Aaaand...DONE! Part 2
Jan. 31st, 2012 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
handful_ofdustLackadiasy Nostalgiac, Part Six
Fandom: Lackadaisy
Viktor Vasko/Mordecai Heller
“I miss you since you come visit,” Viktor tells him, once he feels the silence has stretched on long enough.
Mordecai sighs. “I thought you might. Which proves it really was a mistake, in the first place.”
“Surprised it took you so long, only.”
“Are you? As I recall, the last time we actually...spoke, before that, ended with you telling me you were going to kill me. So perhaps I stayed away because I didn't want you to try.”
“You shoot me in knee, Mordecai. I vas angry.”
“I told you why I did that, just the other—“
“One year later you tell me, something. And still it makes no sense!”
Looking down, softer: “...I can't help that.”
Again, the silence—until finally, Viktor's had more than enough. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, and go down swinging; ask the questions his mind most shies from, no matter how disturbing their answers turn out to be.
So: “Mordecai,” he says. “Did you kill Atlas?”
“I can't tell you.”
“So you did.” Mordecai shakes his head, almost helplessly. “...you didn't? Is—complicated?”
“I can't tell you,” he repeats.
“Should I ask Miss Mitzi?”
Through his teeth: “I...can't...tell you.”
“And that's all.”
“It's—the only answer I have, Viktor, please believe that. And I can keep saying it all day if you make me, but it really won't change anything, not even a little. Will it?”
(So stop asking.)
Impossible man. But then, Viktor knew that already.
“...all right,” he hears himself say, eventually. “Then vhat is it you come here to talk to me abaout?”
Having already tucked away his watch, Mordecai looks at his hat instead, then stops, with a twitch of effort—clears a careful place for it on the work-bench and sets it down, regardless of the mess around it, so that he can turn Viktor's way, give him his full attention. “When I visited you, I told you that Mitzi had implied it was my actions, in Asa Sweet's service, which gave rise to your recent...difficulties. At the time, I rejected that thesis as mere rhetoric, a cheap attempt to appeal to my sympathies by someone already under fire. But on closer consideration, I since find—I might, perhaps, have been overstating the case, just slightly.”
Viktor blinks, trying to parse out the sentence, which defeats him. “Not sure vhat you mean,” he admits.
“What I mean is...just as I begin to suspect Mister Sweet may have behaved fairly unprofessionally towards me, most specifically in terms of lying to my face about why certain obstacles to his business needed to be removed after already having hired me to remove said obstacles, it might be that when I tidied up Atlas's old weapons cache, I may have not been entirely forthcoming to Mister Sweet about exactly how many weapons and boxes of ammunition my incursion netted me. That there may have been overage, and that that overage may have ended up...somewhere, perhaps one of those old drops we used to use in the woods—you know the ones. You were always better at finding them than I was. As though you had a map in your head.”
“I vas? ...oh yes, that's right, I vas. I do.”
“In which case, you might want to consult that map of yours again, soonish. Take the zoot-suiter and his new chum out into the woods, go searching around, see what turns up.” A beat. “I'm sure you could turn something up, and fairly quickly.”
“It...vould be good, to haf veapons,” Viktor says, examining Mordecai like he hasn't seen him naked just the other week, while Mordecai meets his eyes with qualm. “To, ehhh—vhat is phrase: Redress balance of power.”
“Redress rather than restore, yes, I should think so. Be prepared.”
“Forevarned is forearmed, yah?”
“That's what I've always said.”
“I remember.” Viktor smiles at Mordecai, with such a depth of wearied affection it surprises even him. “You...vill lose your job, I tink.”
“Unlikely. Let me be clear, though, to avoid any misunderstandings, no matter how many trade secrets I may have just given away: Come at me when I'm on the clock, and I will shoot you, believe you me, along with anyone else whose name Asa Sweet slips under my door.”
“I believe you.”
“...good.” He picks his hat up once more and starts brushing it clean, frowning. “That said, however—”
“—he ain' on de clock jus' right now,” the “French” girl puts in, from the doorway, appearing unexpectedly by Viktor's massive elbow. “Dat might be what he wanna say, le peekon, he ever work himself 'roun' to it.”
Mordecai fixes her, trying to stare green death through those fussy little lenses—but lo and behold, it doesn't work any better on her than it ever has on Viktor. Saying instead, finally, with cold politeness: “Yes, Miss Savoy, that's right. Now—would you mind giving Mister Vasko and I a bit of privacy?”
“Prickly-prickly! Lak I ain' had yo' doo-dad in my—”
Her brother sticks a mammoth boxer's paw on her shoulder. “Calme-toi, Sera; don' need to get 'im riled now, do we? He hard enough to work wit' as it is, him.”
“Uh huh. And where yo' gal at right now, be-be?”
“Makin' fritters. Y'all want some?”
He bats mock-charming lashes at her, 'till she shrugs, and steps back. “All right, den. We keep de car warm fo' you, Mor-de-cai; enjoy, Slovak man.”
“Excellent,” Mordecai grits, as they disappear again, and Viktor raises his brows. For in all the time he's known him, the only three people in St. Louis allowed to call oh-so-formal Mister Heller by his (ha ha) Christian name have, thus far, been Atlas May, Mitzi May, and Viktor himself.
