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When You Bury the Past, Bury it Deep
Jun. 10th, 2021 10:15 amNeither 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.
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.
