Still Goin'
Nov. 23rd, 2011 12:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
handful_ofdustLackadaisy Home Visit, Part Two
Fandom: Lackadaisy
Viktor Vasko/Mordecai Heller
When Viktor wakes again, his lungs still hurt, the same as every other part of him; as well, he feels like surely he has fresh-made hand-shaped bruises all over his upper arms, his shoulders, his thighs, and has a pretty good idea how large those hands would be, too—small and neat, with well-trimmed nails and slide-calluses, just like the pair he can vaguely see pouring him tea right now, over by the dresser. But since there's no way of checking, he guesses it doesn't really matter.
“Vhere you get that?” He asks Mordecai, voice cracking shamefully. “Mrs Bapka...she don't know I haf visitors.”
Mordecai snorts, adding lemon to his. Asks, in return: “That's what you think?”
Viktor turns his eye up, coughs deeply, and is frankly amazed when—for the first time since the other night—the sound comes out painful, but relatively dry. “Vell,” he says, finally, “it vas, yah.”
Another shrug. “Just wait a while, then; I doubt she'll remember me much beyond the next hour or so, if that.”
(Never has before, after all.)
The idea of someone so congenitally incapable of having Mordecai make an impression on them—especially after all this time—is, Viktor has to admit, a funny one. But since the joke is blunted somewhat by his own inability to laugh about it without wanting to pass out once more, he lets it go by without further comment.
“Feels...different,” is all he says, finally, as Mordecai hands him his cup.
“That would be the very palpable disparity in quality between Asa Sweet's sawbones and Mitzi May's, I suppose. And you're welcome, not that you've offered.”
Viktor dips his head, takes a sip, willing his temper quiet. Then tells him—after both a long pause and much internal struggle with correct composition, none of which Mordecai, typically, appears to notice in the least—
“...tank you, Mordecai.”
And: “Hmmm,” is all Mordecai apparently has to say back, by way of reply. So they sit there in silence, drinking.
***
Though Mordecai has never found Viktor particularly easy to read, he can only suspect—hope, really—that Viktor has similar trouble with him. Certainly, the big ox has given him his share of one-eyed glares and cocked eyebrows over the years, often seeming to imply that he sees more in Mordecai's behaviour than he himself is aware of. It can be infuriating or oddly reassuring, by turns.
Take the open issue of their...alliance, for example, which Viktor has (on occasion) called the “vorst-kept secret in St. Louis.” Himself, Mordecai has never thought of it as such, assuming that when you routinely wreck furniture together, it most probably isn't; people do tend not to call him on it, of course, but really that's only common sense, on their parts. And though he's already well-aware of what they say behind his back on other subjects, that really doesn't interest him much, so long as they're not stupid enough to say any of it to his face.
For Viktor, on the other hand, words do sometimes seem to hurt, though his size and mass alone probably prevent most of those he comes across from noticing. What Mordecai has eventually been able to realize is that he actually thinks of himself as “bad”, with a sort of wistful rue—himself or the things he routinely does, or maybe he doesn't distinguish between the two. Both stances are equally impossible to understand, from Mordecai's point of view: Equally self-damaging, equally impractical, useless, edge-of-stupid. And Viktor is not, otherwise—no matter what Mordecai may say to the contrary, when sufficiently riled—a completely stupid man.
“'Bad': What's that even mean?” Mordecai has complained to him, often enough. “'I don't like that thing you did'...that's what it means, most times.”
“Vhy you tink anyone vould like that ting you did?”
“You don't—don't be rhetorical. You don't even know what I might've done in this completely hypothetical case, if anything.”
“No, I tink I probably do.”
“...well, yes, probably. But that's not the point I'm trying to...hmmm. Let's start over, shall we?”
“Ve shall not.”
(And they don't, either. Not usually. Not to any satisfactory conclusion, at any rate, with regards to this ongoing argument...though often, given Viktor's usual methods of distraction, to a very different one.)
