- living on borrowed time - log - ota

[conning]

Who: Neal Caffrey, YOOOU
When: Early September to the beginning of the September event. (Rough timelines specified.)
Where: ALL 'ROUND
Summary: Neal scouts out this place in which he's found himself and gets up to some shenanigans, as well as like... having trouble with the local weirdness.
Warnings: None as yet, will add if necessary.



➥ mirror, mirror (throughout the month until event, feel free to make up your own scenario)
He's in an ADI unisex bathroom, washing his hands, and when he looks up the weaselly face of Matthew Keller stares back at him, ashen with surprise, a hole in his forehead dribbling a trail of blood down across his nose.

Neal jerks back, almost tripping over himself in the need to put distance between him and the image.

It happens again later, though this time it's not Keller's face. Neal notices right away. As hypervigilant as he's had to be over the past few months, anything odd in his periphery gets immediate attention.

A decorative mirror behind a bar where he's been integrating himself. Something shifts in it and Neal looks up sharply, to see the space around him popping, melting, burning and reforming, like traditional film held over heat. He closes his eyes tight, blinks them open again--

And now there's Keller, raising a glass, that hole still in his head. He's naked, Y incisions marked across his body, and when he drinks his beer it leaks out of the cuts with blood and pus.

Neal leaves. Quickly.

The third time lasts the longest. It doesn't matter what building he's in, it doesn't matter what room, it doesn't matter what he's doing. Every mirror gives him the same visual, the same hunted feeling. Eyes and smiling teeth, the room gone dim around them, encroaching and retreating and, at one moment, the teeth snapping shut next to his ear.

He whips around at that to find--of course--nothing there.

Deep breath. Reclaimed calm. He flashes the closest person an apologetic smile.

"Didn't sleep well last night."

➥ haunting tunes (ongoing)
He's out for a jog. Minding his own damn business. Flashing a Hollywood smile at anyone he passes, because it doesn't hurt to be remembered as friendly if one is remembered at all.

The song, the memory, it's the feeling of a distant silver arch and the taste of macaroni and cheese made with spaghetti. It's Meet Me in St. Louis, or something very like it, and Neal can't decide whether he's drawn to it or wants to recoil. Either way his steps slow. His mind starts to wander. Maybe he forces himself awake a moment before running into you, or maybe he's dozing at a bus stop, or walking in front of the bus. Maybe he's keeping you from walking in front of a bus. Anyting is fair game.

➥ they'll probably never miss it (THROUGHOUT THE MONTH, he wants nice clothes okay)
Neal does not like his standard issue ADI habiliments. He does not like the mild improvement of thrift store and off-the-rack pieces, which he still knows how to coordinate with a fashionista's practiced eye. Yes, he has the suit he came in, but that's going to wear out fairly quickly if he abuses it and who wants to wear the same thing every day?

To wit, he is stealing stuff. That is to say, he's picking the pockets of obviously (and not as obviously) wealthy pedestrians, focusing his attentions on tourists. Every once in a while he'll snag a particularly fancy watch, necklace, bracelet, et cetera. At one point he even manages a single earring--more for shits and giggles and because he didn't like the way the woman looked at her server than anything else.

He knows what will pay well at a pawn shop, and he's selective, never staying too long in one area from day to day. He's just a friendly resident, making his way through town with curiosity of someone unfamiliar with their new home.

➥ Wildcard
Neal is rapidly coming to the conclusion that he does not like this place. To put it in socially polite terms. As though the mirrors weren't enough, as though the disturbing reflections haven't spread to other surfaces, as though the eerie songs and ghosts of memories haven't made him balk at going outside. Now there's... this. Whatever it is.

Ugh.

Comments

[abrightboy]

“Cesium test? …Like… as in the radioactive isotope?” Malcolm asks curiously. He doesn’t know much about four hundred year old wine, but he has more than a passing interest in science.

[conning]

There’s absolutely nothing fake about Neal’s tiny brightening at Malcolm’s interest.

“It’s used in cases where definitive proof is needed that a wine is older than the last seventy-odd years. When the US used nuclear weapons against Japan,” a pause as his expression twists slightly at that, but he goes on, “it introduced traceable amounts of cesium into the atmosphere that traveled around the planet. Cesium isn’t naturally occurring, but it’s pervasive. Any wine grown and bottled after 1945 contains trace amounts. Only wine bottled before then, unopened, is cesium-free.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm leans forward. “Can they tell without opening the bottle? Does it, like, irradiate through the glass or something?” he asks.

[conning]

Neal leans forward a little in response. "That's the beauty of it. It will only be cesium free if the bottle has never been opened. It's impossible to fake wine earlier than the 40s, literally impossible.The gamma rays can escape the wine and cross the thickness of the glass without any problem, so it's a matter of sensitive radioactivity detection."

