Breaking-in, CH 13 (Patreon)

Pain feels good.

Okay, that’s probably a ‘me thing’. Tristan just isn’t bothered by it, and Emil can deal with it, but he’ll bitch about it.

So, yeah. It’s a ‘me thing’.

This pain’s the result of a training session as I got home from work, fighting, then fucking, then patching up our, well, my injuries. I did manage to give Tristan a split lip this time, go me. And boy, did I pay for it.

I’m going to walk funny for a couple of days because of that.

Talk about incentives to get me to try to make him bleed even harder.

Anyway, that’s done. I’m working on dinner for me and him. Emil’s at one of the neighbors, study date, or something. It’s with a girl. Tristan’s in his workshop, working on I have no ideas what.

The doorbell rings and I take the pan off the stove on my way to answer it. Johnathan Wagler’s on the other side.

“Mister Crimson, I—”

“It’s for you!” I yell, then step away from the door. Who else is he here to see? It’s not like we’ve exchanged more than three words since I moved in. There’s also only a few thing it can be about, so I lean against the wall and wait. There’s a gun behind the table I can easily reach if this turns ugly.

Johnathan steps inside and closes the door. He looks the entryway and living room over. “Nice place.”

“It gets the job done.” It looks more lived in, with Emil using it as his study room once in a while, but it’s still mainly the same as how it was arranged by the real estate agency. I wasn’t going to spend time fixing that room up.

He studies me.

He’s at ease. Like this is an environment he spends all his time in.

“Has anyone ever mentioned how much you look like an older version of that other Alexander Crimson?”

“It’s come up a few times.” Is he fishing? It’ll take someone determined to even get close to tying me to Dear Old Dad, but I can’t do anything about how I look. 

Scratch that. I can do plenty, but I like how I look, so I’m not changing that.

“Is it why you preferred using Bart, before getting married?”

“It’s amazing what not sharing a name with some rich brat will do to make you not resemble him.”

“Yes, names are powerful things.”

Motion out the corner of my eyes shows me Tristan coming down the stairs. He has jeans and a shirt on, but he’s barefoot.

“Johnathan?” he acts surprised, or maybe he is. It’s impossible to tell. I vetoed placing cameras around the house, too easy to hack. “To what do we owe this visit?”

He studies Tristan now, and his expression’s calculating. “I thought we should talk about two days ago. Or rather, the events that led to the police to ask for a tour of my house.”

Tristan looks at me, then him. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure what this is about.”

“Maybe you’d prefer we have this discussion in private?”

“If it’s about the mugger you murdered,” I say, “don’t bother. I already know about it. I probably already know about anything else you think you might use to blackmail Tristan with.”

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” Johnathan says. “I’m not here to blackmail anyone.”

“Then why are you here?” Tristan asks.

“To find out if we are going to have a problem.” The tone is casual, but the eyes are hard.

“I don’t know, will we?” He still looks confused. Playing at being my husband, the regular security expert.

“Please don’t try to be funny, Tristan.”

“He isn’t,” I offer. “I’m pretty sure he could be, if he needed to, but he’s not funny by nature.”

Johnathan looks at me, annoyed. “Alright. Then let me ask directly. Why did you call the police and tell them about my locker?”

This shift in Tristan’s body language is subtle, but he’s no longer playing at being my husband. He’s no longer playing, period.

“Why do you think I’m the one who reported you?”

“You are the only one who saw me do it. I made sure of it.”

The raised eyebrow is the only indication of Tristan’s surprise.

“You weren’t as discreet as you think you were following me, especially since I knew to be on the lookout after you broke into my house.” He takes his phone out, brings up something and shows it to Tristan. I’m next to him, watching a high-rez picture of my husband looking into a cabinet with its shelves on the side? The image doesn’t make clear what’s up with those, but Tristan is looking in.

“I can show you others of you moving through my house.”

“Do you look through the recordings every day?” Tristan asks. “Or did something lead you to checking them?”

“I have some rather inconspicuous ways of knowing if someone opens my locker. Since you saw its content, I expect you can appreciate it’s important I know that as soon as it happens.” 

Tristan nods.

I can’t think of anything he’d miss, but I’m also busy trying to come up with a way to find out if his security is connected to the internet. I’m going to have to get in there and clean it.

“You didn’t steal anything. So why did you break into my house?”

Tristan shrugs. “I was curious.”

