Vardoger

As he complained to the tree he was watering, one of the kids that worked at the Mean Bean came out to dump their trash. Mark was already mid-sentence, and nobody ever listened to him anyway, so he just kept talking. But then when he realized the door was still open, and was lamenting about the boy with the wheat name, he found that Mean Bean kid in the way of his door, looking particularly scatterbrained.
"E-excuse me sir...did you just say…” lowering his voice to a murmur “Recreate the DJ?”

Mark had seen this guy a few times before. He was at the Mean Bean frequently. Couldn't recall if he'd ever actually come into the shop for more than a few minutes, but he did know the kid probably dismissed him as crazy. Mark had to be careful, now. He didn't know enough about the guy to just launch into his plans. What if he was a clef informant? Or related to someone who had stolen the DJ the first time?

"What? No," he said, leaning back and blowing a raspberry. "I was talking about TJ," He turned and waved his left palm over to the tree he had been watering, as if that was the tree's name. "I said 'I can't believe some cat would wanna eat my TJ.'"
He stopped watering the tree, as it was getting a little over-watered now, and he turned back to Jett. "What's a DJ?"

"Really? Humans do that too?"
Kids pretended to be animals on the regular?
His siblings had pretended to be prey and hunt and such. He had no idea humans would do the same thing with other animals. He got all excited, perking up. "Why?"
He was so interested, leaning in. He wanted to question her on all the exciting new things he could learn about normal things humans did.

It was something he could cling to.
Oh, Humans pretend to be animals- I pretended to be different animals! Hey I'm kinda human! his subconscious grabbed for. Maybe. Which didn't even make that much sense since he was kind of already part human anyway.

That's what werewolves were, right? Or were they just wolves that looked like humans? That was something he'd never pondered until that precise moment, his mind working overdrive and going a thousand different directions at the possibilities. He wondered if there was a way to be fully human, then. Or would he even want to be?

Oh. Oh now his thoughts just went to a dark place. Was he willing to completely dispel his wolf?
And then he remembered where he was.
Who he was talking to.
His eyes went wide.

She was already talking again.

Maybe she'd missed it? Maybe "Humans do that too?" wasn't a completely ridiculous thing to say as a human. Because. Ha! Humans! Silly creatures. "I'm totally a human"
No. No don't bring attention to it, he told himself. Maybe she won't notice. Maybe she didn't hear. Just continue as if I never said that. Play it cool

"Oh.. No... Yeah, I totally feel you! I felt the same way. I couldn't wait to get away from my family, either. And woods and stuff are nice, definitely. But I basically lived in them so I really prefer the city at this point. You know, for the change of pace. But. Yeah. Having the option of going into the forest is nice. So it's good that it's there. Oh, look, there's our pizza."
His mouth kept running.
Play it cool

The waitress walked by with the pizza. Walked straight on by to another table.
Crap.

"Guess not," he said, laughing nervously and running a hand through his hair.

"I just realized, I have to go, do a thing.. I mean, the bathroom, I have to go to the bathroom. You've been here before, right? Where is it?" he began to make his way out of the booth.
Oh god kill me

Bornes was a quiet person. He had learned, during their short time together, that Finn was not. Finn had been unexpectedly quiet during the whole suicide setup, and he continued to say nothing when Bornes got in the car.

Shock, maybe? Finn seemed calm. Maybe a little shakey. Bornes cocked his head slightly, studying him a bit while he drove. It was clear Finn had never killed anyone. He supposed witnessing a death too was pretty traumatic, especially the first time. But wasn't Finn an investigator? Wasn't he supposed to be used to seeing dead bodies? Maybe Bornes was out of touch with what they actually did. Maybe Finn really was as sheltered as he seemed. It wasn't as if Bornes regularly interacted with detectives or police. His only knowledge of them really was from books and stories from other people, which obviously didn't make the best picture.

While they drove, Bornes moved his sight to the window, watching the world pass through the safety of his sunglasses. His arm still clutched his side lightly. He'd made a mistake. He looked down at his lap with a frown. He should've slapped the gun out of Eddie's hand first. Or gone for the throw first. Or really anything aside from the punch in the face.

He'd opened himself up too much when he turned to kick the gun away- that had been dumb too- and he paid for it. Hand to hand wasn't exactly something he considered himself very good at. His reflexes were good, and he'd definitely had the training, but he didn't use it often. He preferred distance. And when that wasn't available, stealth. It was much easier.

He'd just gotten so annoyed at the supreme waste of time... His anger got the better of him in that brief moment. He wasn't going to tell Finn how to do his job. It seemed to Bornes that Eddie would never have been able to pay anyone back. But maybe the situation wasn't as clear as he'd assumed. He wouldn't know. He wasn't going to ask about it, either. He didn't really care.

The suicide setup made everyone happy. Eddie didn't have to pay anyone, it gave relief to all his debtors, and it had an apology. It was a very nice wrap-up, Bornes mused. He was a little surprised he came up with it. He didn't normally consider himself too empathetic.
Finn said he didn't like how 'messy' death was, and Bornes had assumed that was from more of a legal standpoint. With a suicide, Bornes figured everyone involved would be better off. Even if Eddie had been murdered, he was a scumbag. The gun-for-hire doubted people would care to look into it too deeply. With a suicide, there was closure for the family at least.

