Realistic or Modern LOVE, LOSS, REVENGE

[dreaming enthusiast]

"Are you deaf?" Neil asks, and the way he intones the rhetorical question nearly makes it sound genuine. Still grimacing, his lips are twisted somewhere between a pout and a scowl.

Is Cade not listening or is he merely hearing only what he wants to? Validation for his self-pity. Well... on some level Neil has to admit that him wanting to stay - after everything - is not exactly in his nature. A couple of days ago he was ready to go his own way and let Cade go his, under the relentless heel of Vivien. Sure, he warned the guy against hitching himself to that bitch, but if he wanted to destroy his life so badly, who was the hitman to stop him? Especially if he could benefit from throwing him to the wolves. A sacrificial lamb.

Somewhere along the lines things changed.

Cade can ask him all of this however many times he wants. Doesn't change that Neil doesn't have the understanding or the words to answer - like all of his English vocabulary has evaporated. So instead of admitting anything about anything, Neil deflects, "What's funny is that you're questioning me. You break my nose throwing a hissy fit when I try to leave, but now when I say I'm not leaving you're questioning me?"
Truly, none of it is funny or fun anymore. It was when Neil believed the two were one and the same, just two violent men riding a wavelenght. Then they died. And maybe in some ways that does finally make them one and the same - no one else, as far as MacDarragh knows, has shared in the experience they did. Is that reason enough for him to bargain so relentlessly for this guy? The speech - the confession - he serenaded Kaden and Cade with earlier comes to his mind.

You sound like Damien. Neil's shoulders tense. He scoffs.

"Радим шта год хоћу. I do what I fucking want, Cadence," and that's enough of a damn reason to stay, he won't justify himself. He wants Cade, so he takes him.

And maybe Cade wants to be taken. The guy hasn't so much as twitched to push the hitman way. Surrounded by a soft glow and the sounds of rapid, weepy little animal breaths, the tattoo of a wolf pops in and out of existence underneath the dog collar now adorning Cade's neck. A leash prime for the taking, as long as someone takes it. Neil's heel presses further down into the flesh beneath it.

"If getting to my guardian was easy, I would have done it on my own already. But I've seen what you're capable of," he hums, letting his voice take on a more level-headed, melodic quality, though his eyes remain sharp, "Not to mention, you owe me, precisely because of everything."

Slowly, MacDarragh reaches down. He tilts Cade's chin up, cradles the side of his face. The skin is wet and cold where he uses his thumb to swipe tears away even as more keep coming, "And if you walk away, I'm going to kill you."

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

His sense of self preservation fails him again when Neil's level of pissed lifts another notch.
It's arguably not a good thing, not with his boot where it is. The sing-song of Neil's voice makes the hair at the back of his neck spike up. The bristles rub against the collar he forgot was there.
Neil wants him, in despite of this.

The revelation doesn't crash down around him, instead it creeps up like the cold fingers reaching out for his chin. Cade couldn't move if he wanted to, held in a way Neil has rarely deigned to do. His jaw clicks - the abyss where his tooth used to be louder now in its muteness than it ever has been.

Finally, he grips the foot that's there - but it's not to push it away or even to keep it there. The pressure is pushing the fine line into pain, and in a way that makes it better, which makes everything worse.
Everything is out in the open now. There isn't a lie he can hide behind; he couldn't be more authentic than he is right now, a smear of old blood and new mud on his chest. There's no way Neil doesn't know what he's doing, and there isn't the shrude disgust in his face that was always in Kaden's. Just frustration, to contrast the gentle way he wipes tears away.

It just repeats in his head over and over again; he still wants me.

The how or the why he can't answer and he has a feeling Neil can't either. He won't be able to keep his voice even if he says anything, tries to avoid it.
Dumbly, he nods into Neil's hand, and realizing he may be agreeing to being murdered, has to say something.

"Yeah," he submits, voice just as hitched and husky as he thought it'd be. Ruined. "Okay."

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

---- Something like 15 years earlier ----

Between the full body tattoos and the shaved head, he can't look more fresh from prison. Somewhere under that ink - tears in the corner of his eye, scribbled cursive across his forehead so poorly done it can't be read - is the face of her cousin. He's withered, which says something because ten years ago he worked in lawn maintenance and the sun dried him out by age twenty-five. Now he's considerably older, and he aged like a fine glass of milk.

She thinks she must look just as bad, but her aunt looks enviously at her chest more than once, and then mutters something about whores and cats while she hospitably prepares a few slices of banana bread and coffee. Heaven forbid she wears a tank top and jeans. Low-rise, but still.
She sets her cousin's plate down gently like a fallen rose petal. Hers comes down with a clatter and a shove.

Without so much as a nod to the little shrew that looks at him with such affection, Carl sets his stick of weed (of which her aunt somehow believes is a cigarette) down. He fills his mouth of yellowed teeth with an enormous bite of bread. The juxtaposition of this man with zero body fat so every muscle shows up like his tired skin is a thin sheet against an 80's home sets her on edge and makes her want to laugh at the same time.

"I've done time," he reasons wetly, sprinkling crumbs into his beard. "I know all the ins and outs now. I can work with you if you just give me a chance."

Delilah props an elbow on the table and somehow resists rubbing at the heat headache building in her skull. It's poach-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk weather, and even if she's only spent today in and out of buildings she's hot and the last thing she wants is a steaming coffee. And, specifically, to talk to this prize.
For years he's hounded her, in-between his time in prison and messing around with people you don't mess with. Now, an old man, and the only one who will take him in is his mother who's looking old herself. Sheppard doesn't want to touch him with a ten-foot pole.

"I could show you the ropes," she offers.
"Lilah, I just told you I already know the ropes. Maybe there are things I could teach you, ever thought of that?"
"Don't interrupt me. Start your own business. Show me how it's done."

The tear tattoo beneath his eye crinkles as he squints. He picks up his blunt to the obvious relief of his hovering mother. She won't come closer to check, but her eyes are on the table surface looking for any burns or scuffs. Delilah's dishes are on a placemat.

"Is this because I never did anything about your daddy?"

Caught off guard, she snorts out loud.

"Just, well," Carl struggles, waving his stick around. "I never saw it happening outside the home. It was a private matter. Can't have one man interfering with how another chooses to go about raising his family, right?"

That's his defense. Not that he was only a few years older than she was.

"Don't worry about it," she says, and to show she means it she takes a bite of the driest banana bread in the world as a good will gesture. Sawdust bread, more like.
"At least my dad stuck around. We're on good terms."