“And you didn’t think you could ask me?”

“Last week you brought home a woman.”

“Which I do every Wednesday.”

“It was Thursday. And she wasn’t the type of women you normally have over.”

Johnathan’s expression is blank. I know that expression, although Tristan’s switch to it is more organic. This one was switched on like a light. Johnathan doesn’t want us to see what he’s thinking.

“There was no one at your windows watching.”

Tristan smiles. “Maybe you aren’t as observant as you think.”

“No, I’d have seen anyone at those windows. Which means you saw me from a different house. The only two I didn’t check were The alcabu’s and the Cooke’s since neither were home that night. You were breaking into one of their houses.” He waits for Tristan, who doesn’t react. “Alright, so you got curious, and that was enough to break into my house?”

“People have… patterns.”

I almost look at Tristan when he hesitates. He never hesitates, unless he wants you to notice it, so he’s up to something. Johnathan nods as he continues.

“When someone changes that pattern, especially when he goes out of his way to ensure that break is not noticed. It has meaning. Understanding that meaning can be the difference between preparing for a problem or being surprised by it. I don’t like being surprised.”

“And you didn’t get the answer you were after there, despite finding my locker. So you followed me, hoping I’d lead them to it.”

“And you used that to lead me astray. You manipulated my expectations. Caused me to see what you wanted so you could study how I’d react.”

Is that respect in his tone?

“Like you said. Patterns are telling. Thieves break into houses to take something. You didn’t. Then you show up following me. So I wanted to find out why. You didn’t stop me from killing that mugger, even though I made it clear that was my intention, but you reported me to the police, gave enough information they’d know to look for my locker.”

“What did she see instead of the knives?”

“My collection of sex toys.” Johnathan smiles. “My extensive collection. She might have been left that my tastes are rather… extreme.”

“You murdered a man,” I comment. “I’d say they are.”

“Solely for the purpose of testing me,” Tristan adds.

“You are willing to stand by as a man is murdered. So the calling the police wasn’t a gut reaction. It was a calculated act. I gave you two days to act on it failing to achieve what should have been the only reason to report me, which is to remove me from your surroundings, but you did nothing. I’m left thinking removing me isn’t why you called them. And that’s bothering me, because I can’t think of any other reasons.”

Tristan nods. “You wouldn’t be willing to share your safe area with another killer.”

Johnathan’s nod stops halfway. “But you are.” The realization is loud in his voice. He looks at me, and I shrug. Now, he no longer looks entirely sure of himself. He never considered there were other monsters around him.

I guess that shows how better we are at hiding it.

“I see.” And the confidence is back. “You aren’t going to chase me off, and you aren’t going to leave.”

Tristan nods.

“Then I think we need to have some ground rules.”

“You don’t bother us,” Tristan replies. “I don’t end you.”

“I’ll point out that you started all this.”

“And my curiosity has been sated.”

I see the smile before it vanishes. Johnathan thinks he’s fooled Tristan.

“Alright, then we’re agreed. We stay out of each other’s business. Don’t bring our extracurricular activities home with us, and we will all get along.”

“We’re agreed.”

Johnathan beams. “Then, I will wish you a good night and take my leave. I have to deal with dinner.”

“He managed to keep something from you,” I say when the door’s closed.

“It’s not important.”

“Are you sure?”

Tristan nods. “He’s a killer. I know how to handle killers; if he decides to cause us trouble.”

“I don’t like it.”

He looks at me. I can almost see the gears—or in his case the boxes—working. “Do you want me to dig further?” he’s unsure, and I can tell it’s real, because he’s not drawing attention to it. So I consider my own reply.

Does it matter what Johnathan’s hiding? He’s lived here longer than I have without anyone suspecting anything, not even me, not that I count. Like he said, he keeps his stuff away from here.

“I guess unless he causes trouble, it’s not important. But I will have to scrub his security. I can’t have him with proof you broke into his house.”

He searches my face and is at ease with what he finds.

What does he find? What does my expression even look like to him? He reads me like a book, but can he see things I’m not conscious of? Micro expressions are from the subconscious, right?

Whatever. It’s not like I care if he knows me better than I do. “Dinner is going to be ready in twenty.”

He nods and heads back upstairs.

I go back to getting dinner ready for the two of us.

Which means I’m preparing the steak with roasted potatoes and glazed carrots for me, and pulling bars of pemmican out of the pantry, for him.