Five-Finger Discounts: Parisian Edition

[sixthanimorph]

Who: David, Cassie, Perry Dawsey, Will Parry, and YOU
What: David says screw the rules, I can morph! and goes on a thieving spree. Punctuated by disapproving wardens and oblivious Animorphs!
When: Tonight and backdated to today.
Where: Paris, France; 2020
Warnings: Pfft.

Comments

2 P.M. - Cassie

[sixthanimorph]

Okay, maybe trying to pickpocket an undercover cop wasn't the best idea. Doing it with Will? An even worse idea. He'd had to run off on his warden, and surely there'd be hell to pay later for that, but right now David's just glad he gave his pursuers the slip. He had to board a little cruise boat on the Seine full of tourists. While they're all snapping photos and gawking at the Parisian scenery, David's sitting in the back, splayed over the seats with his head tiled back on the headrest and his eyes closed.

2 P.M. - Cassie

[lovefornature]

Cassie had enjoyed herself in Paris so far; even if it's been only a little over a week on the Barge, it's been a nice change from all the weird happenings there. So when the concierge at her hotel had suggested an afternoon cruise on the Seine, Cassie had booked a ticket. At present, she leaned against the ship's rails, pressed elbow to elbow with other tourists, and listened to the captain point out--first in French, then English, then in another language--the nearest landmark. After he'd finished, and as everyone around her snapped pictures of it, Cassie detached herself from the crowd and headed towards the seats in the back to set down her bag and sit.

And that's when she caught sight of David. At first she thought she'd been mistaken, that it'd just been someone that looked a lot like him. But when she had moved close enough to the back seats, her blood went cold and she swallowed hard. David. It had to be. Cassie hadn't ever known what exactly had come of him--whether, when the Crayak had pitted him against Rachel, he'

2 P.M. - Cassie

[sixthanimorph]

David never even noticed her approach. Worn out after running from that cop, he was in a rare moment of relaxation. After all, he'd given the crowd a once-over - a thorough one, he thought - and had seen no familiar face. Of course, he was more on the lookout for Bourne or Dallas than he was any of the Animorphs. They were far from his mind, and had been for a long time. Eight months on the Barge had given him more immediate concerns, and with all he'd seen, he'd grown to sincerely doubt, deep down, that he'd ever get back home at all. Certainly he never thought he'd see any of the Animorphs again.

Out of them all, it had been Cassie he'd spent the most time with - not out of choice, mind, but simply because they'd made him sleep in her barn. So when she called his name, he recognized her voice instantly. His eyes jolted open and he sat up at once, all pretence of relaxation gone. Any hope that he might be mistaken drained away when he saw the slightly taller, slightly better-dressed young woman standing off to his side. She was a

2 P.M. - Cassie -- sorry for delay! Past couple days have been busy

[lovefornature]

She watched his body language, saw the troubled, tense recognition in his face, the suspicion--and it all was an understandable reaction, she knew; his history with the Animorphs hadn't been a happy one, and it'd ended horribly. Cassie, herself, still felt regret over what had happened, over being the one to ultimately come up with the plan to trap him. But she'd always known, always convinced herself, that it'd been the better choice. Better than death. It had to be.

Still, there was a brief flash of guilt that crossed her face. Cassie shouldered the bag again, tried to smile at him. "I'm here on vacation. Kind of."

Then she looked, for a moment, like she wanted to ask him something important. Instead, she asked lightly: "What about you? What are you doing here? In Paris?"

2 P.M. - Cassie -- no worries! They've been busy for me too

[sixthanimorph]

"I'm here on vacation. Kind of," he deadpans, never taking his eyes off her. David doesn't believe her for a second. Animorphs don't take vacations?

So what is Cassie really doing here? Well, he knew this was the future - and leave it to the Admiral to send him to the Paris of his future. The thought that the Animorphs might have won the war by now doesn't even cross his mind - because how insane is that? Four kids, a bird and an alien defeating an army of brain-stealing alien slugs? It's insane. It was always insane. That they all expected him to go along with their wannabe-superhero act just cemented their insanity in David's mind.

He glances to either side of him again, almost unconsciously, expecting a tiger or bear rising from the Seine. He looks no closer to relaxing when he sees there is none.

"What are you really doing here?" he asks pointedly, folding his arms. "And where are the others?"

2 P.M. - Cassie

[lovefornature]

His response elicits another fake smile from her. Cassie has a pretty good idea why he's here--there'd been a couple people on the Barge that had dropped David's name almost immediately after they'd met her--but she hasn't actually seen him until this moment, and so she hadn't quite believed it until now.

"I'm not lying." She says this with a practiced calmness to her tone, and moves to sit in a nearby seat that faces in his direction. She doesn't miss the nervous way his eyes dart around, like he expects some horrible monster to pop out and attack him. And with another twist of guilt, she realizes it's probably Jake and the others he's looking for. "I am here on vacation, though I didn't exactly choose to come here. I came from the Barge." She'd watch his face for any recognition of the word, to try to confirm whether he actually was on the Barge as well

2 P.M. - Cassie

[sixthanimorph]

He tries to suppress his reaction when Cassie mentions the Barge, but David never was very good at hiding his tells. To someone like Cassie, he might as well be broadcasting his thoughts on his face in bright neon lights. Cassie's on the Barge? How? Why hadn't he been told

2 P.M. - Cassie

[lovefornature]

There's a solid confirmation in his question; he's on the Barge too. "Yes, I'm a Warden. I came to help others." She can almost sense the distate about it from him, and it probably isn't too huge of a leap to guess at what side of the Inmate-Warden line that David falls.