"I thought he was dead - er, passed away? Mom, how many times do I gotta tell you? Don't open the damn window!"
Aunty freezes in place where the window has come cracked half open. Confliction in her face, she complains quietly about the awful smell of the skunk that's stuck under the porch and causing such a terrible smell she can't stand it. Her cousin takes another breath of his stick, exhaling it to tell her to slam it before the AC has to come on again. That settled, he turns into Delilah again.

"You gave that feller Malcolm a job!" Carl tries, switching gears into a place she thought was already established didn't work. "I'm family, Lilah. Wouldn't it be nice to work with someone you know has your back?"

Thank goodness for the overabundance of butter or she might not have gotten that bite down without a sip of coffee. Aunty, who can't leave but can't justify hovering, starts to loudly clatter already cleaned dishes around in the sink. More than once she looks longingly at the window, wiping her nose.

This time Delilah's prepared for it so she doesn't snort. Some ridicule must show regardless because Carl's exuberance sharpens into something else.

"I gave him a job because he's done good work in the past-"
"I do good work!" Carl argues.
"Go ahead and prove it. Start something. Six months from now, I like what I see, you're in."

Carl huffs and then slams his hand on the table. His mother jumps. The dishes clatter.

"And how am I gonna start something straight outta the pen? Right here, in my momma's house? You're setting me up to fail."

He takes in a slow pull and holds it in for a long, long time. She wouldn't have come if she didn't think she could take care of herself, but she's happy he's sedating himself nevertheless. He lets it out of his crooked nose in two jets.

And then, Lord bless him, he lifts a finger to tap on the wrinkled skin by his eye. "You know what this tattoo means, little girl?"

The urge to answer that it means he cries at night uncontrollably is a strong one, but it passes the same way the incredulity does.
She stirs the drink she has no intention of touching.

"Now..." Carl sighs, crossing his bony arms. "I don't wanna scare you or nothin', I'm just saying I could do a lot of stuff for you. I could look out for you, is all. I know it's just been you for a long time. Just you, all alone. Vulnerable. A woman shouldn't have to manage something like this by herself."

Hotheads have never made it far in this industry, so she amuses herself with the fantasy of throwing the contents of her hot mug into his sympathetic, weaselly face. It helps, a little.
"I've managed on my own for a long time, Carl. I think I'll be okay."

Maybe it's a threat, and maybe it comes from a place of genuine concern, but her cousin says, "One day you won't be, and it'll be too late to ask for help."

Before she can put that statement where it belongs, her phone buzzes. To Carl's enjoyable disbelief that something other than him would matter enough to interrupt whatever this is, she flicks it open.
Unfortunately, the joy is short-lived.

The phone murmurs into her ear.

"He what?" Delilah snaps, already climbing out of her chair. The tinny voice repeats the most ridiculous lie she's ever heard.
Carl gives her a smug look, while Aunty pretends not to be listening by looking directly at her while polishing a clean spot of the counter with a dry rag.
"He did what?" she says again, standing in the kitchen she so rarely visited as a child that it's not even nostalgic. Maybe her aunt had it renovated.
"He said that? And you let him go after that? No one followed him?"

She snaps the cellphone shut, shoves it into her back pocket while she marches for the door, oblivious to where she is and only knowing she's got to get to her truck.

It takes Carl grabbing her shoulder for her to remember where she even is, and she doesn't even twist the shit out of his hand out of anger. It's just something that happens.

He wrenches it back with a howl, cradling it to his wiry chest like she broke it. If she was in her right brain, she'd have seen the look in his eyes and known she'd made a mistake, but she just slams the door shut to turn on him.

Its her aunt fluttering in between them, whining and crying as she grabs her 'baby boy' that interrupts them. Her precious baby boy. The glare turns on her instead, and with a shove that he'll say he didn't mean, this woman hitting seventy crashes to the floor with a wail.
Her head cracks against the floor.

And then he's her precious boy, and he rushes to her side to take her hand. "Mom? Oh, mom."

Somewhere, something fiendish in her head says that if her aunt dies right here on the floor, Carl would inherit the old house, and he could cook and sell whatever he liked out of it without his mom worrying about burn stains and bad smells.
Feeling awful, she cracks the door open again.

"When you die," Carl spits, cradling his mom even as she mutters that it hurts and asks him not to move her, "And you will soon, you'll do it alone."


***


She finds his car before she finds him. It is perfectly wedged in-between two pines, like the vehicle itself is cowering in the bush, hiding from her. She whacks the brush aside and stumbles through the ridiculous undergrowth, following the paint-scraped rear until she can peer into a window. It's empty, stupidly clean.
With good reason, she gives the trunk of the car a healthy smack. It hurts her more than the car, with the sun beating down on it, turning it into a stove top. This isn't what she is supposed to be doing today. This isn't what he is supposed to be doing.

Dubiously, she looks at the bristling undergrowth, perhaps thinking a fairy would materialize and point her in the direction in which an ass head would go.
Its all just woods. Somewhere far away, oblivious to the struggles of man, a woodpecker drills into a tree. Chipmunks laugh at her from above, whispering stories.
She decides that another unanswered phone call will give her the petulant rage to pick a damn direction and go marching off to kill a motherfucker. Slapping a mosquito from her neck, she peruses all the ways she is going to set him straight again. This isn't the day for this. Not from him. It never comes from him.
The kid who has always been straight, even when his balls hadn't dropped and her stupid cousin at the same age had been blowing up gopher holes with firecrackers. Hell, even she'd done that.

The familiar mechanical chirp of Kaden's phone comes from inside his car.

She knows it would. And yet, hearing the tone and not the man that usually comes with it is perplexing in a way that makes her a bit nauseous.
Delilah fiddles with the door handle, letting the mechanism clap shut twice before she can get a good enough grip through the sweat to rip it open.
That bubbling in her stomach becomes so devastating at the sight of the empty seats she might've clapped a hand over her mouth.

Curled up, not in the driver's seat but in the impossibly tiny spot beneath it is Kaden. Knees to his chest, head bowed, hands just alongside his chin like a dog sleeping on the stoop. Clothes sticky and heavy with sweat, and no wonder. Hot air like a dry fart slinks out of the cockpit.
Normally pale like snow white, the kid is covered in a red burn she hopes is dirt.

