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.]

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[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.

It sounds like a good date.

[He's about 90% serious. By normal people standards it sounds like a shit date, actually, but he's not normal people and neither is Slevin and frankly it sounds like Lindsey is a little crazy, so. Good enough date.]

A good story, too. How many people have ex-Mossad at their first date?

[A hesitation, then; a moment of thought. Then he grins down at his hands and nods, as if at a question that someone unseen's just asked.]

It all does sound like a story. You know? Like a fairy tale.

[Lindsey is a lot crazy in exactly the right way; Slevin would agree with this assessment whole-heartedly if he knew. He would know, if he thought about it long enough, which he doesn't.

He's thinking about someone else.]

Maybe. Part of it was - is a story. Part of it... she didn't know who I was. She thought I'd just bumbled into the middle of all this, because that's what we decided. She wasn't...

I don't know anything about her. Not even her last name. [He could have had that information in a heartbeat if he'd wanted to; that's the easiest of personal information for him to find, but he hadn't.] She doesn't know anything about me.

I'm not sure that's the part of the fairytale that translates to real life, though. You know? Can that... [Be enough?

Slevin is no good at all at uncertainty.]

[Cassel cocks his head curiously. The truth is he doesn't know. He doesn't know what can be enough and what can't, what's good enough and what isn't, what will be enough to break a bond and what will just strain it enough to build it up stronger again. He doesn't know.]

[What he does know is that he's never seen Slevin want anything as much as he wants this. Not even revenge.]

[So he does what he does best in this kind of situation. In any kind of situation: he lies.]

Yeah. It can.

You have to work, I mean, you have to be honest eventually, but as a start? Yeah. It can be enough.

[Normally, Slevin would catch him at it. Would be both impressed and unimpressed, the former because it's a very good lie, the latter because he was trying sincerely for just a moment to pass it off to another career liar as honesty. Be honest. They don't even know how to do that.

But he had been honest. He'd told her the truth to save her once already. He'll shoot you here. And here.

Lindsey's smart. Goodkat's good. He's not sure which will win out in this situation, can't answer the question easily as he would if it were either of them against any other person, including himself. Lindsey's smarter than he is. Goodkat's better than he is. God, what if...

He starts to chew his thumbnail, catches the fabric of the gloves in his teeth instead, drops his hands back to his lap in frustration.

No, not frustration. Agitation.]

Well. None of it matters right now anyway. I'm not going anywhere.

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