Cassie links her hands together and doesn't budge in her seat, not even under his harsh stare. She does seem attentive to his movements, however. Wary. He'd proved himself dangerous enough in the past and even if she felt bad for him on some levels, even if she could sympathize and be cordial to him, that didn't mean she trusted him an inch. Not after any of what he'd pulled on them

2 P.M. - Cassie

[sixthanimorph]

"Like you 'helped' me?" David sneers, crossing his arms. No, it's not too much of a surprise to learn they made Cassie a warden. If pricks like Jason Bourne or the Riddler could be wardens, why not her? Honestly, he'd been surprised to learn they'd had enough sense to make crazy Rachel an inmate

2 P.M. - Cassie

[lovefornature]

She understands the bitterness that he feels; he'd had his family and home torn away from him without warning, he'd had his life turned upside down and inside out overnight. And he hadn't coped well with it. She knew that, and she knew--even moreso now, after she'd had Rachel taken from her, after she'd waited more than six months for her friends, for Jake, to return from their insane mission to rescue Ax--what it felt like to lose loved ones like that

2 P.M. - Cassie

[sixthanimorph]

She could never understand as far as he's concerned; how could she? Her and the others, they embraced the war. They wanted to fight - or at least that's the way he always saw it. They hadn't had to make the sacrifices he had... except for Tobias, but hell, Tobias wasn't even human. And from what little he'd picked up about the subject, Tobias's life was pretty much shit on a shingle before the war anyway. He was happy things had went that way too. They all were. But not him.

No, they hadn't been normal kids. He'd been a normal kid. They were... self-righteous wannabe superheroes, that's what they were

2 P.M. - Cassie (1/2 because apparently I wrote way too much for LJ lol)

[lovefornature]

When David rejects her apology, Cassie merely nods slowly in acceptance. "You may not want it, but the apology will still stand. I'm sorry for everything that happened, David. I truly am."

Then she slides up to her own feet, and looks him directly in the eye. "But you need to wake up." Her words are sharper, now, as if to say pay attention, yet her voice is empty of any actual anger. "You still don't understand how incredibly dangerous it was back then, how incredibly desperate the situation on Earth was, how screwed over, at that point, we all were. And how much of a struggle, day by day, it was to get up, to know that and to still go and fight. To know that at any moment, the Yeerks could find out our identity and kill us or infest us, or do the same to our families. To still try, even after hours and hours of exhausting missions and morphing, to keep going even through the absolute terror and horror and panic, to know that even through all this we could only ever barely make a dent in the Yeerks' invasion, could only try

Re: 2 P.M. - Cassie (2/2)

[lovefornature]

There's a trained calmness to her overall expression as she speaks, but there's also an abundance of emotion visible in her eyes. "We were all lost, we were all scared, David. So no, we couldn't leave you to the Yeerks, we couldn't leave you to a horrible fate like that. That wouldn't have been the right thing to do. Instead, we chose to give you the power to fight back, to take control, to take responsibility. We picked you up because we had faith in you." Cassie takes in a light breath. "I had faith in you, David. And maybe I couldn't give you your parents back or your old house or your normal life back. But I gave you somewhere safe to be, somewhere to go. It wasn't enough, I understand that, it could never be enough. But it was what I could give

2 P.M. - Cassie (1/2)

[sixthanimorph]

Several times as Cassie speaks David opens his mouth with an objection or rebuttal, but Cassie just keeps going. And the more she says, the more he wants her to just shut up. She's saying all the things he doesn't want to hear. Things he doesn't even want to think about, things that run completely counter to the image of the Animorphs he's constructed for himself. Things that make his conviction in what he did, his certainty that he'd had no other choice, waver. And he doesn't like that.

"You all had the power to walk away," he says slowly at last, every syllable vibrating with anger. "You had the choice. As much and Jake and you and the others liked to talk about how you didn't, you did. You could have said at any time you'd just leave the war to people who are supposed to fight and went back to being normal kids. But you didn't do that, because you didn't want to. Jake and Rachel, they got off on the power. You... I didn't think you did. But I didn't think you could do a lot of things that you did

2 P.M. - Cassie (2/2)

[sixthanimorph]

Unaware he's even doing it, David brings his hands to his head, to try to still the throbbing pounding there. It's the suffocating feeling of his fight-or-flight instincts kicking in. If he doesn't get away soon, he's certain he'll lose control and try to attack the one Animorph who had ever showed him any kindness.

So he begins to morph. Right there, right in full view of the Seine and all the passengers around. No one notices for a few seconds, but when the beak emerges people start screaming. David doesn't care. He keeps morphing, his clothes falling around him as he races to morph the golden eagle. He has to get away from Cassie right now, that's all he knows. The moment his wings emerge and he's capable of flight he takes off unsteadily, a misshapen bird that everyone around Cassie's gawking at.

He doesn't look back.