patheticvillain | fifty-five ➢ spam & voice

Entry tags:

fifty-five ➢ spam & voice

private } mickey

Hey. You busy?

private } beyond

Got something for you.

spam

[Recovering from being disemboweled physically took about forty-five seconds. Recovering psychologically is taking a little bit longer. Cassel takes comfort in simple tasks and routines in the meantime, trying not to think about what happened with Creed or what happened in the Enclosure or what's going to happen next. There's this feeling like the other shoe is going to drop - not uncommon on the Barge, but not something he wants to deal with, either.]

[During the day, when he's not in the gym, he spends time in his room or in the common rooms with yarn in his lap, curled up in an armchair, knitting and purling on autopilot. He has no idea what he's making, which is usually how he goes about things. Eventually he casts off and picks it up, examining it in the light. It appears to be a tiny sweater with at least three arms.]

[He never said he was good at this.]

[At night, a lithe black cat roams the halls. To Cassel's credit, this time he's wearing a little blue collar with a name tag. On the other hand, it took him this long to come up with that, so maybe he's not so smart after all. He curls up on the backs of couches, winds between people's legs, and wanders into cabins behind their occupants, purring loudly and very insistently.]

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[He goes quiet at Beyond's reaction, unsure exactly what he's done wrong. Too much, too soon, maybe, too honest, not enough lies. Some people take a while to calibrate to his unique new brand of honesty, and Beyond shows evidence of not knowing why anyone would tell him the truth in the first place, much less consistently.]

[The silence, however, doesn't phase him. The question doesn't surprise him. It sounds like something he would have asked a couple of years ago. Actually, he's pretty sure he did.]

[A one-shouldered shrug - and he is still enough of a teenage boy, though only barely by now, that he picks at the cuff of his glove in embarrassment.]

Because I like you. Because you're curious and you want to know how things work. Because - you don't trust people until they've earned it, if then. Because you weren't scared of what I can do.

[Because you believe me.]

Is that enough for you?

[his words come out a little sharper this time, sharper than he intends.]

You don't know me.

[he frowns, eyes narrowed as he watches the tip of his finger darken purple with backed up blood.]

I could be anyone. I could be lying to you, about everything.

[he's not, though, and he isn't playing at being a fellow warden, like he has told several others in the days since he's been on the barge.]

Everyone who is here has been brought for a reason.

[and even though beyond believes he doesn't belong here, even though he believes his actions were justified in service to a greater plan, he knows he is a criminal - he has embraced this identity. and even though he was not cruel in his methods of murder, he committed crimes; this he knows. he chose to commit three gruesome murders because it was a perversion of everything he'd been taught, everything L stood for.

and as his stomach knits itself into knots as he listens to cassel speak, he is struck with an overwhelming impulse to tell the boy everything, to display for him every logical reason why he should not like beyond. he wants to force a distance between them.

because as much as he has always craved the sort of close connection cassel is offering, beyond is also terrified of it.]

You don't know what I've done.

Edited 2015-06-29 19:08 (UTC)

[For the first time, Cassel dons a mask: a careful, cool, neutral mask. Whether it's to shield himself from pain or to shield Beyond, he couldn't honestly say, but his smile is gone either way.]

[It's true: he doesn't know Beyond. Not really. You can't get to know someone in a couple of days. Once, he would have said you can never really know anyone. That everyone lies, all the time, that it's only a matter of time before anyone sticks a knife in your back. Once, he would have smiled and nodded and agreed with everything Beyond is saying now, because it's only logical.]

[The knowledge of how easily he could be betrayed still looms large in his mind. The difference between who he was then and who he is now is that he takes chances, now. He allows people to hurt him, if that's what they want to do, and realizes that the vast majority of the time they won't. Even here, he's either been remarkably lucky or his tactics remarkably effective.]

[He levels his gaze on Beyond and nods: acknowledging that everything he's said is true.]

You're right. I don't know you. I don't know what you've done.

But you don't know what I've done, either. Everyone who is here has been brought for a reason.

[He sits back in his chair, pulls something out of his back pocket: a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.]

Do you mind if I smoke? [And the mask is gone, as if it never was. He smiles.]

[beyond remembers - cassel said he'd been brought as an inmate first. they are basically strangers, and yet, beyond has given the boy a few small glimmers of himself (too much, he thinks). for a moment, he feels sick, and incredibly stupid, and overwhelmed. he pulls the string loose from the hem of his jeans with a violent tug, and watches as it uncoils and the blood rushes back into the rest of his finger, his hand, his thoroughly unsettled body.]

I don't mind. [he gives cassel a small sideways glance.] It's not healthy.

[He lights up without looking at Beyond, breathes in smoke and blows it out through his nose - turning his face ever so slightly away, in deference to his quiet objection.]

Are you worried about me? [A tease - he can't quite help himself.]

The way I look at it, I've already died. The infirmary is full of magicians and extradimensional beings who can cure cancer as easy as blinking. So what does it matter?

[That, and it's his way of holding death close to him, in just one small way.]

Just an observation.

[said coolly, because of course beyond wouldn't admit to having feelings for cassel. not someone he's only just met. not someone he doesn't entirely trust (as if he can trust anyone, ever). not someone who is a fellow criminal, who is capable of taking revenge against those who hurt him and succeeding at it. not someone in whom he recognizes a thread of similarity to himself, certainly.

he would never admit it. but that doesn't mean that it's untrue.]

By that extension, does anything we do here matter?

Edited 2015-06-29 20:00 (UTC)

Not health-wise.

[He shrugs. He knows about eight billion people who'd disagree with him and probably yell at him for saying it, but honestly, this ship is overflowing with functioning and non-functioning alcoholics, and none of them have died of alcohol poisoning yet, so it's probably fine.]