It's a simple matter, really: Azoy geyt es, that's just the way things are. Viktor grew up on a farm, and Mordecai grew up in a slum; Mordecai has never known a time when the work he (or anyone else, around him) did could be called “honest”, and scoffs at the very idea. Someone is always being hard done by somewhere, after all—money is always changing hands. And this is the way the world works, why it works, so there's no point in crying over it; no matter how many times you stand in the street yelling Oy, vey ist mir! at the top of your voice, no one is going to stop and give you a hug. They'll simply push you aside, tell you to stop being such a shlimazel, and get on with what they were already doing.
But: “This does not haf to be the vay,” Viktor has claimed, on more than one occasion. To which Mordecai, in all fairness, can never do anything much except wrinkle the skin between his brows suspiciously, suspecting he's being made a joke of.
Given Viktor's current situation, however, he suspects this philosophical deadlock of theirs may have been allowed to go on more than long enough. So—
“We need to talk,” Mordecai tells him, finishing off his tea with one final swallow. And sets down the cup, arms folding, to wait for Viktor's reply.
***
And this is the moment Viktor has been dreading, somewhere inside. Has allowed himself to not think about—thus far—in much the same way that back in the trenches, right before an assault, he would force himself to imagine he was about to do almost anything else, from eating fresh strawberries to cleaning out a stall full of horse manure. Because sometimes, depending on the fantasy's content, depth or duration, running head-first out into gunfire might come as an almost-pleasant surprise.
“Okay,” he says, at last, sending up a short prayer for self-control. “Vhat abaout?”
“Oh, the plain fact that you just can't do things like this, Viktor, and expect to get away with them—that's what our conversation would really have to be 'abaout', at this juncture, by anyone's reckoning. Because you're simply not qualified for these sorts of shenanigans, not anymore, and I don't see why you seem incapable of understanding that: One eye, shrapnel everywhere, two bad knees...”
But here's where all good intentions crumble, like an ill-made dike: Viktor feels rage well up in him, uncontrollable, spilling from his mouth like bile. Hears himself shout, jerking up against his own body-weight like a set of chains and falling back almost immediately, shamefully exhausted—
“Chah! And whose fault that is, exactly?”
“I did what I had to.”
“You do vhat you vant, like alvays! Because you tink you can.”
“And am I wrong? You couldn't stop me, could you?”
(As you very well know...no.)
They glare at each other a minute more, unspeaking, before Mordecai looks away—picks up his hat, brushing the band clean of invisible dirt. Anything, Viktor can only suppose, not to have to meet Viktor's so-terribly-asymmetrical gaze while he tells him, softly:
“I couldn't stay, Viktor. Which I know you can appreciate, given my reasons, so—”
Viktor shakes his head, refusing to give Mordecai the last word; he's had it so often, after all. “And I don't vant to go, vhich I know you know, and vhy: 'Retirement', hah! So vhy is it so hard to let me just stay, help Miss Mitzi, vhen she need us both? Vhy you do, vhy...” He gestures at his worse knee, still straining to bend, joint boiling with pain so constant he barely even registers it anymore, except at times like these. “...this?”
Mordecai stares at the hat some more, like he thinks it's going to propose marriage, like it holds the secret to eternal life, like it's God in disguise. Says, finally, voice willed dead, a thin skin over something truly frightening—
“Because...you were going to make me kill you, Viktor, damn you. You were going to stand between me and whatever Asa Sweet points me at next, and cross your arms and wait to see if I wouldn't pull the trigger—but you already know the answer to that one, don't you?” Over Viktor's pointed lack of reaction: “Yes. You do. But...I don't want to, not even if Asa pays me for it. So why would you put me in that position?”
“I stay at Lackadaisy, you go to Marigold. If Miss Mitzi's plans mean I haf to go against you, I vill. Vhat then?”
“Then you're going to die, Viktor, and you didn't have to. Because I tried to do the right thing.”
