for frickinbaretta

[cardsharpcal]

He knew it was coming. The end, that is.

It's coming faster than he realized. Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear and all that jazz. They're on to him and they're closing in. He can see that, he's better than this, but he doesn't want to believe that it's going to end.

Especially not like this.

Which is how Cal Lightman, the guy who

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[frickinbaretta]

After the whole Cabot shitstorm had boiled over, and after kicking the hospital like a bad habit a day or so before he should have, Freddy had left town. Called in his now-not-insubstantial vacation time, accepted the mental health six months, or whatever it was they slapped him with under the pretense of "for his own good" and labeled a "vacation", and here he was.

Vegas, of all places.

He'd gotten a decent paycheck for the sting, something with more zeroes than he'd thought a cop gig could ever bring in, but the stink of betrayal clung to it so he didn't feel too comfortable actually having it. It felt stolen, like the diamonds they'd never been able to recover. Thus running away to Vegas, where he figured he could lighten the burden and maybe get some fun in the bargain. Or at least a rush; Freddy really only felt alive when he was risking his neck in one way or another, and having his own life back, something not populated by confidence games and walking on razor wire day in and day out, was fucking boring. He figured it

[cardsharpcal]

Cal doesn't expect that this other guy is going to play along. He's hoping for some reaction, though, something that'll shake the guards off him and let him high-tail it out of here. He's definitely not expecting that accent - he's not British, that's a fake - and he's giving him the alibi he needs. He can already feel the guards loosening their grip on him.

"You're blaming me?" he asks the other man - Freddy, apparently, and putting on an air of taking offense, "Everywhere I go, people're throwin' me out." He's hiding a grin because this other man actually sounds like him, too. If his accent was better, it would be fucking spot on. Even his clothes aren't that far off from what Cal usually wears these days, casual and nice enough.

Their eyes meet and he knows he's going to run. He can see it in his eyes that he's doing this as a favor, God knows why but he can see something else there, too. It's elation, excitement. The guy likes it on some level, likes getting himself in the middle of someone else's danger for no rational reason

[frickinbaretta]

Freddy makes it a few blocks before adrenaline stops being enough and it catches up with him. Burning, a line of fire along half-healed tissue and he knew he shouldn't have run, shouldn't have pushed himself so hard this soon, but the part required it. A little further and there's an alley that connects to a street and he ducks down it, makes his way through the gloom and around a dumpster to lean against it for a few moments, out of sight from where he came but in full view of the street on the other end.

He'll wait long enough for the burn to die down, he decides, and then he'll continue on. If the rent-a-cops are anything like the ones back home he won't have to worry, they won't pursue much past the casino itself and by the time they get real cops in he'll already be gone. Fingers slip under his shirt to assess the damage, following the stitches, and fortunately there doesn't seem to be any bleeding; they're all intact, or the ones that remain, anyway, and there's a small fucking miracle. He lets the fabric fall back into

[cardsharpcal]

He doesn't see him. Maybe he was wrong about that look, about the other man having been trying to communicate something to him, but what kind of person helps a stranger out when he doesn't have to and then disappears? And not just that, but a stranger that looked like a fucking twin. He's gotta be around here somewhere