[A sideways look. If he's gonna be all nihilistic about it . . .]

Want one?

[add smoking to the list of things beyond would ordinarily have no interest in doing. but an offer coming from cassel?

if it ultimately does not matter, beyond can find no compelling reason not to accept.

he turns his attention to cassel, studying the boy, hesitating even as he knows what his answer will be. he twists his head to crack his neck one way, then the other.]

I suppose. [he shifts in his seat again, leaning in toward the boy with hand outstretched.]

[He opens his mouth to say That has to be bad for your neck, but then remembers: nothing matters, right? So instead he grins, taps another cigarette out of the pack - Gitanes, because he's feeling sentimental this week - and hands it over along with the lighter.]

You know what you're doing?

I'm sure it can't be too difficult to deduce.

[which is to say - no, he has no idea what he's doing. he stares at the cigarette from one end, then the other, then looks to cassel, studying the cigarette in his hand for a clue as to which way to position it.]

[Cassel laughs - good-natured, teasing, but not mocking - and turns the cigarette around in Beyond's hand, then points on his own, tapping some ash off the end onto the porch.]

Don't smoke this end. You'll hate me forever. Here, just - hold still.

[Very carefully, he positions the cigarette between Beyond's fingers and lights it with a quick, practiced motion.]

Okay, okay. Go.

[beyond nods, equal parts appreciative for the help and embarrassed at not knowing how to do something so simple. he brings the unlit end of the cigarette to his lips between the tips of two fingers and thumb, blinks as the smoke stings his eyes, takes a deep breath -

- and begins to cough, violently. the cigarette falls to the porch.]

[This time Cassel doesn't laugh. Just leans down and picks it up, hiding his smirk where Beyond can't see it.]

That bad?

[He holds it out again. Come on buddy you can do it.]

[beyond does not answer - too busy coughing, and something more than that, something panicked. he pushes himself out of the chair with frantic force, away from cassel, gasping for air under the memory of his suicide attempt, the remembered smell of the gasoline and smoke and his burning flesh and hair hung heavy in his singed nostrils. shaking, he braces himself on the nearby porch column, bent over hacking in the struggle to regain the air in his burning lungs and calm his racing heart.]

Edited 2015-06-29 21:05 (UTC)

[His smile vanishes. Instantly he knows he's done something wrong, very wrong, and any amusement he was feeling about the situation is overwhelmed by guilt. He drops both cigarettes on the porch and lurches out of his seat, feeling wobbly and wrong.]

[With someone else, someone he knew better, he'd reach out and touch them - a hand on the shoulder, maybe - but he doesn't trust that to be the right thing, either. All of a sudden he doesn't trust himself at all. So he hovers, close but hopefully not close enough to be stifling, and bites his lip.]

You're here. [His voice is low, earnest.] You're not anywhere else. You're here.

[it takes beyond another minute or so to stop coughing, get his breathing back to normal, push down the violent memories where they can no longer shake him where he stands. blinking back tears, he wipes at his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt.]

That ... was awful. [he quietly wheezes this understatement, staring out at the unkempt yard.]

Sorry.

[He feels like shit, now, wants to ask what the fuck just happened but knows better, honestly, he does. His hands ball into fists at his sides.]

It's not so bad once you get used to it. Didn't mean to fuck you up.

You didn't.

[and beyond is just overwrought enough to offer another small piece of truth to cassel, not so much intended in the sense of sharing, but meant as a push to drive the boy away. he turns to cassel, unblinking eyes fringed with damp lashes.]

I set myself on fire.

[his expression is mostly impassive, but there's something of a dare there, too - how well do you like me now?]

Edited 2015-06-29 21:48 (UTC)

[And Cassel just - groans. At the look on his face, at what Beyond says - the meaning behind it doesn't change anything except that it makes it even more clear that Cassel fucked up. One kind of suicide is the same as another, to his mind, none worse or better, none more normal or abnormal.]

[He slumps back in his seat, drags his hand down his face.]

Then why'd you take the stupid cigarette, man?

[beyond turns back to staring out at the yard; cassel's reaction is not what he expected, and suddenly, he feels exposed, raw, ruined.]

... I don't know.

[because you offered. because i didn't know that would happen.]

I didn't think it would matter.

[Sagging a little, he nods.]

Nothing matters, right? Okay.

[He imagines, just for a minute, what it would be like to be engulfed in flame: to feel it eating at you, killing you slowly. He imagines it must be one of the slowest ways to die, and wonders why that, of all things - but he doesn't ask. Instead:]

You had to stay alive after that? It must've. Hurt.

[A painful understatement.]

I had medication.

[an iv drip, dulling his brain. but beyond doesn't refute cassel's statement outright - the sting of defeat was certainly painful.]

I've suffered worse.

[losing his mother, as a small child - that hurt more.

uncovering the truth at the House, before he left - that hurt more, too.]

[He reaches for the pack, lights up another cigarette, more for something to do with his hands than any real need.]

Suffering worse doesn't make it not suffering.

[He tries not to wallow anymore, but that doesn't mean he succeeds - and now he's remembering every awful thing he's experienced, every hurt, every death. Trying to rank them just makes him dizzy. He doesn't know if he could. He doesn't know if he could distance himself the way Beyond has.]

All of existence is suffering, Cassel. The Buddhists recognize this as the first of the Four Noble Truths.

[he takes a deep breath and turns back to face the boy, both hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans. he recites:]

"Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering."

[beyond doesn't so much distance himself from the things that cause him pain - he bottles everything up inside to simmer under a dispassionate exterior.]

I'd make a really bad Buddhist, I think.

[He exhales smoke, eyes Beyond carefully.]

If you believe that, why are you so pissed about being used?

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