Fanfic - Cabal - Part 7
Title: Human Nature to Miscalculate
Rating: PG-13 for fade-to-black sexual content in the first part.
Characters/Pairings: Cabal/Leonie in the beginning (increasingly less as the story progresses)
Summary: Cabal was not a man who fancied mistakes, in himself or others. However, it must be acknowledged that in some mistakes required a lapse in judgment on two sides, rather than one, where the placement of blame is a waste of good time and justifications.
Notes: Takes place after Johannes Cabal the Detective. This chapter is one of my favorites that I've written, because I think it's one of the chapters that brings to light another reason why it's dangerous for Leonie to be in a relationship with Cabal, even a platonic one, and what it could mean for Abigail.
Part VII - Stop the Presses
Leonie Barrow liked to spend one Sunday a month catching up with her friends from secondary school. Most of their group had moved out of Penslow, but four of them had stayed and two had had children recently. They let them crawl around in the pen and Leonie had an opportunity to have lunch with her friends. Sometimes, her father would come from across town to spend time with Abigail. Frank Barrow was good with infants, and despite his original disappointment at Leonie’s circumstances, had settled into the role of doting grandfather quite nicely.
Leonie poured Sandra’s tea while Angela passed the sugar.
“So, tell us, what’s life like with your little terror?”
“Abigail’s wonderful, the perfect child,” Leonie said with a smile. “She hardly cries at all.”
“Sean doesn’t stop,” Sandra replied, rolling her eyes. “I love the boy but he drives me up the wall some nights. I swear there isn’t a peep from him all day but once we’ve all gone to sleep he cries like the French are invading.” She gave Leonie a scandalous look, “Sure wish I had a Mirkarvian university boy to take the edge off every once in a while…”
Leonie sputtered into her tea, a blush creeping onto her cheeks; to her friends, it came across as shy, bashful, a little embarrassed but accepting --- it hid her genuine fear, the name the flashed across her mind and one very big, unexpected night in a five star Senzan hotel. She resisted the urge to meet the look she knew her father had given them at those words. Leonie didn’t know if it was his discomfort at the idea that she’d had intercourse with a complete stranger or worse, if he knew that Abigail’s father wasn’t a stranger at all. It was the only real secret Leonie had ever kept from her father, and the guilt that came hand-in-hand with the idea that he could know, simultaneously trying to keep it under wraps and dreading the day the truth was revealed. Leonie knew she’d made a mistake, even though she wasn’t ashamed of Abigail.
It was who she’d climbed into bed with that she felt deep down, would make her father feel like she’d stabbed him in the heart. Frank Barrow wouldn’t have gotten angry, that she could have dealt with…he would have felt hurt and betrayed quietly. That wasn’t something she could bring herself to do.
“So, did you hear the big to-do from Murslaugh?”
Leonie shook her head. “Can’t say I have.”
Sandra leaned back in her chair, placing her cup onto the plate with a soft clink. “It seems as though they uncovered a necromancer in their midst.”
There was a ceasing of noise from behind her. Her father’s keys were no longer jingling over the infant attendees. She could feel his gaze boring into them from behind, a look that had sent the criminally insane spiraling into confessions after hours of silence and denial. Leonie feigned curiosity as something nervous twanged in her stomach and blood roared in her ears. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Angela shrugged. “It’s all the rage in the taverns and the cafes. Apparently, he was found hanging from a bridge with some obscenities written on his forehead, riddled with bullets.” There was a knowing pause. “His death was ruled a suicide, if you catch my drift.”
It was so very, impossibly hard for Leonie not to look at Abigail. She wanted to run over and hug her daughter even though she was too young to understand. “That’s barbaric.”
“People are people. They get scared and things like this happen,” Angela added.
“Most necromancers are just egomaniacs desperate to be noticed, much in the same way that the church and-or public officials that justified that kind of brutality enjoy controlling people.” Leonie tried not to hesitate too much before she spoke next. It was dangerous to ask, but she had to know to put her mind at ease. It couldn’t possibly have been him. Still, she needed to know the man was fat or brown haired or short or polite or some other antithesis to Cabal. “Do they have a name for the poor fellow?”
“I dunno. Something German.”
An oily feeling of dread crawled down her throat and settled in the bottom of her stomach. She fought a wave of nausea.