"Oh," she drawls out passionately. She takes a heavy step back, her weight suddenly too much in the heat and implores to the woods, "You better have one hell of a story."

He doesn't move. Not so much as the flicker of an eyelash. A mumbled word squeezes out of his chest, but that is it.

The only water she could pick up coming here was that crappy fruit-flavored stuff. She makes sure the car door is open, for whatever good it would do. Trudging back through the grabby hands of thorns to rip open the flat and grab a few bottles from the back seat—raspberry and orange—lets her vent. The walk back through the brambles stokes her back up again.

At the first drop of water, he starts up like a man electrocuted. His head slams into the underside of the steering wheel, but he doesn't make a sound like he feels it.

She dumps the water over his head. The black hair turns darker, most of that awful grungy dust color melting away. He stays rosy in the cheeks, forehead, nose, and chin. In a pile of sweat and sugar water, the kid sits there, squinting like he is trying to decipher the secrets of the universe. And not come up with a clever way to avoid an ass-kicking.

"Let's go, son," she grunts, stooping into the sweaty space to hook him by the arm. Hot and pissed as she may be, she isn't delusional. There isn't a chance of picking him up, not bunched up like a paper clip. Dragging him out has better odds, but not without throwing her back out.
"It's hot enough to bake cookies in here." Maybe even banana bread, and properly too. Wouldn't dry it out to hell maybe.

Turns out all her strategizing for this heavy-lifting obstacle doesn't matter, and neither does her aunt's bread.

"Le' go me." He whips his head back, slamming it into the radio and sending water flying. A misplaced kick that lands in the crook of the car door makes him grumble in a particularly cranky way. And just like that, he sags again, just as resistant to being tugged from his convection oven if not more.

"Okay," she concedes, letting him ooze away. He rests his face on the seat, oblivious to the scalding hot leather. In all their years together, she'd never seen him this out of it. There are wilted plants in a desert with more pep. Another bottle cap is lost in the choking flora as she opens the second.

This fruity abomination goes inside of him. He acts like she is stuffing the barrel of a gun down his mouth, that is until he has his first swallow and his human body takes over the rest. Greedily, he sucks down the contents, warping out the plastic a little. Seven seconds and half a quart later, it is gone, and there is a little character in his painted-on eyes.

They open, and he sits up a fair better, but there isn't much clarity to be seen. Like he is making sure he still has all of them, Kaden counts his fingers. Some more than once.

"I think I'm dying," he says quizzically and then looks into space with an 'imagine that' kind of look on his face. "Would you let me? Would you let me go?"

Oh, she so does not have the patience for this. Expecting another kick that would miss by a mile, she is surprised again when he merely scowls at her, like he can't quite see and is pretty pissed about it. Round two of scraping him out of this nook is just as funny as the first; he is both mushy paste and resisting muscle.

Pinned up against the car so she can catch her breath, he comes up with his next revelation.

"You killed her."

Said so casually she has to think about the guys on the crew and recall if one of them actually had been a girl.

"Which one?"
"My mom. Just...admit you did."
"I didn't."

A wave of confusion crumples his face into something so much like grief she half expected him to start bawling. Instead, he rubs at his eyes and slurs, "My sweet's sweet...Sweat. It's sweet and sticky..."

This time when she takes his arm, he lets her. It is like being pressed up to a furnace. The heat comes off him in waves.
Ever devoted to moving forward, both physically and generally as a life plan, she still has to look back. Just once and not very long, so she won't trip over a log and snap her neck. Long enough to see the air coming from the open car door swivel in the heat like a mirage.

"You did," the piece of human jerky meat blurts at her, doing his best to hit every bush and rock.

She doesn't have to ask him what he is talking about.

"Why would I do that, Kaden? There's more than enough orphans in the world without making more myself."

This seems to stump him, long enough to reach her truck. The high step into the cab is a daunting challenge, so she plops him down on the floor of the truck and takes out another citrus to bide her time.
This time he takes the bottle, experiments with the lid like an ape before screwing it off to have a sip.
Face wrinkled, he mewls, "This is sweat. Why do you hate me so much?"

She tips his chin up to see for the first time how big his pupils are. The kid looks like some kind of animal, like he belongs here in the woods having black eyes like that. And actually black, with red to fill up the white and match with his face. So red, with two blots of black.
"This isn't just the heat. How much did you take? And of what?"

"I didn't take anything," he says helplessly. A bit of water sloshes over his hand, and he glares at it. "You took her! You took everything from me!"

She chuckles hard, leaning a hand into her truck handle and one on her hip so she won't have a hand to slap the stupid out.
"How long did I give you to look for her?"

Again, he counts his fingers. "Three months."

"What did I give you to get it done?"

"Anything I needed."

"I gave you the three months, all expenses paid. You wanna look again, you're doing it on your own-" She directs the truck's fans to the kid, and while she's at it, she loosens the top few buttons on his shirt.
"And damn sober," she adds.

"You're not going to let me go," he says, watching her hands as she wrestles with fabric that's already starting to dry and go tacky.

It's not a question, not even said with horror. Just a statement.

"Not like this."

"Or at all..." At first, he looks sad, staring down at his shoes. It only becomes apparent he is losing consciousness when he lurches forward.
The sticky water sloshes down her chest as she catches him, keeping him from falling from the cab and face planting into burs and thorns.

"I'm all you got," she grunts, shoving him into place harder than needed because it isn't the truth.
Well, maybe it is, but it isn't one she's cared about beyond justifying everything she does. And he'll start believing it. Sooner or later he will. She gets him into the passenger seat, but not without buggering her back, like she deserves.

"You're supposed to be the one guy I can rely on, Kaden. No matter what. You're getting clean," she says to his vacant face. "I'm done with this shit show."

Wobbly, he shakes his head from side to side. "No- I can...I can detox. I can..."
"You can't, Kaden."
"Delilah-"
"Don't 'Delilah' me or you'll stay in the drunk tank for another month for good measure. We're going home. You're done."

Like a six year old brat he tosses the empty bottle, but lets her stretch the seatbelt across his waist.
"I want to die."

She sighs hard. The belt clicks and she draws it tight. No sooner is that accomplished she grabs his mouth and pinches his nose shut in the same hand. He struggles when it registers he isn't getting any air and she needs her other hand to hold him. She let's him go before the red in his face can even think of turning blue.

"You clearly don't," she spits into his huffing face. He blinks, eyes half rolled up into his head.
"Don't fuck around with that bullshit unless you're serious and...if you are, do it with me so we don't have to die alone."