[abrightboy]

“I just think it’s amazing that anyone even thought of that. Do they use cesium detection for any other kinds of authentication?” he asks.

[conning]

"It was actually originated for testing potentially forged paintings by a woman named Elena Basner while she was working as curator of 20th-century art at the Russian Museum in St Petersburg."

Neal's smooth exterior melds comfortably into real enthusiasm. The restraint of years keeps him from completely letting go of the pretense of pure charm. "She worked with some chemists and other experts to develop a test where they take a micro sample from a painting and see if the paint contains caesium–137 and strontium–90. If it does, post-1945. Not foolproof though--you can get around the test by using reconstituted paint from other pre-war works and canvases from whatever period you're aiming to recreate."

[abrightboy]

“If they do that, is there any way to tell it’s fake?” Malcolm asks curiously.

[conning]

"Oh, absolutely. Tests of the paint composition for artificial dyes or incorrect regional or historical ingredients, mass spectrometry, microscopic analysis of the way the paint has cracked over time, x-rays to look for ghosting on a reused canvas. In some cases analysts use infrared reflectography, if the artist in question was known to underdraw their pieces before painting them. 'Underdrawing' is marking the canvas, whether with a few dots of paint to establish desired borders or whole sketches to paint over."

He pauses to take another drink of his coffee. "Most forgers these days stick to 20th century works because they're significantly easier to fake."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm laughs. “I guess a lot of technical professions are crazy simplified on tv. I didn’t think some guy could just walk in and peer at it over his glasses and go ‘it’s a fake! The brush strokes are two millimetres smaller than the brushes this artist typically used!’”

[conning]

"Well." Neal takes another sip of coffee, this one a chance to look away from Malcolm and out the front window of the cafe. "Experts are the first line of defense. It's like a... quick blood test versus a comprehensive exam, if that makes sense. An expert might be able to tell right away, or might be able to see something is off enough to send it to the next round of testing. Of course most auction houses these days skip the expert and go straight to the scientific method--a lot of them bought companies that specialize in that kind of thing in order to do it all in-house and save money."

[abrightboy]

“Is that the kind of work you had in mind when you learned all this?” he asks.

[conning]

Well played, Neal thinks, amusement touching his eyes, without any other major reactions.

“I’m something of an art buff and I love history. Dating paintings authentically lands at the crossroads.”

[abrightboy]

It had been an honest question but his non-answer pings something in Malcolm’s mind. He tilts his head as he looks at Neal.

“Do you steal paintings?”

[conning]

“That’s a big jump from pickpocketing.” He gives Malcolm a teasing look.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm shrugs a shoulder and turns his cup around in his hands.

“A lot of us have taken a big step down here.”

[conning]

“That’s true.”

It’s an answer!

[abrightboy]

“Yeah.”

The question was too forward, he’s concluded. He messed up. He turns his cup around in his hands restlessly, then looks at Neal, then looks at his cup. “I’m. Um. I should. Get going,” he says, though there’s something reluctant in it. He looks at Neal. “But it was nice to meet you,” he says sincerely.

[conning]

“In a past life, some people might have accused me of been involved in an alleged theft or two,” Neal says quietly. It’s not quite apologetic, but it seems like the roundabout dance isn’t Malcolm’s game. Neal should have guessed that, really, given how their conversation started.

“I might also have been interested in the ways given tests can be circumvented.”

[abrightboy]

Malcolm’s expression creases faintly.

“It wasn’t an ultimatum,” he explains apologetically. It wouldn’t have occurred to him that an ultimatum based on his company could work, for one thing.

But it accidentally did and he doesn’t know how to feel about that. A little guilty and a little elated.

He takes a sip of mocha, the fingers of his free hand fidgeting absently at the table top until the cup returns to their reach.

“Do you like working with the FBI?” he ventures, eyes wandering back up to Neal’s face.

[conning]

“Did,” Neal corrects gently, and stops to really think about his answer. The fact that he does stop to think about it annoys him. What the pause gives away annoys him even more.

Finally: “It had its moments.”

A sip of coffee. “Let’s say they took it hard when we broke up.”

[abrightboy]

“Hard is the only way it ever ends with them,” Malcolm concedes sympathetically. “They don’t have much care for what’s outlived its usefulness.”

[conning]

I had the opposite problem.

You’re dangerously easy to talk to.

Note to self.

He blinks, realizing something. “I’m Neal, by the way. Neal Caffrey. I’m in ADI housing.”

[abrightboy]

“Malcolm Bright. Apartment B1. Which building are you in?” In other words, if he has to do his own laundry, is there a chance he’ll at least run into Neal in the laundry room?

[conning]

Neal tilts his head in faint surprise, smiling a little. “A4. Do you happen to know Meredith Idlewild?”

[abrightboy]

That gets Malcolm’s attention.

“She’s my roommate,” he replies. “Are you working with her or did you meet somewhere else?”