for a pretty long time now it's been cold [cal/teva]

Teva Seraphim

”You know, there’s a nightclub over by that giant liquor store.”

Bouncer was actually onto something.

”They make a lot of money. I know a chick that used to work there.”

Teva was carving miniature stars into wooden crates with his pocket knife. That was what Bouncer’s drawl did to the mind – it induced boredom, even when the information coming out of him was actually relevant. ”If you dare try to tell me that you fucked her I will curb stomp you until your teeth fall out,” he said nonchalantly. He glanced up in time to see Bouncer physically paling despite how much of a lie it was. Although, it wasn’t a complete lie. Trigger was not one for empty threats, but he definitely wouldn’t waste one of their guys like that.

”What if I did though?”

”You didn’t.” He jabbed his blade into the wood. Silver moonlight dripped into the room, illuminating the spray-painted graffiti on the walls around them. They really had no business lingering here; it was private property, and all that was left to discuss was what areas they would cover tonight. The predators choosing their territories. Teva uncrossed his legs and hopped up from the empty crate, slipping his knife back into its holder at the base of his hip. He wanted to stop Bouncer before he started, because he was thick and always wanted to run off on irrelevant tangents. It always had something to do with a girl he fucked or “that one time I got so wasted.” Teva didn’t give two shits. He was here for profit, not stories.

Bouncer seemed to consider his position. His eyes gave Teva the once over – he hated it when people did that, like they were sizing him up. As if that would matter in the end.

”So um, anyway, there’s an alley behind there where the dancers and the other workers come out. You could jump em’ there.”

Bartenders and strippers. Sounded like big money.

”Alright, I’ll take that. You go take whatever you were going to take.”

”The street with the bakery.“

He slipped through the giant rusty doors and took to the shadows. He could slink from ally to ally like a professional – like a fucking panther – and navigate his way through every winding path and corner until he reached his destination. A map of every street was engraved behind his eyes. He had never been to this nightclub, but if it was near the giant liquor store then he would find his way. Every few blocks or so he would pause and listen for footsteps. Pedestrians along the way always made easy targets. He also needed to check for white coats, in case they were patrolling the area. Complete fucking buzz kills, they were, but undoubtedly dangerous. He always checked twice.

As it turned out, he didn’t need the liquor store as a landmark. He could hear the gentle thump of bass against thick walls, and the echoes of a crowd. People were weaving in and out of the building, he didn’t need to see them to know. A quick inspection granted him access to the back exit doors and only a limited number of hiding places. He made due with a row of metal trash cans, and crouched behind them with his knife dangling in his right palm. The exit was to his left; the ideal target would open the door, turn their back to Teva, and unwittingly become his prey. He wondered just how compliant these workers would be.

The worst part was waiting. It was boring, and the most he could do was imagine the different scenarios in his head; how he would sneak up behind the unsuspecting person, which maneuvers he could use to frighten them most. If he led his thoughts astray, they could become too distracting. All he could focus on was the inevitable. His goddamn job. The priority.

He didn’t wait long. The door flung itself open and a figure in dark clothes strode away from his crouched position. Perfect. Two heartbeats later he was approaching the victim at jungle cat speed, and wrapping his arm around their torso to press the knife against their bare throat. He paused, then, with his left hand at the ready in case of resistance. He always tested the grounds to see what they would do. Some reacted violently, others simply cried out in fear.

This one spoke.

”What are you doing?”

A familiar voice. Bad sign, but it could simply be his imagining running rampant in the heat of the moment. ”The fuck does it look like I’m doing?” he hissed, pressing the knife even closer to his skin. The target was definitely male. ”Drop all of your money on the ground, or you’re gonna swallow this fucking knife.”

Teva Seraphim

Silence was unsettling. After such a forward threat it meant that his target was thinking, and thinkers were always the troubling ones. They always tried to outsmart him with bribes, or attempted to make a twist in his grip so they could punch him and attempt an escape. It never worked, of course – Teva wasn’t stupid enough to believe in bribes, and he would counter any blows with a devastating one of his own. Pinning people into walls and tossing them to the floor was usually the icing on the cake. When people felt completely helpless – body and all – they usually caved. They experienced true fear, especially when they could see his cold, fixed gaze, and how he didn’t mean any fucking nonsense and neither did the knife in his hand.

Something was off about this one, however. There were no visible signs of fear in his body. His muscles weren’t tense, his breathing wasn’t all that loud or quick, and he wasn’t rigid. He seemed relaxed, even. Not even prepared to fight back. ”Oi,” he said, and there was that familiar voice again, like a tingle in his ear. ”Oi, get that knife away from my throat you fucking dickhead, it's me.” He hesitated. The it’s me implied that it was, in fact, Calcifer’s voice that he was hearing. But what if it was a trick? He wasn’t about to be outsmarted by some snotty little shit. But if it is Cal…

If it was Cal, then he was completely fucked.