“Leonie, is there something wrong?”
She shook her head and put on her best smile. It wasn’t him, it couldn’t be him. “Nothing at all, I just realized we were out of tea.”
Sandra laughed. “I’m up for one more round if you are?”
Leonie blanched. She’d been hoping they’d say no. As she rose to her feet too quickly, she chirped, “back in a jiffy!’
The second she was in the kitchen, out of sight of her father, she clasped a hand to her mouth, pressing her back against the fridge.
It couldn’t be him.
Leonie took three deep breaths and clasped the pot in shaking hands, filling it up in the sink. It helped steady her nerves, and the scent of the plum oolong she scooped in the strainer while waiting for the water to boil calmed her.
There was no love lost between her and Cabal. She’d learned not to expect anything from him. His tendency to surprise her since Abigail’s arrival had perhaps eased her pessimism marginally.
She always reminded herself what he was. When there had been sheets twisted between them, she could smell the faintest traces of formaldehyde that clung to him. It had reminded her who he was, let her enjoy the moment for what it was before she understood the entirety of what became of it.
At the end of the day, she’d known he was a cold man. A brilliant man, a miraculous man, and someone mortally broken raging against the world. At the end of the day, he was a cruel, malevolent force bringing wreck and ruin to countless lives. Chances said that his own life would be among the last he threw away after a life spreading chaos. She respected his genius, he fascinated her…but she could see how his story was going to end from the beginning, and she’d wanted no real investment in it other than to see how far he would go. There was a part of her that thought she’d seen change in him, and she’d ignored it because she didn’t want to fall into that schoolgirl trap.
Or so she thought.
Abigail meant something to him. His work was his life and it wasn’t easy, but he tried to be there for Abigail. More importantly? He didn’t resent the task. There had been plenty of complaining and bargaining, but he fell into it like it was just another thing that he needed to do.
She thought of the locked box in her bedroom upstairs and realized how much his visits with his daughter had surprised her.
He was all dedication. Everything he did, he did completely, and seeing some of that directed towards them was the most she could ever hope for.
Suddenly, she thought of the necromancer lynched in Murslaugh, and she felt angry.
Because it wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him, but she hated the bastard for making her worry about Johannes Cabal.
~~~
When three days passed without hearing from him, Leonie tried to keep her unease in check. He could be doing anything, she reminded herself. So she went about taking care of her daughter, hugging her extra hard to remind her that she was there for her even though she couldn’t possibly understand what might have happened.
Granted, that Monday at work she learned that the deceased necromancer’s first name had been Hans and she’d felt better…until she realized that Cabal might have been using a pseudonym. Regrettably, she realized that she wouldn’t feel at ease until she knew he was all right. He’d gone longer periods without communicating with her before, but this one held an extra tension in the coil. Leonie took delight in her daughter’s antics while the needling thought that she’d grow up without a father (who otherwise would have been present) pursued her.
Then Leonie had dreams and brief, terrifying thoughts about how the necromancer had died, Cabal’s face superimposed on the swinging cadaver.
Not too long ago, she wouldn’t have been surprised to hear a similar fate had befallen him…the sudden appearance of a personal stake was making her angry. This time, she was angry at Cabal for putting her in a situation where she cared. For those three days, that was the worst crime he’d ever committed.
She was making tea on Thursday after she’d gotten back from work and the babysitter left, when her cat, Freud, went streaking out of the kitchen like a grey tornado.
“I see your making one of those fruity concoctions you call tea,” a snide, faintly Teutonic voice drifted in from the open kitchen door.
Leonie looked up, and Cabal was standing in her door like the personification of Death, dressed in all black with a cane decorated with a silver death’s head…she could not have been more glad to see him.
He saw the look on her face and it seemed to make him nervous. “Ms. Barrow, is something wrong? Is Abigail okay?”
“Nothing, everything’s fine.”
He didn’t look like he believed it, but the subject was dropped as soon as he stepped through the door. There was the quick, habitual survey of his surroundings to check for any arcane nemesis he might have or a sting operation lurking in Leonie’s home. Quickly, the glasses were flicked off and tucked into his pocket.
His nose twitched unpleasantly. “If everything’s all right, then don’t worry me like that,” he said as he walked into the living room.
