i'm the bad guy

Cade Bentley | D6 "Stylist"

[cadebentley-archived]

laradanbur​:

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Long story short, there was nothing to trace the line between the person in front of her, meekly greeting every customer, and the grand Cade Bentley from the magazines. And so, Lara did not recognize him. “A cappuccino, fast. The world is burning,” she dramatically exhaled, displaying exhaustion on all fronts, but a trained ear could dig some involuntary excitement in there somewhere. Something was finally happening, even if destructive. The rebellious spirit wasn’t yet defeated.

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Something beeped behind him, making him jump. “Shit-- so are my muffins, hold on--” He jumped away from the till for a moment, rescuing some blueberry muffins from the warmers, but, of course, the tops were blackened and smoking. From behind him, the manager scolded him to not turn his back on customers, at which he seriously considered tossing one of the muffins at her face in retaliation. But he had to not get fired from this job, so he called her a bitch under his breath through a grit-teeth smile and returned to the counter, dropping the muffin tray beside him. “God, she’s the worst. You want a free shitty muffin while we’re at it?” he asked her, grimacing at the smell and writing her order on a cup. “Special ex-coworker discount.”

[cadebentley-archived]

shark-bcit​:

The morning was barely remembered, a hangover having made the possibility of climbing out of the comfort of bed seem like an impossibility. It was only half past noon, only a half hour past launch,  but the screens around the tower (where they’d normally all be broadcasting the games) were split between the games and the immediate coverage of the apparent explosion at Lysander’s press conference. So much was happening, and Sirena didn’t have the energy for it. So, in a last ditch effort to not return to bed, she found herself in line at Capitol Coffee in need of a double shot caramel macchiato. But when she got to the front of the line, eyes still cast on her phone having texted Selene to see if she wanted anything, she noted the voice that spoke certainly didn’t belong to the overly bubbly teenage girl who was usually there. She glanced up and had to repress a smirk, hiding a tinge of amusement. 

“I need a double shot caramel macchiato, and,” a glance at her phone again, about to move on without ordering Selene anything when the reply from her fiancée came through, “a green tea for Selene.”

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“Double shot caramel macchiato and a cup of poison, coming right up.” He wrote out Sirena’s name on one cup, then TRAITOR in big letters on the second, sending them to the line to be made. It was fucking embarrassing to be on the other side of the counter for this interaction, but he tried to find some solace in the fact Selene hadn’t followed her fiancee down. “Would she like some orphan tears in that? I feel like she’s into that sort of thing.”

[cadebentley-archived]

everettlance​:

Everett probably couldn’t have been more surprised by what Cade said than if he’d said he’d grown an elephant tail. He blinked at him, his drink stilled in his hand. “You… you did?” he asked. He knew Cade knew how to make coffee, for himself, but he couldn’t imagine him in that kind of job. Food service. Hell, he couldn’t even imagine himself working there.

Then the second part of what he’d said sank in. Year-round.

That meant living in the Capitol.

Year-round.

Not living with Everett, leaving him alone in Two in that big fucking house that he’d worked so hard to make feel like home. And yet it hadn’t felt like home, not even a bit, until Cade moved in.

“Year round?” As if to clarify that ‘year round’ meant the same thing for both of them.

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“Yeah. I mean, I couldn’t exactly sleep on your couch forever, right?” Not that he was actually on the couch that often, but he and Everett had established several times that they weren’t a thing. They weren’t together, not really. But Cade wasn’t paying rent, either, and he could have gotten a job in Two, probably. Despite what Everett said about things being secure there, he saw the writing on the wall. Everett was working with Thirteen now. He was cut off from his family and friends in Two. Cade knew Everett well enough now to understand that Everett craved direction, he struggled to thrive without it. Thirteen was full of direction. Cade was going to be left behind, whether Everett knew it yet or not. “You know, enough to... to afford somewhere with some roommates outside the city. Maybe I’ll make enough to go back to Six eventually or something, I don’t know.” Though he wasn’t sure he had the courage to show his face around home yet.

[cadebentley-archived]

Two years ago, he would have rather died than don an apron and be behind the counter in a service job like this. But he wasn’t the same person he was two years ago, and this morning, he felt an unexpected sense of pride-- not shame-- as he showed up for his first ever day of work. Real work, not a job where he paid off other people or begged the people he was still lucky to call friends to cover his ass. He was doing everything for himself now, no matter how much his feet ached and how many times he’d burned himself trying to learn to make lattes. And at the end of the day, he’d go home to an apartment with several roommates he paid his own rent for and bitch about it over a cheap beer. He was done with being a leech, and he wasn’t going to wait for Everett and Clem and everyone else to decide they were done with him first and leave him with nothing. “Welcome to Capitol Coffee, what can I get you?”