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

*** Present time***

Finch cleaned up the blood, and salvaged the blankets that hadn't been molested by Wilson's overstayed welcome. The moment the door had open and shut on their departure was harrowing; visions of Neil convincing Cade even in his state to return and finally end them replayed over and over. Burning the collar had offered some assurance they would go and stay gone. But even the drifting beams of the car's headlights flicking through the window and smearing away as it drove off didn't totally alleviate the anxiety.

He should have killed them. Really killed them. There was an axe somewhere outside for chopping wood. Would that have worked? Whatever crimes that has been done to their physiology, that had to do something.

He'd thrown away the only friend he'd never had.

Restless and edgy, he once again found momentarily stillness in the man who had asked for his help a month ago and had no idea what that would mean. Damien followed his guiding hand to lay down easily, like a dead person or an inanimate object. He put a blanket over him, brushed his hair back and wiped a bit of drool away with the hem of the blanket. The ex-cop's brows were pinched in distress, disrupting the unfairly adorable appearance he made unconscious.

And that discomfort continued as the drug worked it's way through Blumenthal and the moon worked it's way through the sky. Finch fed the fire, worried at the ache in his chest, checked the doors were locked, fed the fire, examined the Romeo vial, and fed the fire.
Eventually he would come and sit in the living room and observe how lonely his first sleepover had become. He would look at Damien's building struggles to shake off whatever nightmares plagued him and wonder if he had ever looked that scared.

Delilah had called it a drunk tank, but it was really just a small, well furnished room. No glass, no shower rods, no shoe laces, no utensils. Almost nothing but him and the long stretch to being sober again. When things got so bad she had to involve herself she did it in a way that made sure he never wanted her involved again.

And maybe, for a moment or two he doesn't fall asleep but the thoughts swirl into that realm of vivid dreams. He's banging on the door, telling her she doesn't have to worry about him and he's okay! She can let him out...
And then he dreams of her as a black dog again, swallowing him whole and the sweat from his withdrawal turns into saliva as he slips down her throat and down into her warm, safe belly.

Scrooge was tortured by the ghost of Christmas past for who he was, the thought occurs that perhaps this is Kaden's reclamation. However vaguely he remembers the past, he can't forget the present and he is the future, in all it's promising horror and loneliness. It's not something that can be changed like the ghost of future mimed it could be, it's immutable. Inevitable.

In the end it's the sound of Damien suffering that tethers him back. And the blood orange of the greatly missed sun peeking up to blow away the longest night.
Kaden rubs the fatigue from his eyes and prepares a glass of water from melted down snow and uselessly waits.

 

[dreaming enthusiast]

---

His legs feel like they're made of lead. Or maybe it's the air around him that's heavy, this miasma as thick as molasses that seems to permeate the hallways of Medusa's manor. Vine-covered walls shift around him, expand then constrict like the insides of some great jungle serpent slithering along the ground, in the process of consuming its prey. He keeps running down the endless stretch of hallways, if this can even be called running - weighted down by some invisible force, it feels like he's uselessly struggling in place. His legs are starting to hurt.

Gritting his teeth, Damien redoubles his efforts even as the corners of his eyes sting with frustration. Some part of him knows it's all futile, and some other part of him knows he's not allowed to stop.

He can't- He can't let MacDarragh take Michael away! Not again! He's going to catch up, he has to.

A loud howl echoes around him.

There is a dark shape nipping at his heels. Or is he nipping at its heels? He can't be sure where the howl came from. Is he being chased by the wolf or chasing it? Is it already beside him? He doesn't know, he doesn't fucking know anything. At the mere thought of turning to look, something in him seizes up, yet it's not fear at whatever he might see. More so an anxiety at the act of looking itself.

In his mindless rush he nearly misses it - a door hidden within the chocking plant life. His shoulder collides with the frame as he skids to a stop grabbing at the handle. It feels pleasantly warm to the touch, familiar in its shape like it's somehow imprinted in the palm of his hand. A deep longing contests with the burning sensation of his spent lungs.

"Safe!" Damien finds it in himself to shout out, like he's playing tag with the wolf and it has to abide by the sacred rules of a children's game.

Shoving his hand to fumble in the bottomless pit that is his coat's pocket, he mutters an incessant and desperate, "Please be here, please, please, please-"

He chokes on a sob when his fingers brush against the outline of something metallic. Trembling, Damien holds out the tiny brass key and unlocks the door-

---

It feels like he should be waking with a start. Maybe even with a scream, drenched in cold sweat like he took another dip in the harbor mid-winter. Instead, consciousness is cruelly calm and casual in its return. The world comes back in a flutter of eyelashes, eyes unfocused. For a moment Damien genuinely believes he might have lost his sight (even dumb old-man glasses won't fix this) when all he can see no matter how many times he blinks is a canvass of fuzzy darkness. It takes his bleary mind a few too many second to realize that what he's staring at is the back rest of a couch he's curled up against. For some reason.

He doesn't recognize the couch. He has no idea where he is.

All at once, the delayed panic from earlier hits Damien, faced with the instinctual unease of waking up somewhere you have no recollection of falling asleep. As a matter of fact, he has no recollection of falling asleep, period. He tries to remember only to be greeted by a headache pulsing behind the eyes.

"Mike?" Damien's mouth is parched when he rasps out the name like it's a plea.

Like he isn't calling out to a dead man.

Dread mounting, he attempts to rise only for a bout of pain to spike through his cranium, and like a calf that doesn't quite know how to walk yet his arms give out from underneath him. With a groan, the ex-cop gets buried once more face-first into the couch pillows that he's sure have left imprints on the side of his face where it feels numb. Numbest. His whole body feels numb, really, drowsy like it's still half-asleep. It reminds him of waking up with a hangover. Or waking up from anesthesia. Not having gotten enough of a lesson the first time, Damien stubbornly goes for a second attempt at rising. The blanket covering him is all tangled in his limbs, as if he tossed and turned all night, the fabric now serving as an impromptu straight jacket, and the more he fights against it (as much as his frail flailing can be called a fight) the more constricting it becomes.

The most he manages is to flip himself over, like the world's worst pancake, frowning in worry and incomprehension. It's only when his eyes alight onto a figure he recognizes that some of the panic in his chest releases.