“I'm confuse,” he rumbles. “Take me years of being, ehhh—intimate vith you to tink you trust me, and even then, turns out I'm wrong. But these vones—”
“What makes you think they're...?” Unimpressed by his tone, Viktor gives him the eye—the only one he has—until he stops, and starts over. “...yes, anyhow: The Savoys are odd, that's true, but they hold me in a certain amount of esteem, strangely enough, considering how comparatively short a time they've known me for. And better yet—right now, they're all I have.”
“Vell, whose fault is that?”
Mordecai looks down again, appears to think hard. Then, without looking up, he makes an admission which, while Viktor doesn't begin to entirely understand its full significance, appears to cost him a good deal: “That would be...mine, yes. And Atlas's too, really.”
Uncertain how to answer, Viktor chooses to simply nod: All right. And is rewarded by the welcome sight of Mordecai slipping his spectacles off, stowing them in his breast pocket, then blinking up at him myopically while he steps forward, broaching the space between them. Continuing, as he does—
“Besides which—I do trust you, obviously. I wouldn't be here at all, otherwise.”
Viktor taps cane against knee lightly, and winces, nevertheless. “Vhy this happen, then?”
Without hesitation: “Because you trusted me, idiot; an inaccurate and very dangerous assumption, on your part. Maybe you should start thinking about why you would ever have been so foolish as to do something like that, at some point, before you get yourself killed.”
Viktor looks at him, long and hard. Mordecai doesn't flinch; he never does. This is one of the things Viktor likes most about him, as well as one of the things he likes least.
Thinking, as he does: But you see, I love you, little man—and you love me too, in your way. So even if you decide you have to prove you don't by putting a bullet in me, I still won't stop, ever. It's that simple.
No point in saying any of this, though. Which is why he just stands there, aware that Mordecai probably doesn't understand, but hoping against hope that someday—perhaps not today, this moment, but someday—he finally will.
And: “No,” he says, at last, before pulling him in, half-hoisting him so they're cheek to cheek, ignoring the way both knees scream in protest. And kisses him, faster than Mordecai can object; one hand in his hair, one arm 'round his waist, letting go the cane, to fall where it may. Willing to take the consequences, no matter what they turn out to be.
Giving himself over to pleasure, bracing himself for pain. Yet in the end, Mordecai, unpredictable creature that he is—perhaps caught off-guard, or stunned, or...who even knows, with him?—
—just lets him.
THE END
This entry was originally posted at http://handful-ofdust.dreamwidth.org/441867.html. Please comment either here or there using OpenID.
Fandom: Lackadaisy
Viktor Vasko/Mordecai Heller
“I miss you since you come visit,” Viktor tells him, once he feels the silence has stretched on long enough.
Mordecai sighs. “I thought you might. Which proves it really was a mistake, in the first place.”
“Surprised it took you so long, only.”
“Are you? As I recall, the last time we actually...spoke, before that, ended with you telling me you were going to kill me. So perhaps I stayed away because I didn't want you to try.”
“You shoot me in knee, Mordecai. I vas angry.”
“I told you why I did that, just the other—“
“One year later you tell me, something. And still it makes no sense!”
Looking down, softer: “...I can't help that.”
Again, the silence—until finally, Viktor's had more than enough. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, and go down swinging; ask the questions his mind most shies from, no matter how disturbing their answers turn out to be.
So: “Mordecai,” he says. “Did you kill Atlas?”
“I can't tell you.”
“So you did.” Mordecai shakes his head, almost helplessly. “...you didn't? Is—complicated?”
“I can't tell you,” he repeats.
“Should I ask Miss Mitzi?”
Through his teeth: “I...can't...tell you.”
“And that's all.”
“It's—the only answer I have, Viktor, please believe that. And I can keep saying it all day if you make me, but it really won't change anything, not even a little. Will it?”
(So stop asking.)
Impossible man. But then, Viktor knew that already.
“...all right,” he hears himself say, eventually. “Then vhat is it you come here to talk to me abaout?”
Having already tucked away his watch, Mordecai looks at his hat instead, then stops, with a twitch of effort—clears a careful place for it on the work-bench and sets it down, regardless of the mess around it, so that he can turn Viktor's way, give him his full attention. “When I visited you, I told you that Mitzi had implied it was my actions, in Asa Sweet's service, which gave rise to your recent...difficulties. At the time, I rejected that thesis as mere rhetoric, a cheap attempt to appeal to my sympathies by someone already under fire. But on closer consideration, I since find—I might, perhaps, have been overstating the case, just slightly.”
Viktor blinks, trying to parse out the sentence, which defeats him. “Not sure vhat you mean,” he admits.
“What I mean is...just as I begin to suspect Mister Sweet may have behaved fairly unprofessionally towards me, most specifically in terms of lying to my face about why certain obstacles to his business needed to be removed after already having hired me to remove said obstacles, it might be that when I tidied up Atlas's old weapons cache, I may have not been entirely forthcoming to Mister Sweet about exactly how many weapons and boxes of ammunition my incursion netted me. That there may have been overage, and that that overage may have ended up...somewhere, perhaps one of those old drops we used to use in the woods—you know the ones. You were always better at finding them than I was. As though you had a map in your head.”
