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[conning]

"It's Caffrey. Remember the value of plausible deniability. I'll get back to you."

Comments

[conning]

[There's a long, pregnant pause, and his tone is decidedly less friendly when he answers, though it's not at Shaw in particular.]

I changed my mind.

[cactusy]

Okay.

[And that's it! Just okay.]

[conning]

[He waits. He waits for all of maybe ten whole seconds.] Okay but?

[cactusy]

But what?

[conning]

'Okay but here are all the reasons you have to do it anyway.'

[cactusy]

... Oh. You meant you changed your mind about the drinks, not about having a crush on Bright.

[Welp.]

You still don't have to do it; that's-- on me. I'm the one who just messed things up.

[conning]

[NGNRHGNRHGNHNDDSJHF]

It's none of his business, and it's definitely not his business to talk about it.

[cactusy]

He didn't really talk about it; it was just mentioned.

[conning]

That counts.

[cactusy]

Okay.

[conning]

[A long pause, but he hasn't hung up or ended the conversation, so that's something?]

I don't like it when people share things that I don't want shared. Things that-- [Actually matter.] There's a reason I don't tell people about myself, particularly people I don't know well, and I make sure what I do share is as much spectacle and as little substance as possible.

[No one can hurt really hurt you that way.]

[cactusy]

Same here, actually. Uh, except for the spectacle part.

My guess, he figured it was okay because I'm his warden. Or he figured that you wouldn't share anything sensitive with him, so if you'd told him, it wasn't a big secret.

[conning]

I didn't. [Which is part of why he has such an issue with it being shared. Will discovered that one himself, or was told by Malcolm in some peripheral way and figured out how deep it went when Malcolm couldn't see it.]

[cactusy]

... Oh.

[conning]

[A soft snort.]

Yeah.

[cactusy]

Sorry, that... sucks.

[conning]

Yeah. [He sighs.] If it's important to you, I'll do it. But I'll do it for you.

[cactusy]

I really do wanna give it a shot. But, uh-- I don't want to hurt you. And I know that I'm doing that now.

[conning]

No, you're not. [It's soft but insistent.] The only pins I'm getting stuck with were there before you had any idea about them. That's not your fault.

[cactusy]

I don't know how to handle them delicately enough, so even though they were already there, I'm still... shoving them around. I don't have the intuitive sense for how any of this goes, you know? And a lot of things, I can make up for that in life experience, but not this.

[conning]

[A soft sigh, and his tone is fond.]

I know. That’s why it doesn’t hurt so much when it’s you. That’s why I’m being so blunt about it. It wouldn’t matter who brought it up—Norton, Raylan, Will, Malcolm, you, Eiffel. It’s going to hurt. My part of it is giving you the… I don’t know, tools to navigate it with me in particular. I don’t need you to be intuitively understanding. You hear me and you do your best. That’s what matters.

[cactusy]

Thank you.

Is there anything I can do for you now?

[conning]

Don’t tell Will I changed my mind when I found out he told you about Malcolm.

…That’s a joke, but it’s also less of one than I meant it to be.

[cactusy]

Deal.

Thanks for being on board with trying.

[conning]

Sameen, there is very little I wouldn’t at least attempt for you.