"Anodynic", Original - Reed Lake, general series, #34 - Conmen Title: Anodynic Author: kanjoku Fandom: Original – Reed Lake Pairing: implied Lorraine/Nathanial Warnings: implied violence and illegal behavior (obviously); unhealthy relationships… Words: 670 Theme: #34, Conmen Notes: Nathanial is canonically… a little imbalanced. (read: institutionalized after a psychotic break when he’s twenty.) And Lorraine’s always been a little too willing to listen to him…
It had been back in middle school when they’d worked the plan out – Lorraine’s thing for words and locks and Nathanial’s for arguing just lent themselves to it. Of course, they’d been stuck with the usual gig until Nathanial got some height and Lora got some assets, though she never did quite look her age.
They spent the three years between times practicing and talking in front of their bedroom mirrors, smothering their giggles so their families wouldn’t hear them. At least, it started out that way, with Nathanial talking earnestly to Lora’s reflection about how really, it would be alright. She just needed here to sign here, please, and all her problems would go away.
It was almost hilarious at first, with Nathanial in his shorts and stained, animal-emblazoned T-shirts trying to act like a movie villain. Just another of the Dynamic Duo’s hair-brained schemes that the adults were never to know about. But as they grew, Nathanial grew into the promise of his striking looks, and the talks became more earnest. The reflections in the mirror lodged protests, and he twisted things around them so it seemed right, until Lora thought he had the talent with words and not her.
But it was her words that made things happen, that showed the way things were supposed to be. Nathanial would have been a fabulous lawyer, if he hadn’t been going down the opposite path, but he could never fit in that twist of truth that made people trust what he said.
Except for Lora, of course, but that was a given.
The first time they did it was the summer after sophomore year. They drove to the next town – illegally, of course, but what was that compared to this? – met a little old lady weeding her garden, and talked just like they had to the mirror – so like, that Lora expected Nathanial’s fever-bright green eyes to be staring back at her from the woman’s face. She couldn’t stop turning her head just slightly to the side, where they would have been looking if it were the mirror. They’d never gotten that part of the simulation quite perfect.
They never did get her name – or rather, they did, but only on the paperwork she signed for them with startlingly little cajoling. Then, of course, they’d come back that night and stole all the ‘newly-insured’ jewelry right out of the drawers. And it was that sight by moonlight that she always remembered – the glint of silver and gold in gloved hands, sparkling like nothing but the precious metals they were.
It was about that time that they realized they couldn’t go home, and set out in Nathanial’s junker of a car with the clothes on their backs and a bag full of valuables they didn’t know how to sell.
It got easier after that, or at least Nathanial promised it did, and the fantasy spell of his words seemed to make it true. They sailed across the country for five years, skipping enough of high school and college to make sure that they could have no other life, no other fantasy after that.
There was surprisingly little guilt, for the person that she’d always thought she was. She learned that she could put chloroform over a grandfather’s face, handle the black metal of a gun as easily as breathing. Morals were just a society’s way of keeping people down, she told herself, when she told herself anything at all.
No other fantasy but Nathanial’s earnest words, painting promises across her cheek. Of falling asleep by midday in a rusty car, slipping into pantyhose and heels and pretending to be a thousand years more capable than she really was, but… it was okay. It really was. And if her smile had gone brittle and knife-sharp, at least it was soft in front of their targets.
It was okay. He said it was okay. She didn’t need any more stories than that one assurance. They were all each other had, after all.