"Kaden," Damien mumbles. The first rays of sunlight bathe him in a soft glow where he sits. His presence is reassuring. Swallowing to alleviate the dryness in his mouth, the ex-cop slowly continues, "Where are we-"

Almost like asking the question unlocks something, Wight's lounge finally comes into focus. As does the previous day... to some extend. At one point, Damien's memories come crashing right into a wall. And like the collision actually happened his headache spikes, making him wince.

Something's wrong. Where are Cade and MacDarragh?

With a deep frown, Damien blinks several times in Kaden's direction, "Did... I get the wrong tea?"

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

Kpin can last up to twelve hours. Damien's first bleary attempts to rise mark the end of the long vigil and the beginning of something neither of them are ready for. Particularly in Blumenthal's state. Every expression is pinched in confusion or distorted by pain. Rather than tumble to the floor like he had tried to do multiple times during the night, Damien stays wrapped up like a burrito. At first he seems almost unaware what's keeping him stuck, flustered by his inability to make any reasonable headway. If Delilah had ever found Kaden endearing while inebriated than she was a sick woman and he's a sick man.

The first name he calls for is Michael's

"...No." The dying coals of the fire give a blazing huff as a charcoaled log collapses with a tired wheeze.
"Cade was working against us, against you, with MacDarragh to follow. I needed to get ahead of them so I did what I thought was- ...I did what I needed to do. No one died."

Kaden leaves his seat to take the glass he set aside for Damien. Closer he can see the exact dishevelment of his hair, the displacement of the wavy short curls creating the boy like look of bed hair. The seam of the couch cushions have made amusing impressions down one cheek.
"Don't get up. Some confusion, weakness and dizziness are common side effects. I can give you something for your headache, but more sleep would be best I think."

 

[dreaming enthusiast]

Like he didn't quite hear what Kaden said last, Damien kicks with his legs trying to sit up, huffing as the blanket continues to constrict him. The effort is far from successful, but when at least he's propped his head up on the pillows the ex-cop relents, accepting the glass of water with a small nod. It threatens to slip out of his grasp until he puts his other hand around it as well.

"Working against us? How?" he questions, looking up in confusion at his partner and if his throat wasn't dry as a desert it feels like he'd ask more, "But we had an agreement-"

As far as I'm concerned, today we're brothers, the headache echoes, as if it wasn't just some bullshit line to seal a bullshit deal of convenience. However... it wasn't bullshit that Cade saved him, and Damien remembers their chat in the car - when it actually felt like they were getting along - and has to wonder what he possibly did to turn the gangster against him again. Frowning, he holds the undrunk glass of water against his chin as he mulls over what in his present state feels like an insurmountable conundrum. The headache keeps pulsing as he slowly browses back through memories, looking for some kind of answer. Last thing he remembers is the kitchen, Kaden embracing him, and as guilty as he is to be the one comforted yet again, it feels like home-

Damien is in the lounge with MacDarragh. It's uncomfortable being alone with the man, talking, without the buffer of Kaden or Cade, but he needs this. He needs to ask him something, something very important-

Once more his recollections come crashing into a wall. Or maybe it's an empty space, like a void carved out of his awareness. Some deep horrible feeling settles in Damien's gut and if he was in full control of his faculties he'd cringe showing Kaden such a pathetic display. As things stand, he can't help it, "I can't remember..."

"What... what do you mean side effects?"

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

"I thought so as well," he murmurs, and he did even if simultaneously he knew it couldn't last. The moment Wilson cradled Neil's shot knee should have been indication enough.
"Cadence wanted to hurt you, I'm assuming from lingering feelings of jealously and resentment. I wouldn't let him."

Kaden touches the back of his hand to Damien's forehead. At the exact moment of contact he's not sure why he bothers doing something so unnecessary - Damien's still slightly clammy from his nightmares. The man who's known for his wit and general intellect holds his glass with two hands and still nearly manages to slosh water into his lap. He looks at Kaden with such earnest confusion and helplessness.
"Finish drinking," he requests, pushing the grasped cup up to Damien's lips.

 

[dreaming enthusiast]

The sentence is already on his lips, but before he can point out that Kaden didn't answer his last question the glass gets pushed up to his mouth. More on instinct than anything else Damien finally takes a sip, and it might as well be the best one he's ever had. The ex-cop swallows down the scraping sensation in his throat in the same gulp that he swallows down the facts of his new situation, as much as he doesn't understand them. He just has to accept them. Still, a dejected little 'oh...' resounds in his mind at Cade's betrayal. Not that the man owed him loyalty or anything, but...

Well, it's a good thing Kaden stopped whatever was going to happen. As usual, it's embarrassing having to rely on the man so much, yet Damien can admit he's glad to have him to rely on.

Wouldn't it be funny if he salted the drink?

Damien chokes.

A part of the water goes down the wrong way, burning in his chest, while another part of it sloshes onto his shaking hand as his body is wracked by a coughing fit. He tries to cover it up with his other hand. A month-long recollection uselessly reassures that if his drink had been tampered with it would taste bitter. But that stands true only for the drug that nearly stopped Kaden's heart. And it stands true only for water, not the tea he had earlier.

"You drugged me," Damien sputters out around yet another cough. Was that a question or a statement? When he looks up at Kaden, his eyes are wide, "When did you-"

"Is there anything in the water too?!"

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

While Damien tremors with a hacking fit, he takes the glass of water back so it doesn't find a new place to rest in a puddle on the floor.
The certainty he could not avoid this (should not) comes back in a vengeance to stiffen his shoulders and tighten his chest. This is happening, one way or another. Lying only causes a buildup later in terms of Damien's feelings and he won't let this go. Not unless Finch dilutes his brain with another dose.

He smears a drop of water across the glass with a thumb.

"No." He shakes his head. "But trust that I acted in your best interest."

 

[dreaming enthusiast]

"My best interest?" the ex-cop repeats back in disbelief, more an exhale than anything else.

He isn't sure what he is hoping for - maybe some kind of rebuttal, a denial to prove his accusations wrong. He wants to be wrong. Instead, Kaden asks that he trust his intentions. He did trust him, when he gave back the case of poisons.

The white noise of his headache builds into a droning buzz, twisting his expression. What a sudden, horrible awakening. Damien's fingers dig into the fabric of the blanket as the words get torn out of his chest, "My best interest is taking me out of the equation?! Don't even start with that shit! "

This isn't the kind of thing you do for someone's sake. Damien can't accept that, he rejects the notion! But then why? Desperately, he searches Kaden's eyes, "Was it payback? For what I did to you?"

