When You Bury the Past, Bury it Deep

[lupintrois]

Neither Albert nor Lupin want to admit how much they're enjoying this. Matching wits with someone at your level, hiding your vulnerabilities while showing off all the places you've improved, trying to figure out where the other still has weaknesses or has adapted to them over the years. It's a thrill, and a very distracting one.

Which is why Lupin fucks up the timing, and in the middle of Albert pretending he doesn't know the 'Tickey' is Lupin and Lupin pretending he doesn't know Albert knows, the actual Tickey shows up.

"Uh."

He stands in the doorway, staring at the perfect copy of himself lounging against the couch. Albert fumbles, wide-eyed, while Lupin just gives his double a flirty wink and sashays out the door. Albert's left to make weak excuses about covert operations tech experimentation, and someone in his department being a joker, and he's not entirely sure Tickey buys it. Still, Tickey shrugs and fetches the wallet he'd forgotten in Albert's bedroom.

"So like that Lupin guy, yeah?"

"Yeah....like him."

There are things Albert keeps from Tickey, and Tickey knows and respects it. Lying is different - lying means keeping track of all the lies you'd told before, and the more you lie the easier it is to sleep up, and directly lying to him would be harder for Tickey to forgive. Lupin has, in one simple accident, made Albert more vulnerable and that lights a cold anger in him that hadn't been there before.

He scraps his original plan, and instead escalates to a point he never thought he'd get to. Fuck that hairy little scarecrow, trying to be the gum in his gears, a pesky fly annoying a giant to death. France has no need of such pests.

The next step is conducted completely off the grid, no chance of messages being diverted or erased by Lupin's pet hacker. Zenigata receives an message by courier mail sending him out to a town in rural France. Once he's there, anonymous notes left in his room and a package sent to his hotel by mail will guide him to a smaller town, and then a graveyard with a specific hill that overlooks the valley and is lit beautifully when the sun begins to set. It's old and the stones are all worn down with centuries of rain and wind, save for the grave on the hill. When asked, the old gravetender will say he he has no idea who's buried in that grave, but he will have some intel on the strange man who comes to visit it every couple of years and lays lupines at its base, then pays in cash to make sure it's maintained.

If Zenigata couldn't put it together himself, a few more items he finds in his room upon his return will clarify the matter - one or two photos, some signed notes, a newspaper clipping about a routine juvenile arrest.

When Lupin killed and buried his old self, he didn't know the term for the identity you left behind would one day be known as a 'deadname'.

But he put up a headstone for her anyway. She'd gotten him this far, after all. It was the least he could do.

Comments

[zenigatcha]

Zenigata got the letter right after a fight with Blaise Desforges. It was a welcome distraction after a few days in Japan with his former subordinate that had been defined by the coldness of the grave. Blaise blamed him for Officer Watanabe's death, and Zenigata couldn't find fault there. He also couldn't explain anything about what happened, or who had Watanbe on his payroll.

It was a strange thing. I have evidence regarding Lupin III's next move. Zenigata took it to the people he trusts for analysis -- no prints, no strange chemicals, no hints to who it belonged to. By his reckoning, Albert must've sent it.

The pissing contest between the two thieves was getting exhausting, and people were getting hurt and killed. But Zenigata couldn't ignore it, or something else would be done. If this was an attempt to lure him out to die, so be it. If it was a trap, he'd be walking into it. If he was to be bait for Lupin, he'd have to hope Lupin was going to be smart about getting him out of trouble.

Zenigata got in an unmarked police car, and drove to a little town. The next clue took him out to an even smaller town, and the next clue there took him out to a tiny farming community in the middle of nowhere in Bourgogne Franche Comté. It lead him further out to a tiny church, to speak to an aging Catholic priest about a grave he had been directed to.

His first thoughts were for Lupin's violence: was this a past murder he regretted? A lover? A secret child? Who was this woman buried out here in the middle of no where that the man in the brilliant colored jacket, paying only in cash, made sure the grave was tended. It was a melancholy place, but in an area rich with agriculture and beauty, with some of the greatest vineyards France had to offer. If Lupin had buried this person, he'd made sure she laid to rest in a beautiful, vibrant place.

He retired to his quaint lodgings (Rural lodging meant old guest houses and the occasional AirBNB space, and this place only had the former,) cursed his phone's bad reception, and then settled in to read while he waited for service to come back. He'd touch base with Yata once it came up.

He was making notes about being an affirming queer parent, hoping not to fuck it up, when the realization came to him. It was a time of pride. All the brilliant flags, all the people celebrating a variety of identities. The warmth it felt to be a part of a community, with people who did not damn him for being different. People who had come out of closets, announced themselves as new people, and those who had left their old selves behind to become what they were meant to be.

Lupin had come out here to bury himself. Or, at least, a past self.

He pulled up another book, and then flipped to a specific section, settling in for the night to read. At first he was confused, and then he was irritated, and then he rounded back through to peace again. Of course he'd never figured out or been told. It was none of his damned business. Lupin had treated his body like his Fiat 500 -- all custom, built by the very best. He'd carved himself into the image he wished to have, and maintained it. He embraced the brilliantly colored jackets and shouted he was here, Arsène Lupin III, the grandson and inheritor of the Lupin legacy.

Good for him.

Once he managed the confusion and shock, there was a strange feeling of pride for the monkey-faced man. He was authentically himself in a way Zenigata had never allowed himself to be, wrapped up in rules and laws and respectability politics. He thought of Max and John with their pins, Wei Ying and his brilliant clothing, Lan Zhan's charms, tank tops in stripes of all colors. He hoped all of them lived the lives they wanted to have, with the people he loved. He wouldn't deny Lupin the same wish.

Then he though of Oscar. He thought of Oscar's pain and confusion, he thought of the cruelty he'd dealt the boy. He thought of the image he had given him, crafting himself into a rigid man for which there was no compassion or kindness. To be a man was to be unyielding, to stand up against the world. To do what needed to be done, no matter what. It left no room for soft young men who needed to be treated with a kinder hand, who had needs left unaddressed.

No wonder Albert thought this would be a wedge between them. Why not? He'd been a terrible father to his gay son who did not know if he wanted to be a man or a woman, or what Zenigata would love more. Of course he'd find Lupin's past monstrous. Of course Zenigata would hurt him for not fitting some ideal of proper masculinity.

Zenigata knew he wasn't perfect, but he had grown so much over the years. The way Klaus looked at him when he realized he was educating himself to be a better father for his little lesbian daughter... Zenigata knew he'd come a long way.

Maybe not long enough, though, if Albert still thought Zenigata would hurt Lupin for this.

Once his cell phone got service again, he sent Yata a text, said he'd be researching these clues he's got further, and then shut off his cellphone and took himself to a local vineyard in an all new tiny town, bought excellent wine, and proceeded to spend and evening completely soused. Then the next evening. And the third.

On the fourth day, Zenigata realized that he didn't matter to Albert at all. It wasn't them that he wanted to wedge apart -- he didn't care at all about that, did he? He just wanted to hurt Lupin in a way that few could hurt him. To peel a layer of mystery and glamour from the famed thief. To bare this, to disrupt the person he'd built going forward, wasn't about rift or break up. It was simply about hurting someone in a place he was vulnerable.

Zenigata drank his last bottle of wine, and promised himself he'd stay on the rest of the trip out.

On the fifth day, he made a decision. In the evening, he took himself for a walk, found a remote place, and burned every clue that Albert had left to taunt him. Then he headed back to his little guesthouse, ready to rest.