Explosive
He's been spending a lot of time with the juniors.
He hates it.
Everyone knows why, but not even Kelly is saying anything about it. Maybe there's something crazy in his eyes that stops it, he wouldn't be surprised. He's been sleeping in the pool house, living there practically, since he got back from the dance and the bed in there is shit, not that he thinks he'd be sleeping much better anywhere else. He knows it's not the lack of sleep that's giving him crazy eyes, but he'll blame it anyway.
He wonders if it was the dance's fault, natural drama magnet that it is, wonders if they had just been at his house instead, if he hadn't forgotten his sweater, or left her alone...if maybe Dick would have just kissed her there instead, in front of him.
If they had had their 'date' on the moon he's sure Dick still would have found a way to fucking destroy him.
He was a champion in that particular sport after all.
Whatever... let them have each other, they could compare notes on how to properly cut out his heart and fuck in his bed; it wasn't like he was using it.
Except that they were never together. Ever.
He saw glimpses of her in the halls and she looked absolutely miserable.
It tore at him because, God, he wanted her to be miserable for doing that, for kissing his brother like that, but he still fucking loved her. He was sure he had to because he wanted her to smile, as well, and caught himself mid dial when hea found a Jacques Tati film on TV, or accidentally ordering vegan pizza.
He hasn't spent this much time with his own class in God, years. That year in junior high after Dick had left for high school. He'd always been in this weird in-between place, between them and Dick. He barely knew anyone outside of Graham and Hart, and well, maybe Kelly, but he'd rather carve his eyes out with a plastic spoon than willingly spend time with Kuzo.
He's at Hart's house helping him with physics when he overhears his parents talking about incorporation.
Fuck
He had to put the fear of God in Woody. If he didn't fuck up incorporation all the properties he'd bought up would be worth half as much and he wasn't willing to lose those kinds of figures to that bastard, not when he had already lost so much to that man.
"So is it true then?" Hart asks, being careful to focus on his workbook and not let his eyes stray to Cassidy.
"Is what true?" He asks, pulling the textbook across the table to see what theory he could possibly be talking about. Except he has a pretty good idea that what he wants to talk about is not in the book at all.
Both Hart and Graham have been starting and stopping this same conversation since he had confirmed that he wasn't with Mac anymore.
"Did she really make out with Dick?" He asks, moving in such a way that it looked like he would run away.
Like he would explode without warning, like he was wet dynamite; which probably wasn't that far off base actually.
"He kissed her," He tells the textbook. He can almost feel that Hart is about to defend Mac so he looks up at him and continues, "and she kissed him back."
Hart crumples a little. He had liked Mac, so had Graham but this wasn't the time for that, this was most definitely a time for solidarity. He watched Hart force himself back up and look him in the eyes.
"That bitch. We should do something, like key her car, or... I don't know... something..." He finishes lamely, but that's fine because he's got something planned.
Oh he's going to do something alright, but it's not to her.
He's fairly certain he couldn't hurt her even if his life depended on it.
He has some plastic explosives with someone's name on it, and tonight was as good a time as any.
He's packing a bag with wires and explosives, and all the shit he'll need to get this plan back on track, when Dick pushes the door of the pool house open.
"Will you just come back to the house already?" His voice sounds weird, sad.
He looks up at him, "Fuck off." He starts zipping up the bag but the stupid thing gets stuck, fabric in the teeth. He hisses and starts to pull at the fabric to fix it.
"We need to talk about this."
"Talk about what? How you completely betrayed me and kissed my girlfriend?" He asks, dropping the bag. Seeing him there is bringing the night slamming back at him, even the earlier parts of the day, when they had spent time together like things were going to be normal.
God he had wanted so badly for things to be good between them again.
His heart is picking up because he's so fucking angry at himself for letting this happen, for loving her, him, them both, anyone. God, how had he not learned his lesson from his mother?
Or, fuck, the last person to say those words to him before her.
Woody's tone soft and secretive and sticking like sludge to the inside of him.
He picked up the bag again and tries to push baseball training out of his head. He would get his as soon as he could get this fuckingbag closed.
"I'm sorry okay. I'm sorry. I-"
"You what? Didn't mean to?" He bites back.
"Of course, I meant to."
"You just didn't mean for me to find out?"
Dick looks down at his hands, "Yeah. I just I had to." There's desperation in his voice that tugs at his insides.
Fuck. Sad Dick was always like kicking a God damn puppy, but he's not going to let him sweep this under the rug. No, he took away the only person who made him feel human and all that was left was a monster, a monster that didn't give a shit if Dick had gotten lonely in the palatial house by himself, or if his inner Jiminy cricket was harping on him.
He drops the bag again and this time Dick actually looks at it quickly before looking back at him, trying to keep eye contact.
