fifty ➢ video ( cw bodyhorror )

[patheticvillain]

video

This is bullshit.

["This" being the black, silky ears he's sprouted in the wake of the flood. His long tail, equally black and twitching with irritation, pokes out from under his blanket, where he's curled up and sulking. The camera's at a skewed angle, balanced on the edge of his pillow.]

I just woke up like this. I didn't even do it. If it's gonna happen, I want to at least be the one to do it. I want . . .

[He trails off, his eyes distant and dull. When they snap back into focus, he sits up slowly, blankets falling around him, and narrows his eyes.]

It's supposed to hurt.

[And then he begins to change: skin rippling, body changing, limbs twisting. He grows a third arm, and then a fourth, the new ones vestigial, skinless, ugly. Growths emerge across his face, limning his high cheekbones. He curls up in the fetal position; you can hear bones crack, shift, curl, and break. All the while he's crying out in a dog's whine, an ugly helpless yet somehow angry noise. The blankets tangle around his shifting feet as they grow bark and tentacles and recede into stubs.]

[Eventually, endlessly, he is still. The ears and tail have gone completely.]

Comments

[thelastbullet]

Will you? [It's obvious from the way he's asking it that he wouldn't blame Cassel if he did. He doesn't want that for him, but he'd understand.]

[patheticvillain]

Nah. I can't go back there. My mom would kill me.

[It's . . . really clear from the way he says it that this is not hyperbole. He's kind of burned that bridge.]

[thelastbullet]

[Oh, does he understand that. Not that Nucky would kill him out of any sense of protection against criminality.]

So you're going to get your GED? [His voice sounds uncertain, both because he has no idea what a GED is and because it didn't sound like Cassel had any inclination to get whatever it is.]

[patheticvillain]

Yeah, I'm gonna try.

[He sighs, leaning forward and pressing the heels of his hands to his temples.]

I don't know. We used to have school here, so I could get my GED here, you know, before I went back out into the world? But it fell apart after people kept disappearing.

[thelastbullet]

What do you need to know to get something like that?

[patheticvillain]

Just basic high school stuff. Math, science, reading. Things I didn't pay attention to when I was actually in high school.

[thelastbullet]

Hm. [A younger Jimmy, always eager to please, had done what his mother and Nucky had asked of him; and so he'd graduated high school with excellent grades, and so Nucky had been able to get him into Princeton. He has a feeling that this isn't something Cassel needs to know, right now, so he just shifts in his seat, trying to make things more comfortable on his leg.]

So suppose you could learn that here, take that test. Where does that leave you?

[patheticvillain]

Maybe able to get a job. Not a great job, but something. Maybe able to get into college, if I can . . .

[He struggles to imagine himself in college. It's not a picture he can make work in his head.]

It doesn't leave me at a dead end, is all. It gives me prospects other than - you know, the life.

[thelastbullet]

[It hadn't been worth it for Jimmy, but he realizes that his life would not have ended the way it did if he'd stuck around.

He nods in understanding.]

And your mother wouldn't kill you.

[patheticvillain]

I'd be away from her. So she wouldn't be able to.

[He's quiet for a minute, thinking about what he's just said. How it makes her sound.]

She wouldn't mean to, though. You know? It'd just. It'd happen, as an accident.

[thelastbullet]

[He's reminded of the day after the last port, when Gene had brought up his mother and all he'd wanted to do is defend her- she loves him, that's why she'd done everything she'd done. Not because she's a bad person.

Cassel knows all about his and his mother's relationship-- an accident. Right.]

I know.

[patheticvillain]

[He looks down at his fingers, takes another drink. He doesn't know, exactly, how to say what he wants to say. How much he loves her, how much he's afraid of her. How much she wants the best for her. How he hates her, too.]

[When he looks at Jimmy, it's a little shy, like a little boy trying to ask permission for something big and scary.]

I wish she was here. This place - it'd be good for her.

[thelastbullet]

[He thinks of how Cassel had looked when he'd walked into this room- what he looks like now. Vulnerable, both of them. It scares him a little, the faith Cassel is placing in him by telling him this, and he feels like he ought to be older than he is.]

I understand.

[He doesn't know how to say more, how to convey to Cassel how much he understands. He looks at Cassel with big, honest eyes, feeling almost as open and vulnerable as Cassel looks.]

[patheticvillain]

[He wants to reach out for Jimmy, touch him on the shoulder, snuggle up under his arm. Not that he doesn't know the difference between them isn't that great, but he just - he feels protected, somehow, whenever Jimmy's near, and he misses that feeling. Safety. It seems to be getting less and less common the longer he stays here.]

Thanks.

[He looks down, away, examining the floor.]

For everything, I mean.

[thelastbullet]

[He doesn't reply this time. Instead, he reaches out to Cassel and lays a big, warm hand on the back on his neck. He doesn't squeeze, he doesn't rub- he just puts his hand there for a few seconds before pulling away again.]

Are you going to be alright?

[patheticvillain]

[Instinctively, he leans into the touch, reveling in it. It feels like it's been years since someone touched him for comfort, and he misses it, needs it in a way that he couldn't even begin to describe. When Jimmy pulls away, he follows after for an inch or so, then retreats, curling back in on himself.]

I guess. Yeah. I'll be fine.

[thelastbullet]

[He notices, but he doesn't quite know what to do with it. Cassel isn't his son, even if sometimes he thinks of Tommy when he sees him (or maybe he thinks of himself, younger, in a way that he hopes Tommy will never be, despite his fondness of the younger man) and he doesn't know how to comfort further than this.

Work. That's what he did for Richard. But there's no work here, and so he's left looking at Cassel for a second, feeling like he's coming up short.]

I have plenty of liquor in my cabin, if you don't want to go to the bar.

[patheticvillain]

[He smiles crookedly. That's about as good as they can do, the two of them, these fuck-ups, them and their neuroses and their personality deficiencies and not knowing how to love. This is about as good as they can do, and he can be okay with it, he thinks, for a little while.]

I'll hit you up.

[thelastbullet]

[He nods, satisfied that they've at least understood each other. He claps a hand to Cassel's shoulder, but makes sure it doesn't linger this time- and then he's out the door.]