Rating: PG-13 for fade-to-black sexual content in the first part.
Characters/Pairings: Cabal/Leonie in the beginning (increasingly less as the story progresses)
Summary: Cabal was not a man who fancied mistakes, in himself or others. However, it must be acknowledged that in some mistakes required a lapse in judgment on two sides, rather than one, where the placement of blame is a waste of good time and justifications.
Notes: Takes place after Johannes Cabal the Detective. This chapter is one of my favorites that I've written, because I think it's one of the chapters that brings to light another reason why it's dangerous for Leonie to be in a relationship with Cabal, even a platonic one, and what it could mean for Abigail.
Part VII - Stop the Presses
Leonie Barrow liked to spend one Sunday a month catching up with her friends from secondary school. Most of their group had moved out of Penslow, but four of them had stayed and two had had children recently. They let them crawl around in the pen and Leonie had an opportunity to have lunch with her friends. Sometimes, her father would come from across town to spend time with Abigail. Frank Barrow was good with infants, and despite his original disappointment at Leonie’s circumstances, had settled into the role of doting grandfather quite nicely.
Leonie poured Sandra’s tea while Angela passed the sugar.
“So, tell us, what’s life like with your little terror?”
“Abigail’s wonderful, the perfect child,” Leonie said with a smile. “She hardly cries at all.”
“Sean doesn’t stop,” Sandra replied, rolling her eyes. “I love the boy but he drives me up the wall some nights. I swear there isn’t a peep from him all day but once we’ve all gone to sleep he cries like the French are invading.” She gave Leonie a scandalous look, “Sure wish I had a Mirkarvian university boy to take the edge off every once in a while…”
Leonie sputtered into her tea, a blush creeping onto her cheeks; to her friends, it came across as shy, bashful, a little embarrassed but accepting --- it hid her genuine fear, the name the flashed across her mind and one very big, unexpected night in a five star Senzan hotel. She resisted the urge to meet the look she knew her father had given them at those words. Leonie didn’t know if it was his discomfort at the idea that she’d had intercourse with a complete stranger or worse, if he knew that Abigail’s father wasn’t a stranger at all. It was the only real secret Leonie had ever kept from her father, and the guilt that came hand-in-hand with the idea that he could know, simultaneously trying to keep it under wraps and dreading the day the truth was revealed. Leonie knew she’d made a mistake, even though she wasn’t ashamed of Abigail.
It was who she’d climbed into bed with that she felt deep down, would make her father feel like she’d stabbed him in the heart. Frank Barrow wouldn’t have gotten angry, that she could have dealt with…he would have felt hurt and betrayed quietly. That wasn’t something she could bring herself to do.
“So, did you hear the big to-do from Murslaugh?”
Leonie shook her head. “Can’t say I have.”
Sandra leaned back in her chair, placing her cup onto the plate with a soft clink. “It seems as though they uncovered a necromancer in their midst.”
There was a ceasing of noise from behind her. Her father’s keys were no longer jingling over the infant attendees. She could feel his gaze boring into them from behind, a look that had sent the criminally insane spiraling into confessions after hours of silence and denial. Leonie feigned curiosity as something nervous twanged in her stomach and blood roared in her ears. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Angela shrugged. “It’s all the rage in the taverns and the cafes. Apparently, he was found hanging from a bridge with some obscenities written on his forehead, riddled with bullets.” There was a knowing pause. “His death was ruled a suicide, if you catch my drift.”
It was so very, impossibly hard for Leonie not to look at Abigail. She wanted to run over and hug her daughter even though she was too young to understand. “That’s barbaric.”
“People are people. They get scared and things like this happen,” Angela added.
“Most necromancers are just egomaniacs desperate to be noticed, much in the same way that the church and-or public officials that justified that kind of brutality enjoy controlling people.” Leonie tried not to hesitate too much before she spoke next. It was dangerous to ask, but she had to know to put her mind at ease. It couldn’t possibly have been him. Still, she needed to know the man was fat or brown haired or short or polite or some other antithesis to Cabal. “Do they have a name for the poor fellow?”
“I dunno. Something German.”
An oily feeling of dread crawled down her throat and settled in the bottom of her stomach. She fought a wave of nausea.