"No you didn't. You didn't have to anything."
"I had to know if she loved me back." He says, his eyes lowered like he can't stand to look him in the eye, which is fine because he can barely stand to look at him.
"And the fact that she loved me wasn't good enough for you? Well fuck you. Have her, see if I fucking care. Get married and have a bunch of stupid pretty kids. I'm fucking done with this."
He drops the duffle over his shoulder, half zipped, and makes to leave.
"She doesn't love me." Dick tells him and it stops him in his tracks.
"Really? I guess we have that in common then because it, sure as fuck, didn't look like she loved me either."
"Cassidy, come on, if you were taking her calls you'd know that's not true." Dick tries, but it just burns something in him because how the fuck does he know she's been calling him so much that he has to keep his phone powered off.
He doesn't want to talk to her, doesn't want to hear her voice, doesn't want to let her pull him back, he's too pissed for it, too hurt, and broken and all he wants to do is set up a fucking car bomb and get away with murder. Can they all just leave him to lick his wounds already?
"Did she tell you that?" He can just fucking see them, standing too fucking close, trying to figure out a way to tell him that they just want him to be happy for them.
"Veronica told me that."
His anger slips.
"Mac won't talk to me."
"Good." Is all he can get out. The rage in him is simmering, but it's lost focus.
"Just fucking hit me already so we can get over this." Dick's voice is somewhere between begging and authoritative. Like he's thought about it a lot and this was the fix he'd come up with. He closes the distance between them and grabs onto Cassidy's hand, forcing it into a fist.
"Stop it Dick." He tries to pull his hand from him, but Dick's grip is tight and desperate.
"Just do it."
"I'm not forgiving you!" He yells at him, and the blast of noise must unbalance his brother because his hand finally comes free.
"You have to!"
"Why? Why do I have to Dick?"
Dick slumps, the fight leaving him, his eyes are a pathetic red and so sad he can barely stand it, "You're my brother." He tells him and the words are thick and just set him off.
He throws the duffle bag to the floor with a force that spills some if its contents across the expensive-looking floor.
"And when has that ever stopped you before? That you're my brother? When has that ever kept you from tormenting me?"
"That was just brother stuff, man." Dick tries to sweep the statement away, his eyes are focused on the spilt explosives but Cassidy doesn't notice.
"Taping me to my bike? Sure. What about the time you and dad told me I was fucking adopted and that the trial period was over and I was going back to the orphanage because you didn't love me?"
"Cass, I've always been there when you needed me."
The sick thing is that he actually believes that. He can hear it in the tone and fucking feel it in the air.
"Bullshit Dick, you've never been there for me." He gets down on the floor to push the incriminating evidence back into the old nylon duffle.
Dick drops, too, picking up a block of plastic explosive.
"What the fuck is this?" Dick asks, and his voice holds that same dark, even quality his own so often carries.
"None of your fucking business." He makes to snatch the block back, but Dick stands up quickly, forcing him to follow.
"None of my fucking business? Are you fucking serious? Please tell me you are going over to Hart's to blow up some fake bridge for those shitty war movies you guys used to make."
He can't make the words come out of his mouth. The anger in him is melting into fear.
Fuck fuck fuck.
"What have you done..." Dick's voice is low and he sounds scared as well, dark and afraid.
"I had to..." Is all that will come out and it's not exactly lost on him that the conversation had suddenly been flipped.
"No you didn't." Dick sounds like he's going to be sick and he wouldn't be the only one.
"No one could know..." He manages, his mind spinning because Dick has never looked so much like an authority figure in their lives and he's so scared of what this means. How quickly could he get out of the country? Could he send for Mac? Would she even go?
"Know what exactly? What is so important that you killed a busload of people to keep secret?" Dick's eyes are tearing up and he's not sure if his are the same or not. He's not sure of anything right now. Everything is just this clusterfuck of spinning thoughts and frightened adrenaline.
"They wanted to tell everyone..."
Dick is standing there with a block of explosive in his hand and a sick expression on his face.
"I told them not to... They just... They wouldn't listen to me...so I had to."
"Why... Cass why would you do that..." He must be trying to fit this new information, the knowledge that all this time the person that the cops and the Mars family had been looking for had been right here, with his image of his too smart, soft spoken brother.
"They were going to tell!" He bursts out and he knows he's crying now, the thing in his chest trying to push itself up is an angry sob.
"Tell what!" Dick yells in return, throwing the plastic to the couch angrily.
"About what Woody had done!" He yells in return, "What he had done to us!"
Dick is smart enough to figure the rest out on his own, which is a good thing because he's sure he couldn't say the word molested out loud without following it up with retching.
Not that he's doing too good now.
He drops to his knees, this is the end. The tears are pouring out of him, angry and afraid.
The end.