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

How many times did he do this with Delilah when she overstepped a boundary or infringed on his autonomy? When pleading for his case to be known, that he didn't want whatever he was resisting, she'd practically inform him she didn't care what he wanted. It was said so plainly, so scoffingly reasonable that he not only believed his desires came second but knew the situation couldn't be changed.

Damien doesn't spare him the childish outburst, growling out complaints on a situation Kaden saved him from. It's the same as it was when he kept him safe during the Nakurra fight. It was practical, reasonable.

"I already told you it wouldn't have made a difference!" The reply starts out soft and ends in thorns. Did he tell Damien? That phonecall is a muddled, happy memory. Most of what is easily recalled is being sleepy and uncomfortable.

"She put me in that box, Damien," he states, punching out every word, "She's kept me in a stupid box my entire life and rattled me out whenever she needed a little friend she knew would never leave because no one else in this God forsaken city could stand her!"

He plants the glass down on the coffee table to keep it from being shattered into a wall.
Mindful of Damien's headache he tries to stay composed when he says, "I know it hurts you when I do these things to you. I know you feel belittled. But I...I don't know if I can change, Damien."

 

[dreaming enthusiast]

The way Kaden's voice raises suddenly, if only for a moment, makes Damien wince as much as it gives him pause. And when he glances at the man, it's with some odd mixture of indignation and solace, "If you know what it's like to be kept in a box at someone's convenience, why would you do it to others?"

He never should have agreed to Delilah's plan - he knew it as soon as they was getting shipped off to Eli's house, but the mistake gets newly reaffirmed and not only because it hurt Kaden or because Damien ended up... losing the one chance he had... The words Finch speaks now are a revelation that puts many things into perspective. About himself. About Delilah. Damien keeps yo-yoing between disliking her for all the pain she's brought onto her charge and sympathizing when it feels like she does genuinely love him. The capo had described her as complicated, and it pisses off the ex-cop when he can find no better descriptor.

He wishes he could comfort Kaden. Under any other circumstance he would.

But it hurts. It really, really does. And everything is so disorienting.

"When I gave you back the case I was so worried you were going to hurt yourself again. But the situation was precarious and I felt bad about taking it in the first place and I'd lost the gun. It didn't even cross my mind that you would-" he's rambling. Biting his tongue, Damien looks down where his hands have balled up into the blanket. Wrapped around him. Holding him down. All at once, it feels unbearable. As sluggish as his muscles are, the ex-cop strains to pull it off, again raising his voice when he knows that will do him no good, "And I told you something I've never told anyone as some stupid attempt at commiseration!"

With several uncoordinated pulls and kicks that exert him far more than they should, Damien feels he's sufficiently freed himself. "Anyone can change, but only if they want to!" that has to be the truth. It has to, "I'm not asking you to be a different person. You already do and say things that make me believe-"

His eyes find Kaden's again and he's not sure what expression he shows him. Exhaling, the ex-cop pushes with his hand on the backrest in an attempt to rise. He's not sure to what end, only that he can't stand standing still, "Sometimes it feels like one step forward, two steps back. Why am I not worth your trust?"

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

He's been a victim to guilt trips in the past, but rarely one that made him feel so convicted and simultaneously defensive.
Kaden can't look at Damien and he realizes it's due to shame and that alone is irritating enough. Would he have been so unreasonable without Delilah's handprints in his upraising? He would surrender his case of needles if he wasn't afraid of them being taken from him again. What a convoluted line of thought...

Damien fights his wounded feelings as well as he fights the blanket tying him down. It takes him several attempts to rid himself of it and even then twisted lengths of the blanket linger around his ankles. Kaden wants to tell him to slow down, don't pressure himself, but such things seem like they wouldn't be taken well.
Especially when they would be, mostly, a diversion.

Finch shakes his head, at a loss and helpless. "Its because you're worth it that you can't have it, Damien. Hm."

The sun is still infant new in the sky. A new beam of light fights for supremacy, sliding across the couch, over Damien's face and away as the car that created it pulls in.
Finch plants a hand on Blumenthal's shoulder. It takes very little to keep him seated.

"I never expected them to come back so soon," he says to the window across the lounge room. From this vantage point he can't see. The car is tucked up to the building now.

He dips to take one of the steak knives from last evening (not the one he used with Neil, that one is gone).
"Stay here."

 

[dreaming enthusiast]

It's because you're worth it that you can't have it.

Finch's explanation is no explanation at all, at least not one Damien can understand - certainly not at the moment - and when he frowns it makes him feel sulky more than anything else. It takes him back to being a kid and begging his parents for a turtle or a gecko or anything really, and being repeatedly told 'no' even though he kept his grades up and tried to be on his best behavior. What else did they want? What more could he do?

There's something exceptionally frustrating about it all...

The ex-cop's sulkiness only deepens when Kaden puts an end to all the progress he's made trying to get up, though, honestly, it was barely any progress at all... Nevertheless his eyebrows furrow, and out of his periphery he observes the hand planted on his shoulder holding him down with barely any pressure at all. Ordering him to stay. He tenses.

"Let go," keeping his voice as steady as he can, Damien gathers up all of his lacking coordination to shrug off the capo, "I'm not just sitting by and letting you go alone. Not with those two back. Not bringing a steak knife to a gunfight."

The ex-cop doesn't acknowledge that, as he said, he himself doesn't have a firearm anymore. Or that he'd likely just be a hindrance in his present state. Instead, jaw clenched, he goes to stand once more, and through sheer stubbornness it seems to work out better than he expected - as uncertain as he feels on his feet, eventually they're both planted on the floor supporting his weight and Damien allows himself a little exhale of success.

That turns into an expletive the very instant he attempts to take a step and feels his legs give out under him.

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

He can tell be weight alone the knife isn't properly balanced to be thrown, at least not reliably. Maybe if it was only Wilson, maybe if he wasn't an abomination, but it won't be and he can't be.

"The first time MacDarragh went after us it was for fun. This time it's for blood. He won't waste time with talk or restraints!"

Well, most likely a fair bit of talking actually but Kaden expects to be too blissfully dead to hear him.

"I have to strike first and fast."

Ears pricked, Kaden swears he can hear a car door slam in between Damien's struggles to rise. The sound doesn't repeat unless it's in his head overlaid by the rushing of his own blood, and that makes him believe he imagined the first sound all together.