“Leonie, is there something wrong?”
She shook her head and put on her best smile. It wasn’t him, it couldn’t be him. “Nothing at all, I just realized we were out of tea.”
Sandra laughed. “I’m up for one more round if you are?”
Leonie blanched. She’d been hoping they’d say no. As she rose to her feet too quickly, she chirped, “back in a jiffy!’
The second she was in the kitchen, out of sight of her father, she clasped a hand to her mouth, pressing her back against the fridge.
It couldn’t be him.
Leonie took three deep breaths and clasped the pot in shaking hands, filling it up in the sink. It helped steady her nerves, and the scent of the plum oolong she scooped in the strainer while waiting for the water to boil calmed her.
There was no love lost between her and Cabal. She’d learned not to expect anything from him. His tendency to surprise her since Abigail’s arrival had perhaps eased her pessimism marginally.
She always reminded herself what he was. When there had been sheets twisted between them, she could smell the faintest traces of formaldehyde that clung to him. It had reminded her who he was, let her enjoy the moment for what it was before she understood the entirety of what became of it.
At the end of the day, she’d known he was a cold man. A brilliant man, a miraculous man, and someone mortally broken raging against the world. At the end of the day, he was a cruel, malevolent force bringing wreck and ruin to countless lives. Chances said that his own life would be among the last he threw away after a life spreading chaos. She respected his genius, he fascinated her…but she could see how his story was going to end from the beginning, and she’d wanted no real investment in it other than to see how far he would go. There was a part of her that thought she’d seen change in him, and she’d ignored it because she didn’t want to fall into that schoolgirl trap.
Or so she thought.
Abigail meant something to him. His work was his life and it wasn’t easy, but he tried to be there for Abigail. More importantly? He didn’t resent the task. There had been plenty of complaining and bargaining, but he fell into it like it was just another thing that he needed to do.
She thought of the locked box in her bedroom upstairs and realized how much his visits with his daughter had surprised her.
He was all dedication. Everything he did, he did completely, and seeing some of that directed towards them was the most she could ever hope for.
Suddenly, she thought of the necromancer lynched in Murslaugh, and she felt angry.
Because it wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him, but she hated the bastard for making her worry about Johannes Cabal.
~~~
When three days passed without hearing from him, Leonie tried to keep her unease in check. He could be doing anything, she reminded herself. So she went about taking care of her daughter, hugging her extra hard to remind her that she was there for her even though she couldn’t possibly understand what might have happened.
Granted, that Monday at work she learned that the deceased necromancer’s first name had been Hans and she’d felt better…until she realized that Cabal might have been using a pseudonym. Regrettably, she realized that she wouldn’t feel at ease until she knew he was all right. He’d gone longer periods without communicating with her before, but this one held an extra tension in the coil. Leonie took delight in her daughter’s antics while the needling thought that she’d grow up without a father (who otherwise would have been present) pursued her.
Then Leonie had dreams and brief, terrifying thoughts about how the necromancer had died, Cabal’s face superimposed on the swinging cadaver.
Not too long ago, she wouldn’t have been surprised to hear a similar fate had befallen him…the sudden appearance of a personal stake was making her angry. This time, she was angry at Cabal for putting her in a situation where she cared. For those three days, that was the worst crime he’d ever committed.
She was making tea on Thursday after she’d gotten back from work and the babysitter left, when her cat, Freud, went streaking out of the kitchen like a grey tornado.
“I see your making one of those fruity concoctions you call tea,” a snide, faintly Teutonic voice drifted in from the open kitchen door.
Leonie looked up, and Cabal was standing in her door like the personification of Death, dressed in all black with a cane decorated with a silver death’s head…she could not have been more glad to see him.
He saw the look on her face and it seemed to make him nervous. “Ms. Barrow, is something wrong? Is Abigail okay?”
“Nothing, everything’s fine.”
He didn’t look like he believed it, but the subject was dropped as soon as he stepped through the door. There was the quick, habitual survey of his surroundings to check for any arcane nemesis he might have or a sting operation lurking in Leonie’s home. Quickly, the glasses were flicked off and tucked into his pocket.
His nose twitched unpleasantly. “If everything’s all right, then don’t worry me like that,” he said as he walked into the living room.