“Vhy?”
“Because I didn't want you dead, idiot; don't want you dead, I mean. And not by my hand, either.”
“Vhy?”
“For God's sake, Viktor, are you just going to sit there saying 'vhy' all night? Maybe a bit more clarity—”
“You, you tell me vhy, God damn you! Or you shut up, and get aout!”
And: Infuriating calm suddenly gone entirely, Mordecai hisses like an angry kettle, one hand raking up through his own immaculate hair, as though he doesn't even know what he's doing. He'll be surprised later on, Viktor thinks, when he next looks in the mirror. Snarling, as he does—
“A broch zu dzir, dumbkopf, und a finstere cholem auf dein kopf und auf dein hent und fiss! Why's because...I just don't, that's all. Which really should be enough for anyone, even you!”
Close now, enough so Viktor can feel his heat, too close to get away without a struggle. Maybe he hasn't even noticed himself drifting; maybe he's actually forgotten how fast Viktor is, even these days, at least with his hands. Or maybe, just maybe—Mordecai isn't thinking about any of that, at all, not right at this moment. Maybe...this is simply as close as he wants to be.
Considering how badly wrecked Viktor is already, it's probably worth the risk, to find out.
So: “Not enough,” Viktor says, grabbing on by both arms, and drags him in for that kiss, before he can think better of the idea. Because if this mistake he's about to make does turn out to be his last, he figures he might as well make it count—
—or at least, try his very best to make sure they both enjoy it.
***
(To Be Continued)
Fandom: Lackadaisy
Viktor Vasko/Mordecai Heller
When Viktor wakes again, his lungs still hurt, the same as every other part of him; as well, he feels like surely he has fresh-made hand-shaped bruises all over his upper arms, his shoulders, his thighs, and has a pretty good idea how large those hands would be, too—small and neat, with well-trimmed nails and slide-calluses, just like the pair he can vaguely see pouring him tea right now, over by the dresser. But since there's no way of checking, he guesses it doesn't really matter.
“Vhere you get that?” He asks Mordecai, voice cracking shamefully. “Mrs Bapka...she don't know I haf visitors.”
Mordecai snorts, adding lemon to his. Asks, in return: “That's what you think?”
Viktor turns his eye up, coughs deeply, and is frankly amazed when—for the first time since the other night—the sound comes out painful, but relatively dry. “Vell,” he says, finally, “it vas, yah.”
Another shrug. “Just wait a while, then; I doubt she'll remember me much beyond the next hour or so, if that.”
(Never has before, after all.)
The idea of someone so congenitally incapable of having Mordecai make an impression on them—especially after all this time—is, Viktor has to admit, a funny one. But since the joke is blunted somewhat by his own inability to laugh about it without wanting to pass out once more, he lets it go by without further comment.
“Feels...different,” is all he says, finally, as Mordecai hands him his cup.
“That would be the very palpable disparity in quality between Asa Sweet's sawbones and Mitzi May's, I suppose. And you're welcome, not that you've offered.”
Viktor dips his head, takes a sip, willing his temper quiet. Then tells him—after both a long pause and much internal struggle with correct composition, none of which Mordecai, typically, appears to notice in the least—
“...tank you, Mordecai.”
And: “Hmmm,” is all Mordecai apparently has to say back, by way of reply. So they sit there in silence, drinking.
***
Though Mordecai has never found Viktor particularly easy to read, he can only suspect—hope, really—that Viktor has similar trouble with him. Certainly, the big ox has given him his share of one-eyed glares and cocked eyebrows over the years, often seeming to imply that he sees more in Mordecai's behaviour than he himself is aware of. It can be infuriating or oddly reassuring, by turns.
Take the open issue of their...alliance, for example, which Viktor has (on occasion) called the “vorst-kept secret in St. Louis.” Himself, Mordecai has never thought of it as such, assuming that when you routinely wreck furniture together, it most probably isn't; people do tend not to call him on it, of course, but really that's only common sense, on their parts. And though he's already well-aware of what they say behind his back on other subjects, that really doesn't interest him much, so long as they're not stupid enough to say any of it to his face.
