forty-eight ➢ spam + private + video

[patheticvillain]

spam } open

[Cassel starts the new year off hungover. He rises late after karaoke, but he does rise, his limbs feeling heavy and leaden as he heads to the gym.]

[It's weird; he's got the craziest feeling that time is pressing down on him, that if he doesn't start off this year right he'll be letting everybody down. That everyone he passes is looking at him, too. Paranoia left over from seeing his family, probably, but it feels real. He smiles at everyone who comes in as he's cleaning and tidying, doing the work he didn't do over the past few days, but he feels hemmed in, overwhelmed, pushed against by anything and everything.]

[Those who know him well might notice he's frowning more and smiling wider when he smiles at all. His masks aren't as good as they should be. He complains loudly and with good cheer about the food at lunch in the dining hall, sits down with near-strangers, touches the people he loves on the back as he passes their tables.]

private } chris

Hey, so. What the hell is Mickey's deal anyway?

private } wichita

You and me, we've got a date. You ready?

filter } inmates

Yo, so anybody who uses the gym on a regular basis might have noticed it's kind of trashed at the moment. That's my bad, I'm sorry about it. I haven't figured out how to clone myself, so for the time being it's just me working in there.

I need a magician's assistant. Anybody interested? Perks include me liking you, your theoretical warden getting off your ass a little bit, not being bored to death, and karma points.


( ooc; cassel is still emotion-worked! as detailed in these posts. pp for more details if desired! )

Comments

private;

[cons]

Only if you promise to take me somewhere fancy.

[ this can't be happening nope not real she did not get paired with Cassel he's supposed to be- ..not her friend, but you know. not her Warden. ]

private;

[patheticvillain]

I'll take you wherever you want to go, as long as it's on this ship and I don't have to pay any real money.

private;

[cons]

Real money isn't even a real thing here, is it?

[ she's doing that thing where the comment sounds offhanded but you know, it's not, she's interested ]

private;

[patheticvillain]

Sorry. No.

Kind of makes everything seem pointless, right?

[That thing she's doing? He's doing it, too.]

[Inmate Filter]

[mercurialize]

Working how?

[Inmate Filter]

[patheticvillain]

It's about half cleaning and half making sure people don't get into fights around heavy equipment.

[Inmate Filter]

[mercurialize]

So... guard duty with a broom?

[Inmate filter]

[tricksandmischief]

What exactly do you mean by magician's assistant?

[Inmate filter]

[patheticvillain]

Haven't you ever seen those shows where the guy in the sparkly tights commits some egregiously sloppy sleight of hand while a pretty girl distracts the audience? You'd be the pretty girl.

[Inmate filter]

[tricksandmischief]

So you simply need a distraction.

Spam!

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

[Horatio doesn't speak to Cassel much. He finds him difficult to face, a lot of the time. He still feels a lingering glut of conflicting emotions, from having emotion worked Cassel during a particularly powerful flood, and from having Cassel coach him through the agonies of the blow back afterwards. Mostly he feels guilt, second mostly he feels embarrassed.

So he doesn't often approach Cassel, but they've made enough contact that Horatio finds him impossible to ignore. So instead Horatio kind of... Creepily observes him. His posts. His mannerisms. How he is with Chris. Just generally how he's doing, when he's out and about in public.

This is the only reason why it occurs to him at all that something is ever so slightly... off with Cassel. Which, in turn, is the only reason why he deigns to carefully place his tray down opposite him at dinner time today.]

May I join you?

Spam!

[patheticvillain]

[Cassel, on the other hand, feels weirdly positive towards Horatio. Maybe it's because of how much the man has fucked with him - it reminds him of home, and especially now he's feeling nostalgic for what he used to have, and how good he sometimes thought it was.]

[So when Horatio sits down across from him, Cassel smiles, wide and open, and nods.]

Totally. I feel like you've been avoiding me.

Spam!

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

Not avoiding you. I haven't wanted to intrude, perhaps, but I wasn't avoiding you.

[The smile seems familiar to him, and that's strange. Even at their very best, Cassel has never looked kindly on Horatio. He's surly, sarcastic, often unreadable. Cassel does not like him, and he completely understands why.

The smile Cassel is showing him now isn't like that. It's wide, open, too warm and too accepting, and Horatio realises, with a jolt, when he's seen it before.]

Cassel, when you went home... you went to see your family? Your mother?

[For three days, Cassel had liked him. Loved him, even. It was a mark of his having been worked.]

[Private]

[mistconduct]

What do you mean, what's his deal? He's a dick. He was a dick before he was an inmate.

Congratulations on your pairing, by the way.

[Private]

[patheticvillain]

I know he's a dick. But he told me to ask you about something, because he was acting crazy and punching doors and wouldn't tell me what was wrong. So I thought maybe you knew why he's such a dick.

Thanks, I guess. It's a little weird.

[Private]

[mistconduct]

What'd he want you to ask me?

What's weird? I know jack shit about Wichita, but still.

[donttouchthefur]

Don't care, don't have one, you might have something, and don't need any.

What else you got.

[patheticvillain]

Are you a fucking raccoon.

[donttouchthefur]

So people keep telling me.

Why, you got a problem with that?

spam } gym

[maytakecenturies]

[Her eyes flicker to him when she enters the gym, but she doesn't return his smile. Her hair is pulled back behind her ears, and she wears her Starfleet regulation exercise clothes - because even with the wealth of selection she received over Christmas, she doesn't trust it. If she never bothers with the gifts, no one can ever call in a favor.

She doesn't like owing favors.

After a quick search of the gym, she settles for weight lifting equipment - solely so she can put her back to the wall and pull forward. It's a matter of logical safety: no one can sneak up on her. When she's more satisfied with the layout and the traffic, she'll find another machine. In the meantime, she pulls, holds, releases. And she watches Cassel. Her expression stays carefully neutral: strangely, being whatever creature she was in Narnia has helped her feel more centered, lately. Much more than a return to childhood, anyway.

She discards subtlety entirely as he cleans, staring outright instead as he works over the machines in her vicinity.]

spam } gym

[patheticvillain]

[He always does it like this, one machine at a time, one step at a time, moving in a careful spiral around the outer edges of the room towards the middle. It's careful habit, one of those things that tends to center him in space and time when he's feeling particularly vulnerable.]

[He's noticed T'Pol, of course. He didn't approach her initially because she seemed so . . . well. So familiar, in a way that he doesn't know how to reach. But if she's gonna stare at him, he's gonna stare right back. The longer they stare, the more he grins, until at last he's giggling as he cleans, maintaining eye contact and just laughing like a loon.]

spam } gym

[maytakecenturies]

[Wow. Wow, Cassel. T'Pol doesn't look away, doesn't stop working. Pull, hold, release. Pull, hold, release. She makes it look like she could do endless repetitions and never feel the ache.

It's a lie, of course, but most things are lies.]

Have I missed a joke?

text

[150th]

Why are you trying to clone yourself?

text

[patheticvillain]

Because I can't do all this work all by myself, duh.

text

[150th]

Do not create another being solely to be your slave.