Suddenly, all of the target’s weight was pressed against Teva’s torso. He had gone limp as a rag doll, and Teva was forced to retract his knife and catch him with a low grunt to prevent him from collapse. He hadn’t taken the opportunity to attack Teva, so it had had to be Calcifer. Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit. There were too many things wrong with this.

”Cal?” He called warily and stepped back. Sure enough, when he peered to get a look at his face it was his childhood friend Calcifer, the one that hardly visited anymore. The one who could always captivate him without knowing or trying. The one he had annoying unrequited feelings for, and suddenly they were stirring up again at the wrong time. This was not the time to be ogling or acting like a stupid school girl with a crush. Cal had just caught him in his trade, red handed, and his explanation was a dangerous secret. Then, there was Cal’s presence itself that was a pressing concern. Did he actually work at a place like this? A club with strippers and bartenders. Which one was he?

He didn’t want to think about that. Not now.

”Shit, what the hell are you doing here?”

Teva Seraphim

Cal almost fell on his ass. Oops. Some friend he was. He hadn’t meant to let him collapse, but he had hoped Cal would just pick up his damn weight. Guilt tugged lightly at his heart strings. He tried to suppress it with productive thoughts, but Cal just looked so pitiful wiping dirt onto his work pants. He really needed to stop going soft on him.

He wondered if he could make that happen. Probably not.

A hand grabbed for his coat collar, and Teva didn’t know what to make of it until he noticed Cal’s searching eyes. He wanted to sigh; looking exactly like his brothers could be a pain in the ass sometimes. Trying to stand out to Cal was practically impossible. He tilted his head and allowed better access to the scar. The little pink ribbon was nestled just below his ear lobe, practically brushing the edge of his jawline. It was about as long as the edge of the knife used to carve it. Lucky shot, that was. Real dirty fight too. The asshole had grabbed a whole fistful of his hair and tried to yank him forward to slit his throat. Trigger, of course, didn’t submit to pain so easy. He lost quite a bit of hair struggling in that grip, but he managed to evade the worst of it and escaped the scrap with only a cut below his ear and a few bruised ribs. Not bad at all.

Now it was a marker just like the rest of his scars. Fellow gang runts often used it to distinguish him from Tripp and Tate, as if it really took a goddamn effort to recognize who he was. Teddy could do it easy. They each had their own unique expressions, ways of speaking, and apparently even their posture could vary. It was difficult not to feel insulted when his fellow runts didn’t recognize him. It felt even worse to have Cal shifting his jacket aside. Of course, this meant that Cal had held a suspicion it was him from the start, so he was flattered that his guess had been correct. But still. This whole “standing out to Cal” thing wasn’t fucking working.

Teva blinked at him, and he blinked back. Silence was pressed between them. If this wasn’t Cal, his patience would’ve run thin by now. He was obviously avoiding the question. He probably worked here, that was the only real possibility. Unless he was just a lost customer that happened to stumble out the wrong door. Unlikely – Cal wasn’t an idiot.

”I might ask you the same question.”

Shit. He had wanted to avoid that inevitable conversation. He still hadn’t even apologized for holding a knife to his throat. Shit, I fucked up bad this time.

”Since when do you rob people anyway?”

Since they gunned down his poor mama, but he wasn’t going to say that out loud. ”Probably for a lot longer than you've worked here,” he said, eyes scaling the building. It looked kind of dull from the back, but he was sure the front entrance told a different story. So did the music blasting from inside. ”What do you even do here? Serve drinks?” No way in hell was he going to let Cal avoid his original question. Bouncer had told him that it was a nightclub, their best targets being the dancers and bartenders inside. He couldn’t picture Cal as a dancer. Well, he could, but not outside of a fantasy.

Then again, Cal probably never pictured him as a robber either.

Teva Seraphim

Teva narrowed his eyes. Cal was carrying silence for long intervals, and usually silence was an indication of thinking far too much about the subject. In his experience, it usually meant that the person was hiding something from him – something they were hesitant to tell, something they needed to muster a lie about. Teva knew how to avoid that; he was a talented liar, mainly because the majority of his speech relied on impulse. He never answered too quickly, but he answered quickly enough to sound casual and genuine. ”You see any Peacekeepers out there, Trig?"

”Yeah, way too fucking many.”

Lie. The alley had been empty. He had simply wanted to claim the territory for himself because he was saving up some extra money for Teddy’s birthday.

”Have you seen my knife, Trig?”

”No. You probably fucking dropped it on the way here.”

Actually, he had stolen it. Asshole deserved it for trying to schedule Teva for something on his night off. Who the hell did he think he was?

