Re: The Cat: Matt & Cat
She had a way of filling a smile with warmth behind a wall, the kind that promised everything without promising anything. But he was beginning to think he could tell when it was real and when it wasn't, and it felt real then, a shared and honest secret, her smile. At moments like that the difference between the shark-eyed asset and the man standing next to her were the most stark. There was a heat in blue eyes that would never have been possible before, banked long and only just now starting to gather force.
He wasn't exactly a difficult read, either. Whatever he was thinking about doing with her at the bar, it wasn't dragging her over it. "I'll sell you my beauty routine," he said. "Just don't take it to the magazines."
He hadn't forgotten his triggers, or how close he was at any given moment to hurtling backward into starkly patterned grooves of thought. He couldn't forget. It was why he was here. The wrong word, the wrong sign, and every person in this room could be dead in under two minutes. He wasn't in denial - why else live so far from the center of town. The privacy was useful, but that wasn't all of it.
He had to trick himself, though. It was important. Not that his mind wasn't a booby-trapped mess. But that he could be aware of threats without devolving. That he could start to find a place - and not just in a town like this. Any place. Anywhere.
Matt barely looked twice at the boy with the fake ID. Of course it was fake - it didn't occur to him why anyone should care. He still had a sense of wrongness when looking at IDs. It was mysterious to him why anyone should carry a card with their photo and their name just to go about their day, why anyone should have to prove they were old enough to buy a beer if they looked close enough. Another time, another place.
"You're buying," he said, in the same tone as Your call.