[cadebentley-archived]

parvulus-atlantian​:

“I-,” he wandered a moment what Cade had against his sisters - well those that remained, but didn’t ask instead giving a nod. “A’ight then. Lead the way then. Wait, you buying? This escort gig doesn’t pay as much as it should for all the work I put in.” Which was next to none, but his parents had cut him off until he could prove he had his damn act together. 

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“Stylist job either.” Not that he was about to be getting a raise at his new gig, exactly. “But yeah, I’ll pay. What’s a little more debt, right?” He grinned as if it were more of a joke than it actually was, turning to walk toward the main floor bar with Nereus.

[cadebentley-archived]

“Hey! Come have a drink with me, Only Cool Atlantica.” He clapped a hand on Nereus’ shoulder, grinning. He and Sirena may not get along-- for obvious reasons-- but Nereus wasn’t so bad, and had nothing to do with Selene fucking him over. Nereus always seemed down for a good time, and Cade had just handed in his resignation. He could use a good time. 

@parvulus-atlantian​

[cadebentley-archived]

“I quit,” Cade blurted over his drink. He’d come down to the second floor to close out the night before launch with Everett, acting as though it was a casual thing, but in truth he’d been anxious to tell him all day. He’d handed in his resignation with his final interview outfits-- barely holding together-- and went directly downstairs to then hand in his application to Capitol Coffee. In part, he was sick of lying. He was sick of trying to do a job he couldn’t do and was not qualified to do. He didn’t even really like fashion beyond what it could do for him at a party. More than that, though, he knew the longer he leeched off of people, the more dangerously close he drew to the precipice of being abandoned when their kindness dried up. 

He had to leave before he got left. “I got a job making coffee downstairs,” he continued, unable to look Everett in the eye quite yet. “Year-round.”

@everettlance​​

[cadebentley-archived]

TASK 007. TAGLINES.

[cadebentley-archived]

everettlance​:

“They’re not mole people,” Everett said, part defensive, part protective. “But yeah, I don’t think I could live there long-term. When I spend too long there I just get like. Depressed, you know?” Which wasn’t a huge difference from normal life, but at least in Two he could get depressed with sunshine.

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“Living underground without sunlight or half decent food makes you depressed? What a surprise.” It was harsh, but maybe he was afraid Everett might grow too soft to it. That he’d abandon him too for better things, Cade had always only been a step along the way to people’s various destinations, Everett was departing too. “I can’t imagine they’re any fun there, and no offense, I don’t think those tributes have a great shot. I don’t get why you’d take this on.”

[cadebentley-archived]

everettlance​:

Everett moved carefully as he stepped out of the outfit, not wanting to mess it up, even if Cade wasn’t attached to it. “No,” he said, “I mean, not as far as I know. I hope not anyway. It’s fine there, but Two’s home.” He left it unsaid that he didn’t want to move somewhere Cade wouldn’t follow.

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“Good,” Cade breathed out, leaning back in his chair.  “Because I don’t think I’d follow your ass to Thirteen. I’d bother you just about anywhere else, but I draw the line at joining the mole people.”

[cadebentley-archived]

everettlance​:

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“You don’t doom them because of it,” Everett said, “you’re fighting for them. I mean, that’s what sponsoring is, too, in a way. It’s helping the tributes, and most people just watch from their homes.” He didn’t know if the point of him was to help tributes, though, or if he wanted that to be the point. It felt prescribed for him, not chosen by him.

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“Maybe.” He’d been in that role, though a casual viewer with no real stakes and too much money to blow. It was a silly game to him, not real, and he doubted there was much to be admired in most of the sponsors either. They weren’t doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.  He waved for Everett to get out of the outfit, overwhelmed by all of it. He’d have to stoop and ask for Clem’s help, again, if this was going to work. “Are they gonna make you move to Thirteen?” It was a change of subject, but something he’d been stressed about since his move to the team was made official nonetheless.

[cadebentley-archived]

auri-cartwright​:

“I figured,” she answered Cade. “But I need to know it’s not going to happen again.” Whether it was an accident or not was mostly irrelevant. She wanted to believe Cade wouldn’t have missed Harley’s launch on purpose, but she also needed to be able to trust him to be reliable. “It’s not fair to the tributes,” Auri concluded, She didn’t want to berate him about it; she wasn’t his boss or his mother. “They always do,” she agreed easily, because it was true, Cade always did manage to present something nice. “I guess, that’s the part I shouldn’t worry about.”