”You sure look happy. You get laid last night or somethin’?”

"You know it.”

Teva was a fucking virgin through and through. He could trick his fellow runts into believing anything.

He tried not to regard Cal with any suspicion. The ”Something like that,” didn’t satisfy him. Was there really a chance that he could be one of the dancers? Why else would he keep this job a secret from them? Surely his brothers didn’t know about this either. It was very fucking fishy, and he faintly wondered if he should press him further, or just drop the subject altogether.

Cal made the decision for him, and countered with another question. It was like playing a game of ping pong, and Teva really sucked at that game. ”More or less,” he said with a shrug. He wasn’t proud to admit his talents at robbery in front of someone like Cal. He was so far out of their realm that he often forgot how fucked up his own job was. He threatened people for money, held weapons against their throats – innocent people, most of them. Cal probably thought awfully of him. ”You've been living off other people's hard work this whole time then?"

And there it was. Teva audibly sighed this time. ”It’s a lot more complicated than you think. I work harder than most of the people I rob.” He finally slipped his knife back into his holder and stuffed his hands into his coat pockets. His defense was more or less true, but honestly he didn’t put forth much effort into researching into his targets unless they were wealthy. Tonight he had been more careless. Nightclubs like these were not establishments he was familiar with. Tonight he had only meant to test the waters, to see how much he would gain and how much the workers would struggle or protest.

”I don’t really know much about the people here. I was just gonna rob one of your coworkers and see what happened.”

He let that settle for a moment, then mentally kicked himself. He sounded like an asshole. I am, but that’s not the point.

Teva Seraphim

Teva sighed through his nostrils and tilted his head back. The stars couldn’t be seen between the two walls towering above them. ”Goddamn it,” he grumbled, because all that time spent planning and hoping had been reduced to ashes. This perfectly nestled nightclub was now off-limits. Of course, he could always defy Cal and rob his coworkers anyway, but his soft spot for Cal was too soft, like putty that could be molded into anything he wanted. He would never go against his word like that. Lying was shitty enough as it was. Betrayal was a completely different sin. ”I wanted to get a lot of money from this place.”

He twisted his head left to right and felt the bones in his neck pop. ”Have it your way.” He looked back at Cal with a level gaze. He was disappointed and defeated, but not crushed. It was an inconvenience that he would have to take care of later, and definitely lie to Bouncer about. More lies to pull out of his ass. Great.

Cal’s laughter made his hand twitch in his pocket. He tried to ignore it. He hated it when people laughed at him. ”Aren’t you worried about getting arrested?” Absolutely not. No fucking white coats could catch him. He was a black panther. ”Isn’t it pretty reckless?”

Teva chuckled. ”We’ve been doing this for a long time, we’re too good to get caught. You just gotta be smart about it.” His words were laced with the utmost confidence. They had all mastered the art of a simple robbery – save for Teddy – and Teva was especially good at it. He also spent the most time doing it. Tate was always busy intimidating their rivals, and Tripp was often chosen for other assignments. His falcon’s eyes was better for aiming and pulling triggers, not wielding knives and sneaking through the dirtiest alleys in Nine. Teva was the best at this. Every scar on his body was a victory from a knife fight. Only one of them was from a robbery, and that one had caught him off guard. He had left that crazy bastard alone. Too much goddamn noise.

The horror etched into Cal’s face made his lungs freeze over. ”Do you kill people?”

Shit. His brow furrowed. Stay calm.

He was fucking pointing at him, like a little kid pointing at criminal. Teva was a criminal, but he wasn’t evil. He can’t think I’m evil, absolutely fucking not. His heart was hitting the panic button.

”Wait..would you have killed me?” He stepped back, like Teva was suddenly the monster hiding underneath childrens' beds. For fuck’s sake.

He shook his head. ”Shit, Cal, what kind of person do you think I am? No I wouldn’t have fucking killed you! I don’t kill anyone unless they try to kill me first.” He said it all in one breath and felt somewhat winded afterward. One of his hands slipped out of his pocket to rub the bridge of his nose. ”I have killed people though,” he said, eyes closed and hand withdrawn. He opened them to stare at a puddle on the ground. ”All of us have, except Teddy.”

Teva Seraphim

He waited in silence, dreading any sort of reaction. Calcifer was a childhood friend, someone he could trust – yet Teva was obligated to withhold the biggest secret of all. He couldn’t explain why his family killed people without spilling the secret about the gang, and if he mentioned the gang it would connect back to their mother. Perhaps then Cal could make the connection to his father as well, and that was a sensitive subject. All of it was. But he also didn’t want Cal thinking lowly of him, not after such a long friendship. Sure, they didn’t see each other as often anymore – and it must’ve been because of this job – but the memories were still there, a solid bond having been formed. It had never faded on Teva’s end. He could try to suppress his harbored feelings, but there was always a moment when he would remember.

