Break the Pattern
They are watching each other, trying to catalogue each type of smile, every crease on each other's faces, any indication of real or put-on emotion. Patterns are in the behavior. The pieces are unraveling.
"Christmas."
"Now we all look forward to seeing how she works that into conversation."
FBI humor. It isn't bad. Maybe even decent. But there's bias because anything that makes her smile usually works for him, even if only for the rare opportunity of seeing her eyes light up in a playfulness that he has a growing liking for.
But the timing is off. Anxiety he feels to the tips of his fingers, and it is enough to squelch any other feeling and undermine other lines of thought, overall compromising his focus at pretending.
Through the blur of moving bodies, her gaze settles on him perched on the table.
He knows that she can see. But he can't be bothered to break his stare and tuck away his concern.
When she approaches him, he stands up, abandoning all efforts at pretense.
"I'm going with you."
---
"You didn't have to come with me, you know."
The believability of lies is founded on the smallest kernels of truth. That's why he doesn't like calling them "lies", but instead modified truths. He rummages through the scraps of his past and stitches together a line.
"Shady deals with shady guys in shady hotels is my M.O."
The delivery is wanting, he scolds himself inwardly; he couldn't quite get rid of the seriousness in his tone.
"And typically, if someone is going to kill you..."
Good, no flinching and blinking.
"...it's a good idea to have an ally in the room."
No facial nor body movement betraying nervousness.
"I'm not scared."
One of the upsides of being a good liar is that you are almost always as good in detecting lies as you are making them. He doesn't hear a quiver in her voice, not a shred of self-doubt. She even manages a matter-of-fact smile. He respects her confidence, and has long admitted to himself his admiration for it. He recognizes it in himself and understands that the thrill and the fear, all tied up and tangled in a knot in your stomach, is a unique high. Unique but dangerous.
You need someone to be scared for you, Liv.
"Being fearless doesn't mean you're being safe."
The intention is to remind. But he feels a shift in her demeanor that may signal taking offense - the slight smile turning into one of her patent pursing-of-the-lips. She wants to say something but decides against it, physically closing up and turning away.
"Astrid, how're we doing?"
She discontinues the conversation with him, perhaps smelling what a load of hypocritical bull that which just came out of his mouth. Once, not long ago, wasn't he the risk-taker? Playing the black market, making shady deals with shady guys in shady hotels…not terribly unlike this?
Or maybe the sentiment is, "You being here is going to keep me safe?"
You don't, can't take back a lie that has been disclosed, even if it left you some kind of a minesweeper disaster. Credibility is seldom retrievable and the only alternative is to modify the lie even further, making it closer to the truth to salvage any convincing element to its original form. But she has disengaged and there is a burning itchiness in his throat that he still has to either swallow or spit.
I needed to come with you because you needed an ally who knows how shady guys work.
Modified truth.
I needed to come with you because I need you to be safe .
The closest thing to the truth I can get in light of self-preservation.
He manages to scrounge enough sense to swallow, instead of spit.
Shady deals are diametrically opposed to honest confessions, no matter how refreshing and atypical the gut-wrenching sincerity is.
---
He has studied many faces and have tried them on in different situations, in varying degrees of danger and risks. He's practiced them enough to be able to flit through them with the speed and sly of a seasoned card player and the confidence of a man with nothing to lose.
Nothing has changed. He still cannot lose what he is not in possession of.
Except maybe, the proximity. Except that she is here. Right now, right across him, a pulsing light that not even the black hole of fringe craziness could deter or extinguish. The idea of her makes the idea of him learning to handle these new faces not too alien; care, fierce protectiveness or pained worry he didn't wear often and well, but he can try.
And that, that was something.
If the experienced liar in him wins out over the self-deception tactics he has installed around the perimeter of his consciousness (notices the squeeze in his chest when he finds out she has been dodging bullets, tackling bioterrorists; detects the way his eyes seeks out and locks in on her in the crowd; recognizes that the rush of warmth to his face isn't entirely because of the alcohol; acknowledges that earning her respect is a huge chunk of what motivates him to put up with this crazy shit), who knows?
It might even turn out to be everything.