patheticvillain | fifty-three ➢ video

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fifty-three ➢ video

[Cassel's in his room, rearranging his drawer of scraps in some order discernible only to him. Ilia is perched on a high shelf, his eyes narrowed and tail twitching, disturbed by the commotion and looking ready to jump down onto Cassel's shoulders at any moment. As he rummages, Cassel addresses the camera; the moment he turns towards it, a bruise slides into view on his left temple, light and mottled black. He seems not to notice it.]

A few things. First of all, if anybody who's not all Admiral-ed up has a problem with the power outages, I think - I think I can make flashlights and lamps that don't need to be powered. [He's speaking specifically to Morgana here, but he doesn't know everybody's hangups, either, so he's leaving it open to the Barge as a whole.]

Second of all, has anybody actually gotten anywhere with the ship? Steering it or anything? Because this seems like it's getting kind of. Critical. [As Dean so astutely pointed out.]

Last thing - I know nobody cares right now, but we still need staff for the gym. At least one more person. If you feel like going slightly less stir-crazy while we're marooned in the middle of nowhere, apply now.

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[He looks at the screen for a second, and then snorts and relaxes. If nothing else, Cassel seems more okay now. Even if it had been a dumb idea- Jimmy can't protect him from everything, and relatively little physical harm is something that doesn't need to be too closely scrutinized.]

Very respectful, Sharpe.

I try to be. You know me.

[No, he doesn't. But relief is practically coming off him in waves that the subject is being dropped. He leans in towards the camera and grins.]

Respect for your elders, right? [He smirks and leans out of screen to light a cigarette.] That's you.

In a nutshell, yeah.

[Mickey doesn't have a lot of imagination in him, but he can say this much: where Cassel thinks it can't get worse, Mickey's already thinking of all the ways it can. Unless there's a lot more that his friend is hiding from him, it could be so much worse that the possibilities are dizzying.

It's Ian's fault, of course. Or Mickey's, for helping turn Ian into what he became, for not trying to stop it sooner. For ignoring the little things. Maybe it would be easy to write off Cassel's bad habit as just another dumb coping mechanism if he hadn't become so terrifyingly attuned to the ways sanity can just... slide away from someone.

But what else can he do? Cassel got himself hit. This isn't kidnapping an infant. This isn't psych ward territory. So he swallows back his paranoia, gives Cassel a little nod, and hopes like hell that Cassel will actually know when it's getting worse, will remember that he said this if it does, will still care enough about Mickey by then to speak up.]

And a decorated war veteran, besides. [What he's saying, he deserves so much respect, you could almost overlook at the rampant criming he's done.]

[But that's what Cassel respects the most!]

What war was that, the Revolutionary War?

Oh, you was an inmate?

[He gives him a curious headtilt.]

Lot of people stick around, don't they.

[He means to. He does. The trouble is the difference between what Cassel means to do and what he ends up doing. A lot of times the difference between the two is a moment of impulse, a second of stupidity, and he's broken promises and hurt people all over again.]

[But this is too important a promise to break. Mickey might break if this promise is broken, Cassel thinks, just shatter and never trust anyone again. Cassel knows what it's like not to trust anyone. He wouldn't wish it on his worst enemy.]

[He knows he can't reach out to Mickey. It's been made clear enough again and again when he turns away, when he shies from physical contact. So Cassel holds onto his own wrists, so tight he almost cuts the circulation off. Something to touch, something to hang onto so he doesn't fly away.]

Okay. Then I promise. I won't do anything stupid. . . . I won't do anything stupider than this.

[Another shrug. He never thought of doing anything else, truly.]

People with nowhere else to go.

Yeah, well, me too. Suck it up, I guess, we don't get any more.

I made some of it myself.

[It's true: most of the little decorations that line his desk, glass and china figurines like you might find at a grandma's house, are handmade pieces of perfection, his own work. He picks up one, a two-headed dolphin, and tosses it from hand to hand idly.]

You want another one? I can make whatever you want. I like making stuff.

At least you agree with that much.

[There's hope for her yet? Maybe?]

Yeah. Yeah, you get it.

I just hope it doesn't happen. I've lost enough people already.

... You wanna tell me more good stuff about him? Or about anyone else?

I wasn't trying to make you sad or nothing; I'm sorry.

It's okay. I'm not really sad. Just thinking.

Hey, he's a superhero, did you know that? Isn't that the dumbest thing you ever heard?

[And that is why they're such good friends.]

You're hilarious. [But touché.]

He is? He don't seem like it. What're his powers?

I know I am. You should try to be more like me.

[No, nobody should do this.]

He doesn't have any. Except for robot legs. He's like, um, Daredevil, I guess.

Good. Fucking thank you.

[But Mickey catches the way Cassel's hand holds onto his wrist. His eyes linger on it for a moment: the way Cassel's sleeve bunches underneath his fingers, how tight Mickey can tell his grip is. He feels a little stab of something that's not guilt, exactly, but a little like it. There are times he truly can't stand to be touched -- when he's feeling cornered, when he's feeling scared, contact is sometimes as painful and terrifying as a burn. If Cassel had tried to hug him that night with the text message, Mickey very well might have hit him, or worse. He had with Ian the one time; as bad as he feels about that, he knows it never would have happened if Ian hadn't gotten right up in his space and started pushing.

But it's not always like that. The rest of the time, it's just... uncomfortable. Sometimes it's just new. He can hug his sister easy, but it had taken work to get there with Iris, with Mira, with other women. He's still working on it with Allison. And he's learned to hold Ian, to be held by him, even to feel safe holding his hand, but there's Ian and then there's other guys. He doesn't think he's ever really touched any of them with affection except the odd cuff to the head or shove at a shoulder -- things that men can do.

He can, though, he thinks. He just hasn't. He hasn't really wanted to. But he can see the way it hurts Cassel now not to, and Christ, if he can't do anything else... He shifts over a little bit, just enough to nudge Cassel with his shoulder and knock the back of his hand against his knee.]

Is that someone here?

[It takes a second for Cassel to look up. He's so locked in his own head right now, in doing the right thing in a shitty situation that he made, in hating himself and trying to be better, that the way Mickey slides towards him barely registers. It's another piece of sensory input in a world that's trying to overwhelm him right now.]

[But when Mickey touches him, he does glance up, looking confused and lost and a little hurt, as if pained to be distracted from holding himself down so he doesn't float away. The gesture doesn't make sense to him as shitty as he feels right now. He frowns, but mirrors it anyway, his knee knocking against Mickey's, shoulder bumping.]

Yeah?

He's a different superhero. From comics. [That he was instructed to read by Chris on pain of death.] I guess he could exist somewhere?

If they was non-fiction comics, maybe.

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