Predictably, Damien can't hold his weight. It's only due to Kaden's confidence the man can't take care of himself in this instance, no matter how much he insists, that he's there to catch him.
He eases Blumenthal back onto the couch, pinning him there with a hand on his chest.
"You won't stay," he whispers, so afraid of being heard. "You never can."

He steps back, ears aching.

Finch sets the knife down to pull out his case of poisons.

 

[dreaming enthusiast]

Pinned once more, Damien grimaces. The inability to so much as stay upright is pathetic, and it both stokes the hurt of the betrayal while making him feel uniquely ashamed. He wants to help his partner - he needs to help - and the reality that he can't is crushing.

The instant the silver case glistens in the sparse dawn he sinks further into the couch, crossing his arms in defense as if somehow he can escape what is to come.

"Kaden, please don't," the ex-cop begs, as useless as it might be.

There is urgency to Finch's tone, and rightfully so. There is no time to waste, yet still Damien begs. Much like most of what followed the talk in the kitchen, he doesn't remember the dreams he had dosed up - even the few fragmented glimmers he retained upon waking have already evaporated. The sole thing left in their wake is a lingering disquiet that spikes into alarm at the thought of going back to that place, and at leaving Kaden alone to... whatever the fuck MacDarragh and Wilson might do, as capable as the capo is.

Not being there for Michael has haunted the ex-cop for over a decade. He can't go through that again, he can't.

"Please," Damien reiterates, voice straining, "I know I can't do anything, but at least let me be there."

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

"Be there so you can watch?"

Watch what? Kaden can't answer.

"You are so frustratingly stubborn!"

The first time Finch forcefully drugged Damien he had a steely look of defiance, boiled over into begrudging tolerance and heroically overlaid by the blood dripping down his face.
Now his voice alone sounds the way Damien never sounds. Not only weepy, but torn and frayed like a child's almost.
Kaden looks up from flipping through the leafs of his case to see for himself the clammy face of horror he's seen in many men, only this one is barbed with personal involvement. And there isn't just fear, but hurt. A desperate plea not from one human to another, but from one friend to another. Partner to partner.

Finch produces from a lip found on the inside wall of the case an off white, cylinder flat tablet.

"You have no reason to believe this is anything but another sedative beyond the fact I wouldn't choose to force feed you rather than take the practical route of mainlining something else," he says, not stumbling over words but letting them fall into place so quickly they become a blur to even him. Supposedly an argument could be made that Kaden wouldn't want to break a needle tip into Damien, or damage a nerve when he struggles because he will struggle.
"Regardless of what you think of me, you know I typically take the path of least resistance."

And that's how trustworthy he's made himself, this is how he must argue his case.

Some where in this maze the door being opened can't be heard, but the slam creates a wuff that echoes through the home. The little gems on the chandelier above shiver.

"I've never taken them to do anything but focus or stay awake, and I rarely have issues with either," he says, taking Damien's hand to push the pill into his cold palm. He takes the glass of water, shoves it forward and then takes up the knife he set aside.
The only weapon he really has.
"Take it, Damien. Now."

 

[dreaming enthusiast]

Not moving from his sham of a defensive position, Damien nevertheless listens closely to Finch, doing his best to follow the man's torrent of words. Eyes turning downwards to observe the tablet now sitting in his palm, he bites at the inside of his cheek.

The fact that some part of Damien - an unjustifiably large part - still trusts Kaden or at least wants to trust him makes something in the back of his mind scoff in cruel mockery. He's truly stupid. No one else can consistently make so many questionable decisions one after the other and never learn his lesson. Kaden told him if given the chance he'd keep him away, again. He told him as clear as day, and still he didn't listen. Brows furrowed, Damien closes his fist around the pill.

"No," the ex-cop pushes the water back in Finch's direction.

When next he speaks his voice is adamant, clipped, "You have more pills like this, don't you? You'll take one too, at the same time as me."

Because it very well could be another sedative and, really, what's the path of least resistance but making Damien take himself out willingly if unwittingly, not even putting up a struggle? If the mere thought of that happening didn't feel like having a hot rod stuck between his ribs, the idea might even be comical in a dejected, hopeless sort of way. Given the time he'd question Kaden further, try and reassure himself as to the validity of the capo's claims. However, the seconds are ticking by, and this is the best he can come up with in the thick of the moment. If Finch were to acquiesce that would mean reassurance. But if he were to refuse... well, then that would be that.

Not that there aren't a myriad of other ways Kaden could play him for a fool. Frankly, this plan is anything but foolproof.

"And if you pull some bullshit like holding it under your tongue, I swear..." Damien glowers.

His words are an empty threat, if a threat at all. What could he realistically do in retaliation, if Kaden were in fact tricking him? Except for never forgive him this betrayal, though would that even matter to the capo?

Leaning forward, Damien unwaveringly holds his companion's gaze, tablet held up to his mouth at the ready.

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

The momentary terror sharpening Kaden's senses leaves him long enough for a scathing scoff of disbelief. Incredulously he gaps at the man who's choosing now, of all times, to do something like this!

This is exactly why Delilah keeps people in boxes; they're too stupid to be let out.

"I cannot describe with words how disgruntled and disappointed I am with you in this moment," he hisses in an even tone that could have been a speculation on the weather if it weren't for the fact he was holding a knife.

He looks at the little tablet held pinched between Damien's fingers. There's a divot manufactured down the middle allowing for easy splitting, not that Finch had ever bothered.

And before he's even decided, he looks at Damien and shakes his head.
"I can't..."

Thoughts branch off like the limbs of a tree; he sees himself climbing into Damien's lap so he can pin his head back and push the pill down to the back of his tongue. He sees ripping Damien to his feet and leading him somewhere... anywhere he might be out of the way. There isn't a single place he can think of reaching without power to the building.
In this forest of possibilities he sees himself take the pill, degrading himself and this is why Delilah keeps people in boxes!

The lounge isn't deep into the mansion. It's the muscle beneath the skin.
"Jen?" The intruder's voice calls. The cooler air lets it stab through the hallways, close and then far away. The sound settles into Kaden's skin, making the hair on his arms prickle. It doesn't repeat, and in the silence the stranger seems to reassess proclaiming their presence so boldly.
All at once Kaden yanks Damien up by the elbow, half leading and half dragging him to the archway that leads into this room. He lays an arm across Blumenthal's chest, a leg over his so that the man is half behind him, sandwiched into the wall while they wait.

The couch was a sitting duck position but how long can Damien stand for?