“I vas? ...oh yes, that's right, I vas. I do.”
“In which case, you might want to consult that map of yours again, soonish. Take the zoot-suiter and his new chum out into the woods, go searching around, see what turns up.” A beat. “I'm sure you could turn something up, and fairly quickly.”
“It...vould be good, to haf veapons,” Viktor says, examining Mordecai like he hasn't seen him naked just the other week, while Mordecai meets his eyes with qualm. “To, ehhh—vhat is phrase: Redress balance of power.”
“Redress rather than restore, yes, I should think so. Be prepared.”
“Forevarned is forearmed, yah?”
“That's what I've always said.”
“I remember.” Viktor smiles at Mordecai, with such a depth of wearied affection it surprises even him. “You...vill lose your job, I tink.”
“Unlikely. Let me be clear, though, to avoid any misunderstandings, no matter how many trade secrets I may have just given away: Come at me when I'm on the clock, and I will shoot you, believe you me, along with anyone else whose name Asa Sweet slips under my door.”
“I believe you.”
“...good.” He picks his hat up once more and starts brushing it clean, frowning. “That said, however—”
“—he ain' on de clock jus' right now,” the “French” girl puts in, from the doorway, appearing unexpectedly by Viktor's massive elbow. “Dat might be what he wanna say, le peekon, he ever work himself 'roun' to it.”
Mordecai fixes her, trying to stare green death through those fussy little lenses—but lo and behold, it doesn't work any better on her than it ever has on Viktor. Saying instead, finally, with cold politeness: “Yes, Miss Savoy, that's right. Now—would you mind giving Mister Vasko and I a bit of privacy?”
“Prickly-prickly! Lak I ain' had yo' doo-dad in my—”
Her brother sticks a mammoth boxer's paw on her shoulder. “Calme-toi, Sera; don' need to get 'im riled now, do we? He hard enough to work wit' as it is, him.”
“Uh huh. And where yo' gal at right now, be-be?”
“Makin' fritters. Y'all want some?”
He bats mock-charming lashes at her, 'till she shrugs, and steps back. “All right, den. We keep de car warm fo' you, Mor-de-cai; enjoy, Slovak man.”
“Excellent,” Mordecai grits, as they disappear again, and Viktor raises his brows. For in all the time he's known him, the only three people in St. Louis allowed to call oh-so-formal Mister Heller by his (ha ha) Christian name have, thus far, been Atlas May, Mitzi May, and Viktor himself.
“I'm confuse,” he rumbles. “Take me years of being, ehhh—intimate vith you to tink you trust me, and even then, turns out I'm wrong. But these vones—”
“What makes you think they're...?” Unimpressed by his tone, Viktor gives him the eye—the only one he has—until he stops, and starts over. “...yes, anyhow: The Savoys are odd, that's true, but they hold me in a certain amount of esteem, strangely enough, considering how comparatively short a time they've known me for. And better yet—right now, they're all I have.”
“Vell, whose fault is that?”
Mordecai looks down again, appears to think hard. Then, without looking up, he makes an admission which, while Viktor doesn't begin to entirely understand its full significance, appears to cost him a good deal: “That would be...mine, yes. And Atlas's too, really.”
Uncertain how to answer, Viktor chooses to simply nod: All right. And is rewarded by the welcome sight of Mordecai slipping his spectacles off, stowing them in his breast pocket, then blinking up at him myopically while he steps forward, broaching the space between them. Continuing, as he does—
“Besides which—I do trust you, obviously. I wouldn't be here at all, otherwise.”
Viktor taps cane against knee lightly, and winces, nevertheless. “Vhy this happen, then?”
Without hesitation: “Because you trusted me, idiot; an inaccurate and very dangerous assumption, on your part. Maybe you should start thinking about why you would ever have been so foolish as to do something like that, at some point, before you get yourself killed.”
Viktor looks at him, long and hard. Mordecai doesn't flinch; he never does. This is one of the things Viktor likes most about him, as well as one of the things he likes least.
Thinking, as he does: But you see, I love you, little man—and you love me too, in your way. So even if you decide you have to prove you don't by putting a bullet in me, I still won't stop, ever. It's that simple.
No point in saying any of this, though. Which is why he just stands there, aware that Mordecai probably doesn't understand, but hoping against hope that someday—perhaps not today, this moment, but someday—he finally will.
And: “No,” he says, at last, before pulling him in, half-hoisting him so they're cheek to cheek, ignoring the way both knees scream in protest. And kisses him, faster than Mordecai can object; one hand in his hair, one arm 'round his waist, letting go the cane, to fall where it may. Willing to take the consequences, no matter what they turn out to be.
Giving himself over to pleasure, bracing himself for pain. Yet in the end, Mordecai, unpredictable creature that he is—perhaps caught off-guard, or stunned, or...who even knows, with him?—
—just lets him.
THE END
This entry was originally posted at http://handful-ofdust.dreamwidth.org/441867.html. Please comment either here or there using OpenID.