Cal suddenly arched his back and heaved into the cement. A mask of blended horror and concern crossed Teva’s features, and he breathed a barely-audible ”Shit.” It was kind of gross, too, all the shit that came out of his mouth, but mostly Teva was just afraid that he had caused it. Was the idea that horrifying to him?

He stilled at Cal’s apology. The relief that flooded him was momentary; he was still a bit shell-shocked by the display. You can’t just fucking vomit and then pretend it didn’t happen. Except Teva didn’t feel the need to acknowledge it, not if it was going to make Cal feel anymore ashamed of his exaggerated assumptions. Doing horrible things to survive was all part of the contract, a part of the agreement they adhered to years ago. The thrill of it could be rewarding at times, especially when there was a victory in his hands. But it was never pretty. Tate was forced to commit unspeakable things – things he hardly ever mentioned at home. Tripp could shoot a person straight through the eye with only a single pull of the trigger. All three of them could be assigned to a hunt, and hunts always ended in blood.

He regarded the building again with newfound interest. Did Cal have to do horrible things in there to survive?

”Is that why you work here?” he asked. It seemed innocent enough from the outside, but a combination of alcohol and dancers was sure to prove him wrong if he wandered inside. He would rather not.

The moon was practically on top of them, bloated and bright. It was really goddamn late, and although Teva enjoyed Cal’s company too much, he wished the robbery could’ve ended on a normal note so he could be asleep right now. Or onto the next victim if there happened to be one nearby.

He checked his watch. ”It’s almost four in the fucking morning. Is this why you look so damn tired all the time?” He remembered the last time he had seen Cal sleeping. It had been in a public place. He had been out getting milk for fuck’s sake, and he was just standing there with sleepy eyes, nodding off like it was the most natural thing in the world. Teva had called his name a hundred times before he caved in and nudged him. Cal thought he was exaggerating.

”Don’t you have school in the morning?”

Teva Seraphim

It pays well.

Of course it did. The unfortunate jobs always provided the best salaries. If it weren’t for his mama’s execution he probably could’ve pursued a different career. She had taught them how to fight and defend, but it was never mandatory to join the gang. She was well respected and powerful enough to hold her own; the gang wouldn’t need the triplets with her there, and the Seraphims wouldn’t need any extra money, either.

The white coats ruined everything. They all had to drop school because of them. Teva didn’t mind it now, but back then he had been pretty proud of his math scores. Teachers told him he could pursue a career as a factory manager – not a runt making plastic or cleaning shit, but a guy actually running shit – and they were top of the line money-makers in the materials business, everybody knew that. He had a chance back then. He didn’t know how the salary compared to what he was making now, but it didn’t matter anymore. The opportunity had been ripped away from him, and what could’ve been no longer plagued his thoughts. He figured he probably wasn’t suited to a factory setting anyway. It was cramped and smelled fucking weird, and he preferred to always be on the move.

”I don’t know, find a different job?” He suggested. He knew he was trapped in his current position, but he didn’t hate it. And he didn’t have school to worry about anymore. What was Cal thinking, working at a place like this? He was actually smart. He could be a factory manager one day. What if his grades were slipping because of this?

I sound like a fucking mom.

But he couldn’t help his concern. He didn’t sincerely believe that Cal could make it to school in time on nights like this, and even if he did, wouldn’t he be too exhausted to focus? Teva mulled it over, trying to guess what kind of schedule he was assigned. There had to be some downtime for homework, right?

He wanted to punch himself in the face. He was starting to sound like Tate. Fortunately, he wouldn’t nag to Cal about all of it. He would just wonder and worry and wish he didn’t care so goddamn much.

Cal mentioned his father, and Teva wanted to cringe. It was awful keeping a secret like this from him. Your dad was in a gang. Our gang, he could say, but his tongue felt like lead. Tate and Tripp and Teddy were screaming at him from miles away. Don’t do it, Teva, keep your mouth shut. It sucked, to say the least. Cal’s mama had been forced to suffer an emotional and financial loss, all because the white coats caught her husband and Avoxed him on their front lawn. Apparently they had left his tongue sitting in the grass, painted with blood. It was a grim fucking picture, and it only got worse after that.

”Does your mom know what he did for a living?” He asked. He had always wondered if she was cursed with their secrets. It would make him feel a bit less guilty if she was hiding things from Cal as well, despite how fucked up that was. It was an intrusive question, and he hadn’t quite thought it through, but it wasn’t suspicious to ask, right? He wouldn’t appear all-knowing. He would keep a straight face for once, even in the face of Calcifer Xu.

Or he would try, at least.