 

[dreaming enthusiast]

A shocked silence falls over Damien, where the only things that exist are Kaden's chastising eyes boring into him and his ever-present headache.

"You're the one that's disappointed in all of this?" the ex-cop mutters in disbelief to match the capo's. Being a disappointment is not an unfamiliar reality - for as much as he's tried to amount to something, more times than not he just ends up letting down those around him.

However, now is not one of those times, and refuses to be made to feel otherwise.

When Damien shakes off the initial sting and surprise, it's with a snarl as he clenches the pill once more, "You're unbelievable. I'm trying to meet you halfway!"

Kaden won't take the supposedly harmless pill, which either means it isn't harmless at all, or that the man can't concede on even that minor of a compromise. For some fucking reason. Any further arguments Damien is preparing get cut off when he is ripped off of the couch. On instinct, the fingers of his free hand latch onto Kaden's arm as the two get pressed flat against the wall. Just like yesterday the proximity is overwhelming, though for different reasons entirely - feeling hot under the collar, he is really not in the mood to be so close to this man currently, yet he is the only thing holding him upright. So, helplessly, Damien relies on that support.

"You're always pushing away..." looking down, his words are a tiny whisper.

Suddenly, all emotions in the ex-cop's chest quiet.

A voice called out. The realization comes with some delay, but a voice called out and now it's gone, plunging the manor into a dead silence. As a matter of fact, the only sounds he is picking up on are his and Finch's bated breaths. The capo has gone rigid against him - glancing up at Kaden's face, he looks sharp as a razor; focused, like a predator waiting in ambush for its expected target to round the corner. The voice hadn't sounded like MacDarragh, though... or like Wilson. And when Damien squeezes his partner's arm and looks to him with a quizzical expression he tries to convey that, "Jen?"

Or is it Gen? Is someone looking for Genevieve?

Well, whoever this is and whoever they might be looking for, their intentions are unknown, "I can play decoy to give you an opening."

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

He doesn't know how many there are, or what they could want.
Damien echoes the name in a hushed tone and it doesn't readily click who Jen is supposed to be until he mouths the name himself.
Still reeling from the aftereffects of the drug, Damien catches something Kaden didn't. He glances at the man tucked behind his shoulder.

"If it's a siren they could be here to kill you," Kaden whispers, squeezing the handle of the knife. Ortiz would be looking for both of them by now. All of the High-Rise, actually.
Somehow that only really registers now, with his ear pressed to the wall. He came to the only other home he was ever known to have and brought Damien with him. And incapacitated him.

A hollow moan shatters down the hallway. It grates like old joints grinding together until whoever made that step completes it.

"It's too dangerous. For once can you listen to me and stay?" Kaden says in a fierce whisper.

 

[dreaming enthusiast]

If he could glare any further than he already is, he would.

Give me one reason to listen to you. Damien thinks of hissing back at the capo, but he would just be wasting his breath. Well, technically Kaden already gave him one reason, but the situation is dangerous for both of them and how many times does he have to say he's not going to let him go at it alone! Yet every single suggestion the ex-cop has made to try and work together has been shut down...

If Damien is frustratingly stubborn, then Kaden is exasperatingly obstinate. Which is to say, they're the same.

So, holding Finch's eyes, Damien makes sure the man knows this as he places the flat tablet at the back of his tongue and tips his head back to swallow it dry.

His limbs are still sluggish - they will be for a bit longer, probably - but maybe it's a combination of surprise and Kaden's focus being split between him and the unknown element in the hallway that allow the ex-cop to struggle free, ducking beneath the arm laid across his chest. If he steps on the capo's shoe in the process, it's on accident.

He wishes him tumbling to the floor past the archway was also an accident, but it was a predictably outcome, really. Gritting his teeth, Damien turns his head to stare down the hallway.

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

In a bizarre, dream like moment Kaden watches Damien take the pill he was supposed to take sixty seconds ago. It's so unusual, so outwardly disrespectful and nonsensical that Kaden stares in utter disbelief, forgetting the danger closing in before it makes yet another sound.
Pinching the handle, Kaden wills his aim true but waits...waits until they're closer. He needs to be closer.
And when he is closer, the reassuring warmth at his back decides to squirm and struggle. Finch grabs and grips as well as he can, but he's in no position to restrain Damien and the result of their collision dance is the man landing in the middle of the archway.

The resounding slam is a roar in the empty home.

Finch bounds out of his hiding spot, flings the knife.

It's funny how fast the human brain is and how slow the body can be. The order to disengage runs to the ends of his fingers long after the knife has left them. The sinking feeling of a brutal mistake comes next, followed by the conscious Kaden Finch acknowledgement of a face he knows and all the context that comes with it to reaffirm the original decision not to throw the knife.

Malcom must go through the same funny experience.

He must mean to shoot his target, an action he miraculously subverts in favor of whipping the knife aside with the gun itself.
Unfortunately, it, in a whirlwind of silver bounces off the wall and into Malcom's thigh. Just the tip, so when he leaps aside, less out of pain and more to avoid a knife that has already been thrown and landed, it falls out to the floor.
"Friendly," Malcom shouts, and holds his gun out. "I'm friendly."

 

[dreaming enthusiast]

This isn't exactly the type of decoy plan Damien had in mind initially, though as pathetic of a display being splayed out on his hand and knees is, the tumble serves its purpose as a diversion. Kind of.

Finch throws the knife with precision accuracy, only for it to get batted away. The muscles in the ex-cop's legs tense - shit, maybe he could run for it; take advantage of this split second distraction to sprint forward and tackle the intruder. Then both Kaden and he would be safe.

Damien gets as far as struggling to stumble up before his intentions dissipate in surprise and he sits back down on the floor with another thump.

The knife clatters to the ground, tip bloodied.

If anyone other than Malcom was standing in the hallway, Damien would most likely have been shot. The thought bounces around in his consciousness almost casually, a by-the-by musing drowned out by what feel like much more important questions surfacing to the forefront.

"Why are you here?" those are the first words out of the ex-cop's mouth, though he doesn't waste time before asking more, "What happened? You never sent a message."

Admittedly the message was supposed to come in if everything had gone well, which evidently it hadn't. Considering what MacDarragh knew, Delilah had been compromised, so it stood to reason that her entourage had been as well. Yet here Malcom is, creeping around the manor and getting a steak knife thrown at him. Briefly throwing a glance at Kaden, Damien's eyes narrow as they once more turn to the mercenary.