The car stopped at an intersection and Finn began to speak, breaking Bornes away from his own thoughts. He looked over to Finn, and judging by his face and voice, it was quite clear he was in shock, now. Bornes wondered how bad it was going to get later. If he might have to babysit. A frown pulled at the corners of his lips, but he held it back, going for stoicism. Why Bornes cared about Finn's feelings just then, he wasn't sure.

But it's what I asked of you.

Bornes had so many smart-ass retorts lined up. How it was all a waste of time, and stupid, and Finn should know better, that he shouldn't be in this line of work if he was mentally scarred so easily. But the 28 year old held them back. A good thing he did too, as the next line was well worth it.

Or was it? Did he still want the job? Finn was so bubbly and talkative just an hour a go. Bornes doubted that was going to come back for a while. If at all. Experiencing death changes people.

Or so Bornes was expected to believe, anyway. He'd personally never had a problem with it. And he was good at it. Sometimes he worried why killing didn't seem to bother him... But he decided he was better off not being bothered. He liked his job. Not killing people, but the mental exercise.. Well, figuring out how to kill people without getting caught was... He dropped his head and sighed outwardly at his own thoughts.
It was complicated.

He leaned back in his chair and looked out the windshield, not sure how to answer.
"The light changed," he said, noticing the streetlight and Finn still looking at him, waiting for an answer.

Finn concentrating on driving would buy him some more time to think of one.

He ran through the rolodex of answers in his mind, trying to figure out which answer would have the best possible outcome. You're in the wrong business, I want more money, I can't protect someone who looks for trouble, you'll need to change everything about you, why are you stepping into this world when you clearly don't belong there? I don't know. I made a mistake. I'm not good at this.

He mentally threw the rolodex off the imaginary table and figuratively watched the thing shatter into a thousand pieces.

"Yeah. Sure. Okay," he said finally, awkwardly flustered. Uncharacteristic of him, even though Finn had only known him for an hour and some change.
"I need to check out of my hotel. It's a couple miles from the club."

He seemed to regain his decisiveness as he gave Finn directions to the extended stay he'd been living in for the past few weeks. Inwardly, however, Finn's shock, or whatever it was, had become a little contagious and Bornes was a bit shaken up himself. But not because of what had happened at the mansion. Moreso that Bornes was just confused. He wasn't unsure of himself often. Finn made him question things, and more noticeably himself, and he wasn't sure why. Everything about Finn was out of Bornes's element. Bornes didn't like not knowing what could happen next, and yet here he was, agreeing to indefinitely live with and protect a huge unknown...

And it wasn't even risky in the normal way. It was risky in a completely different, hard to explain way. Something having to do with feelings, a thing that had frankly eluded him for several years. He wasn't comfortable, but he didn't want to just let a learning opportunity pass by like this. He wasn't sure what to think. It was still easy money. Sort of. Right?

It wasn't long before they arrived at the building. Bornes got out of the car and made it to his room, which was on the ground floor in the middle of some other units. He didn't wait for Finn to follow, but if Finn did follow him, he'd hold the door open for him to come in before starting to grab his things.

It was a room with two beds. The bed nearest the window had clothes, a towel, and other miscellaneous things thrown onto it. The bed against a wall closest to the bathroom was the one that had been used for sleeping. In the corner of the room was an upright seabag, still about half full. It was closed and locked with a combination lock. Leaning up next to it was a violin case, which had a combo lock built in. The rest of the room looked about expected. Used glasses, some used ash trays, a few books. All the books were in French. All of them looked like they hadn't been very well taken care of, like they were read often. They were usually shoved in the seabag with the other things, and that showed.

But one book was a hardcover, and much more worn than the others. It sat on an office desk and looked like it had been referred to every day for the last several years. It was barely holding together, and had tape on it in some areas. It was an old textbook concerning military strategy and tactics. Of course, Finn would never know that if he couldn't read French.

Once inside, Bornes went straight to the kitchen. He unplugged his crockpot and dumped everything down the sink before cleaning it. He paid no mind to Finn if Finn was there. Bornes made quick work of the task, and after drying the slow cooker he went to the bed, grabbed some clothes and wrapped it up, taking it to the seabag and unlocking it then placing all of his things inside. He went around picking everything up, leaving the books. This was clearly something he'd done several times before and only took a few minutes.

The last things to go in the bag were the books, which Bornes summarily dumped on top of everything else seemingly without care. Then he locked the bag back up again and picked it up by a handle to toss it up on his unmade bed with a grunt.

A sharp pain shot through his side and he cut his toss short with a whine. He grabbed his side and let his head fall forward on the seabag now on the bed. He stayed in that position, gaining his bearing. There were actually tears in his eyes. Thank god the glasses covered them.

He'd hurt himself a lot more than he assumed before. Yeah, he had pain with every breath, but that much was expected and easy enough to ignore for him. It happened. This though? He was afraid to move too much now. He guessed that badass image he had made for himself in front of Finn was gone now. Stupid.

"Confession," he labored out, his forehead still on the seabag. "I made a mistake before. Eddie was a lot stronger than I thought."

He put his right hand on the seabag and slowly pushed himself back up. "I'll still work for you. I should be fine a week or two..." He trailed off, really ashamed of himself as his voice lowered in volume.
"But I can't carry this."

That was his very backwards way of asking for help to take the seabag to the car.

Assuming, of course, Finn even still wanted to hire him.