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He swallowed hard, thinking about the tangled fabric in his studio upstairs, the one that was being eaten alive by the machine (a prototype, he was telling himself, not the real one yet). He could sortof envision something decent, but without Clementine’s help, he was useless. “Look, I’m really, really trying. I know you have no reason to believe me, but I am, okay? I’m not interested in sending someone to their deaths over a terrible outfit.” Although interested and actually doing so anyways were two different things.

[cadebentley-archived]

everettlance​:

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“It’s not been so bad,” he said, looking for some reassurance that in fact living with him wasn’t the major reason why Cade was upset. Of course he knew logically that it wasn’t, but there was still something nagging in the back of his mind, knowing that he had feelings for Cade that were increasingly real. Despite knowing the worst things about him, despite showing him the worst of himself.

“Yes, that’s an easy one,” he answered, “the point of me existing was to die in the Quell. Probably makes it easier for me than for you, though, to know that there really is no point for me. Maybe there is for you.”

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“That’s not the point of you,” he scoffed, because the notion was ridiculous to him. Maybe that was the whole idea of, he didn’t know, growing him in a test tube or something, but to win felt... a little larger, right? Like higher-purpose larger? Did Cade even believe in that stuff? “You’re like. Helping tributes and stuff. I just put them in ugly, badly built outfits and, hell, maybe doom them because of it.”

[cadebentley-archived]

everettlance​:

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“Oh, please, the cafeteria would take anyone,” Everett said dismissively, though privately he didn’t think Cade would last more than 15 minutes in a service job like that. He tilted his head a bit. “Well, you’re not really squatting,” he said. “I mean it’s kind of… just your place now, too, right?” That was how he’d been thinking of it, though he’d never confirmed as much nor said it aloud.

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“I said I was gonna crash on your couch for a few weeks and now it’s been a year. That’s pretty low.” He’d tried hard to repay Everett where he could, but even his stylist money went right back into attempting to give him some meager contribution where it wasn’t being dumped into the legal fees that had mounted against him in the fallout of the company. He shook his head, closing his eyes. “Ever wonder what the fucking point in you ever existing was?” he asked then, a little quieter. Sometimes he wondered if he had anything to offer anyone.

[cadebentley-archived]

everettlance​:

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Everett hadn’t expected the tears that were forming, and he had no goddamn idea what to do about them. He’d never been great with people crying, nor all that good at coming up with reassuring or comforting things to say. But with Cade, he found that more so than having a duty to help him, he wanted to help him. “Well — maybe you can try some different stuff,” he said, “that’s kind of what everyone has to do, right?” Everett himself had never been able to choose a job. He’d been set to be a Peacekeeper, then a mentor, now a trainer, and it was only this last one that he’d semi-chosen for himself.

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“Like what? I don’t even think the cafeteria will have me.” He sniffled, then pushed a hand through his hair. “And I don’t want to, you know, squat at your place for forever.” Not that Everett had made moves to kick him out or Cade made any moves to leave.

[cadebentley-archived]

everettlance​:

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His heart dropped a bit because he didn’t know what exactly that meant. He liked having Cade around during the Games; it was always a hard time and Cade made it a little easier to get through. He tried not to show that, though, his disappointment, and instead said, “Well, if you want, but what else would you do?” This was Cade’s only job.

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“I don’t know.” The hopelessness crept into his voice, and he dropped his hands to his lap, staring at them. He had no real skills, he wasn’t particularly smart, he’d lost any opportunities he might have had when he signed half of Bentley Industries to Selene. He didn’t even know what hobbies he might like, they used to be partying and betting on the Games.  Did he even know who he was? Had he ever been a real person? “I don’t know,” he said again, biting back tears. “I guess I’m not actually good at anything, all I’ve ever been is a fraud. How pathetic is that?”

[cadebentley-archived]

everettlance​:

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“Is it?” He looked down at it, then at the mirror, then at Cade. “Maybe I’m just not selling it well. Maybe it’ll look better on your tribute!” But he suspected Cade was right, it was bad awful. And there was a lot on the line here.

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Everett’s reassurances were kind, sweet, even. Cade knew, though, that they weren’t anything but kindness. He set his head down in his hands, rubbing at his temples. “Fuck.”

He’d gotten better, sure, since everything had gone to shit. But he still wasn’t good, and he knew full well he couldn’t compete around here without significant help. This was never his calling to begin with, when he’d had money it had been an easy way to boast connections to the Games and get in on the fun. Now everything about that had turned on its head, including his view of the Games. “I think I have to quit.” It came with no joy, only shame and heaviness. He’d tried so, so hard, but how could he pray to keep up when the other stylists had worked their whole lives for this? If anything, he was being just another leech in another aspect of his life, taking space away from someone who really deserved it and mooching off of kindness he didn’t deserve.