-eating grin. Yeah. He knows. That's the game, just like that. He was never as good at it as Slevin is - thought he was, but wasn't; not poorly trained but not quite willing, too angry, not disciplined enough, lots of shit getting in the way of doing it right.]

[He gets the point, though.]

Columbo was a con man.

No, he wasn't.

[Slevin answers this immediately and firmly, but then he stops himself, because the strict definition fits. It's the semantics that get in the way, the common opinion that all confidence men are criminals, that the lies they tell are to hurt someone else, not to help.

He frowns, raising one hand to bite at his thumbnail before he realizes it's gloved, drops it away again instead.]

He was just a guy - an extraordinary guy - with a mind like quicksand. One you could never quite anticipate, so you could never quite stay a step ahead, no matter how good you are at it normally.

[He's quiet another moment, and he's not talking about a television detective anymore. Three thingS: what's there now that wasn't there before, what was there before that isn't there now, and what's been moved. Is this a crime scene? I think Nick's in trouble.]

Her name's Lindsey.

[There's a moment of hesitation where Cassel shrinks away slightly, unsure of what exactly he's done wrong. He doesn't quite get what the difference is, even now, between what he's said and what Slevin's saying.]

[Then something happens, some kind of decision is made between the moment that was and the moment that is now, and he goes perfectly still, smile drifting away. Lindsey.]

[He knew that. But it's different now. Slevin's telling him now.]

Tell me about her?

[Slevin's gaze is unfocused somewhere through the wall behind Cassel. He opens his mouth to answer but there's nothing there to say, or he doesn't trust himself, or both, because he closes it again without speaking.

Such a simple request. Tell me about her. But what? Tell what? Where to start?

He's not aware of beginning to smile, or the way his eyes begin to go soft as he finds his footing. The way his voice doesn't sound like his, but like someone normal, someone that doesn't use every sound that comes out of his throat for some decided end.]

I was trying to make her like me. I didn't realize until it was too late, she's the kind of woman that decides how you feel about her. Not intentionally, just... she decides she likes you, she smiles. You smile back. It's over.

Nothing throws her. You pitch her the wildest story and she picks it apart, puts it back together better, throws it back and you hope you can catch it when she does. She doesn't even know she's doing it.

She's just... I was trying to make her like me. I don't think anyone makes her do anything.

[That look, Cassel recognizes it. He knows it from his own face in the mirror, and from seeing lots of times when it was like this but twisted-up and wrong, when it wasn't what it is now. There is no opposite to love, there are only alternate versions of it or its opposite, but this - right now - this is love.]

[He wonders if Slevin realizes all the words his face is saying, if he's given his eyes permission to look so happy, if he understands that he is smiling.]

She's too smart for you.

You love her. [This is not a question. There's never been anything more certain in all of Cassel's life, he thinks - except, maybe, for Chris.]

She is. I do.

[Too smart for him, too good for him, he knew it at once; knew at once he loved her, though it took a while to catch up to him in a form he could recognize. He knew he shouldn't want to touch something as amazing as her because he trained himself to leave only empty apartments and full graves behind him. He kills people for a living. He may have killed her.

His expression darkens, falls, at the thought. He looks down at where one gloved thumb picks at where the nail would be on the other, and if he gave himself permission to be so openly happy, now he sends himself the other way - if he's doing it at all.]

She got in the middle of the job. Not intentionally. I don't think she knows where she's not supposed to be as a concept. Just goes wherever she wants, looks around, invites herself in.

I don't think I could've stopped her, even if I'd just given her the sugar and closed the door.

[Cassel fights the instinct to reach out, to grab hold of Slevin's hands and hold them still, anchor him down. He doesn't think it would be appreciated, and more importantly, he thinks it might make him stop talking, which is the last thing he wants. There's an intangible intimacy in this that he's craved for months. They're not just friends. They're family. Even if Slevin doesn't know it yet.]

[Lindsey doesn't sound a thing like Lila, except for this one thing: that they are both unstoppable. In very different, uniquely dangerous ways; he doubts Lindsey has ever sentenced a man to death with a nod, or plotted her rise to the top of a complex and intricate mafia hierarchy. But the both of them are emotional juggernauts, and they go where they like.]

[He misses Lila with a fierce, almost physical pain now. He still loves her, will always love her, even if he doesn't want to be with her anymore. But she was right. They could have been a good team, once, before every awful thing that happened. They could have taken on the world.]

Do you honestly wish you'd stopped her?

[Because Cassel wishes he'd stopped himself, a hundred times over, but Lila? He never wishes anything for her but forward motion.]

For her sake, yes.

[Her life would be much simpler if she hadn't come in and begun investigating a crime scene, if she hadn't ever decided to go to dinner with the cute stranger in his apartment; it's the moment that he thinks this, though, that he realizes she would not have wanted a simpler life. He hadn't seen it sooner because she hadn't had a choice in it.

Except she gives herself choices. She creates opportunity out of thin air. Hadn't he just said that? His brow creases, the corner of his mouth pulling, staring hard at his hands.]

For my sake? I don't know.

I know I don't want to lose her, now. I don't even have her, but I don't want to lose her.

You have her.

[If Slevin cares to look up, Cassel is smiling, crooked and knowing and resigned, an expression simultaneously older and younger than his years. A lovesick little boy and a very old man who's seen love and hate and everything in between and knows what this is, exactly, precisely, perfectly.]

You have her 'cause she has you. You think she'd let you go that easy?

It's not your choice. You don't get to choose who you love, you don't get to choose who loves you.

That's not always true for people like us, is it?

[Slevin's voice is low, earnest. Confidence men play on their charm, on the trust they can wheedle from others with this word choice, this smile, this story. With this or that small detail they pulled out of an observation about their mark, with their end goal and their resources. Slevin has made any number of people love him.

He's never loved any of them. He rubs at the end joint of one thumb with the other, a nervous tick, repetitive.]

I lied for her. To Goodkat. He'll kill us both, if he finds out.

But that's not love, Slevin. If you make somebody love you, it isn't really love at all. And if you lie to them after you realize you love them, that isn't love, either.

[He's as genuine, as real as Slevin is now, as honest as Slevin has ever seen him. Sure, he knows the game. Sure, he knows how to make someone think they love him. But it was never him they loved.]

The first person who loved me, really did, no lies, was Chris. I told him the truth on a whim. Because I felt sort of bad. And he believed me, no questions asked, he had faith in me, and it felt so good. And I never looked back.

You never looked back, either, did you? That's why you're gonna be able to protect her. People can do all kinds of crazy things when they're in love.

[Slevin isn't sure he agrees with that. He can think of some that he's sure were really, truly hurt by the end of the game, who had fallen well and truly for what he showed them, possibly for some things he didn't mean to show. It wasn't him they loved, but the love was real. They weren't lying to him.

But no, it isn't love. To keep lying, no matter how dangerous, no matter how unbelievable. His eyes are unfocused, aimed back in time instead of at the floor in front of him, listening to Cassel's words but seeing another time and place. Someone else. The words make him smile, just a little.]

We've been on one date. I took her to dinner as part of my cover for being where my mark was. And because I wanted her there. I was sure I could at least get her out if things went sideways, ex-Israeli Mossad, cops, all of it. Sure, too, that she might be mad for a little while but then she'd have a story to tell and she'd love that.

She told me...

She told me that she thought people should only get married if they had a good story about how they met. And it was all right there. All ready to go. Not in a pushy, overbearing way, just... like she turned her head and saw it there and was telling me about it.

forty ➢ private + spam

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)