For Viktor, on the other hand, words do sometimes seem to hurt, though his size and mass alone probably prevent most of those he comes across from noticing. What Mordecai has eventually been able to realize is that he actually thinks of himself as “bad”, with a sort of wistful rue—himself or the things he routinely does, or maybe he doesn't distinguish between the two. Both stances are equally impossible to understand, from Mordecai's point of view: Equally self-damaging, equally impractical, useless, edge-of-stupid. And Viktor is not, otherwise—no matter what Mordecai may say to the contrary, when sufficiently riled—a completely stupid man.
“'Bad': What's that even mean?” Mordecai has complained to him, often enough. “'I don't like that thing you did'...that's what it means, most times.”
“Vhy you tink anyone vould like that ting you did?”
“You don't—don't be rhetorical. You don't even know what I might've done in this completely hypothetical case, if anything.”
“No, I tink I probably do.”
“...well, yes, probably. But that's not the point I'm trying to...hmmm. Let's start over, shall we?”
“Ve shall not.”
(And they don't, either. Not usually. Not to any satisfactory conclusion, at any rate, with regards to this ongoing argument...though often, given Viktor's usual methods of distraction, to a very different one.)
It's a simple matter, really: Azoy geyt es, that's just the way things are. Viktor grew up on a farm, and Mordecai grew up in a slum; Mordecai has never known a time when the work he (or anyone else, around him) did could be called “honest”, and scoffs at the very idea. Someone is always being hard done by somewhere, after all—money is always changing hands. And this is the way the world works, why it works, so there's no point in crying over it; no matter how many times you stand in the street yelling Oy, vey ist mir! at the top of your voice, no one is going to stop and give you a hug. They'll simply push you aside, tell you to stop being such a shlimazel, and get on with what they were already doing.
But: “This does not haf to be the vay,” Viktor has claimed, on more than one occasion. To which Mordecai, in all fairness, can never do anything much except wrinkle the skin between his brows suspiciously, suspecting he's being made a joke of.
Given Viktor's current situation, however, he suspects this philosophical deadlock of theirs may have been allowed to go on more than long enough. So—
“We need to talk,” Mordecai tells him, finishing off his tea with one final swallow. And sets down the cup, arms folding, to wait for Viktor's reply.
***
And this is the moment Viktor has been dreading, somewhere inside. Has allowed himself to not think about—thus far—in much the same way that back in the trenches, right before an assault, he would force himself to imagine he was about to do almost anything else, from eating fresh strawberries to cleaning out a stall full of horse manure. Because sometimes, depending on the fantasy's content, depth or duration, running head-first out into gunfire might come as an almost-pleasant surprise.
“Okay,” he says, at last, sending up a short prayer for self-control. “Vhat abaout?”
“Oh, the plain fact that you just can't do things like this, Viktor, and expect to get away with them—that's what our conversation would really have to be 'abaout', at this juncture, by anyone's reckoning. Because you're simply not qualified for these sorts of shenanigans, not anymore, and I don't see why you seem incapable of understanding that: One eye, shrapnel everywhere, two bad knees...”
But here's where all good intentions crumble, like an ill-made dike: Viktor feels rage well up in him, uncontrollable, spilling from his mouth like bile. Hears himself shout, jerking up against his own body-weight like a set of chains and falling back almost immediately, shamefully exhausted—
“Chah! And whose fault that is, exactly?”
“I did what I had to.”
“You do vhat you vant, like alvays! Because you tink you can.”
“And am I wrong? You couldn't stop me, could you?”
(As you very well know...no.)