There's movement happening around him, but he doesn't much care. The one person left in his life that he actually cared if they knew his secret or not, knew. He was waiting for the hammer to fall, for that twisted, harsh, cruel tone to fall oh so naturally from his brother's mouth and cover him in insults and insinuations, that he must have done something to deserve this...
He'd been hearing the remarks his brother would make, in his head, for years. Since he had come home and told Dick he didn't want to play baseball anymore, that he was afraid of the coach...when Dick had called him a pussy and pushed him out of his room, slammed the door in his face.
Strong arms wrapped around him and pulled him tight to a broad chest.
"I'll kill that bastard." Dick whispered, his arms tight around his brother, his hands doing that slow circle thing on his back.
He wanted to calm down, to stop crying, but somehow, something about a comforting Dick, held so tight he thought he would break, just made him cry more.
They stay there on the floor of the pool house, wires and plastic explosive littering the room, held tight to each other until Kendall comes into the room, her heels clicking harshly on the hard floor.
"I don't want to know." She turns sharply on her heel and walks the other way. He did like that about her, the bitch minded her own damn business.
Dick lets him pull away from him. It's dark out, if he's going to plant the car bomb it has to be now.
Cassidy gets up and starts refilling the duffle bag, when the plastic explosive goes back in Dick finally speaks.
"Are we killing him tonight?" He asks and the word we has never sounded better.
"Just sending a message."
"We should just shoot him in the dick and let him bleed out. Send that message." He tells him, following him out of the pool house, and the idea is not without its appeal.
Dick follows him into their neighbor's garage, watching with wide eyes as he turns off the alarm system like it's nothing.
"How do you know how to do that?" Dick asks, pulling the keys to the black sedan off a hook near the door.
"Mac showed me..." He grumbles, a shot of pain shoots right into the core of him where a normal boy is hiding from the monstrous thing he's about to do, where it's been hiding ever since Mac melted into his brother.
"It wasn't her fault." Dick offers, sliding into the driver's seat of the laughably easily stolen car, "I pushed her."
Cassidy tosses the bag into the back seat and gets into the passenger's seat.
"I don't want to talk about it Dick."
They drive in silence for a while until something in Dick just can't take it anymore.
"You forgive me though, right?" He doesn't look away from the road and his face is lit up by ghostly blue indicators.
"Dick..."
He doesn't want to talk about this. He doesn't want to talk about anything, but especially not this. He's fucking drained, he doesn't want to say that he forgives him because he's not sure that he does or not. He just knows that he needs his brother right now, and he's willing to overlook the part of him that was recently broken in order to give the parts that were broken long ago a taste of justice.
"If the roles had been reversed, if you had been in love with her for years and she started dating me... You'd kiss her too...just to know... Just to be certain that what you felt was one sided, that there was no hope for you..."
Dick's words are deep, dark pins into him because he knows he would.
He watches his brother.
He honestly believed that it was one-sided, that there was no hope for he and Mac. How could he even think that when she had kissed him back like that, when she had been pouring something into his brother, want? Longing? Love?
"Dick, I love you, can we leave it at that for now, please? We have a murder to set in motion."
Dick pulls off to the side of the road, a little ways down from the Goodman house. Going there made him ill, but he had shit to do. He had learned a lot since the summer and the main lesson seemed to be, vomit when you're safe at home, after it's done.
He opens the car door, but before he can get out Dick puts his hand on his arm, holding him back.
"What?" He's worried that the fact that they are really going through with this has gotten to Dick. Like he's realized exactly what he plans to have this lead to and he wants no part of it.
"I love you, too."
Cassidy has to blink back tears because he's fairly certain that is the first time Dick has ever said that to him, or at least the first time he had said it and truly meant it.
He's afraid Dick will pull him into another too comforting hug and that the explosives will sit in the backseat forgotten so all he does is nod at Dick, grabs the duffle full of stuff and slips out of the car.
Dick is still there when he gets back and they drive back home in silence.
Hours after he goes to bed, he's woken up by the bed shifting under a heavy weight. He doesn't even turn around this time, just lets Dick climb into his bed.
He doesn't smell like alcohol and he knows that this isn't about anyone else this time, it's just about them. About him and a history that his brother wanted to erase on his behalf.
It was so good having Dick know.
He had been so afraid, for so long, that Dick would find out what had happened to him, find out what he had done to cover it up, what he was doing to gain from the tragedy. Now that he knew, knew everything, he felt, somehow, for the moment, clean.
He knew that Dick wouldn't rat him out, knew beyond any reasonable thought that Dick would kill for him, that they were in this together no matter how badly they wanted the same girl.
His dreams aren't filled with blood or explosions or anything like that. It's just the three of them. Dick, Mac and himself far from the maddening crowd, together and whole, and it's the best sleep he's had since New Years.