They glare at each other a minute more, unspeaking, before Mordecai looks away—picks up his hat, brushing the band clean of invisible dirt. Anything, Viktor can only suppose, not to have to meet Viktor's so-terribly-asymmetrical gaze while he tells him, softly:
“I couldn't stay, Viktor. Which I know you can appreciate, given my reasons, so—”
Viktor shakes his head, refusing to give Mordecai the last word; he's had it so often, after all. “And I don't vant to go, vhich I know you know, and vhy: 'Retirement', hah! So vhy is it so hard to let me just stay, help Miss Mitzi, vhen she need us both? Vhy you do, vhy...” He gestures at his worse knee, still straining to bend, joint boiling with pain so constant he barely even registers it anymore, except at times like these. “...this?”
Mordecai stares at the hat some more, like he thinks it's going to propose marriage, like it holds the secret to eternal life, like it's God in disguise. Says, finally, voice willed dead, a thin skin over something truly frightening—
“Because...you were going to make me kill you, Viktor, damn you. You were going to stand between me and whatever Asa Sweet points me at next, and cross your arms and wait to see if I wouldn't pull the trigger—but you already know the answer to that one, don't you?” Over Viktor's pointed lack of reaction: “Yes. You do. But...I don't want to, not even if Asa pays me for it. So why would you put me in that position?”
“I stay at Lackadaisy, you go to Marigold. If Miss Mitzi's plans mean I haf to go against you, I vill. Vhat then?”
“Then you're going to die, Viktor, and you didn't have to. Because I tried to do the right thing.”
“Vhy?”
“Because I didn't want you dead, idiot; don't want you dead, I mean. And not by my hand, either.”
“Vhy?”
“For God's sake, Viktor, are you just going to sit there saying 'vhy' all night? Maybe a bit more clarity—”
“You, you tell me vhy, God damn you! Or you shut up, and get aout!”
And: Infuriating calm suddenly gone entirely, Mordecai hisses like an angry kettle, one hand raking up through his own immaculate hair, as though he doesn't even know what he's doing. He'll be surprised later on, Viktor thinks, when he next looks in the mirror. Snarling, as he does—
“A broch zu dzir, dumbkopf, und a finstere cholem auf dein kopf und auf dein hent und fiss! Why's because...I just don't, that's all. Which really should be enough for anyone, even you!”
Close now, enough so Viktor can feel his heat, too close to get away without a struggle. Maybe he hasn't even noticed himself drifting; maybe he's actually forgotten how fast Viktor is, even these days, at least with his hands. Or maybe, just maybe—Mordecai isn't thinking about any of that, at all, not right at this moment. Maybe...this is simply as close as he wants to be.
Considering how badly wrecked Viktor is already, it's probably worth the risk, to find out.
So: “Not enough,” Viktor says, grabbing on by both arms, and drags him in for that kiss, before he can think better of the idea. Because if this mistake he's about to make does turn out to be his last, he figures he might as well make it count—
—or at least, try his very best to make sure they both enjoy it.
***
(To Be Continued)
no subject
Date: 2011-11-23 06:03 pm (UTC)I can hear that perfectly.
This is quite good.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-23 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-23 07:11 pm (UTC)Well, they sound like themselves.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-23 11:02 pm (UTC)I enjoyed the first one you posted, and forgot to say so. I haven't read the source material, though.
I found this on Deviant Art:
http://tracyjb.deviantart.com/art/Lackadaisy-Roustabout-270384195?utm_source=social&utm_medium=da_twitter&utm_campaign=da_traditional
no subject
Date: 2011-11-24 02:57 am (UTC)Yup, big guy/little guy. But also deadly little guy with issues, yo, up the wing-wang, and big guy who's morally conflicted, but less morally conflicted than you'd think. If a triggerman isn't the 1920s version of a gunslinger, I don't know what is.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-24 01:21 pm (UTC)Also, I forget which Chandler it happens in (probably The Little Sister), but Marlowe got menaced by a big guy/crazy little guy pair *at least* once in his career (though the ones I'm thinking of were more like Evil Laurel & Hardy). Classic template, man.