"Are...are you a hallucination?" [invitation only]

[Louis de Saint-Just]

It was nearly midnight when Basil Dixon awoke in the relative safety of his home. Refreshed, and fully ready to deal with insubordinate subordinates, he dressed quickly, and slipped out before his caniving feline could catch up to him.

It was only then, of course, that he realized that he hadn't yet eaten this fine night.

After a quick (one hour) walk to the nearest diner, Basil's stomach had received its breakfast, and he felt even more prepared for the dreadful meeting that was surely to be had, as he had downed at least one cup of coffee, if not two.

It took him another quick (one hour) walk to backtrack his way to Sunrise Court, where the sun was most definitely not shining on this slightly windy and chilly night.

The moon, however, cast a dreary pallor upon the clouds that surrounded it, and Basil found it nearly impossible to find even a single star in the sky.
This depressed him slightly, but only succeeded on taking the edge off of the knife of confused emotions that had almost prevented him from sleeping. Luckily for him, he had taken a sleeping pill in order to drop off, so that he could have enough energy for the yelling and fainting match that was sure to ensue.

He stopped himself in the shadows of the streetlight, before stepping into the incandescent circle of light. The light made him slightly angry, which hardened his resolve, and allowed him to take the last few steps onto the miniscule porch.

He hesitated for a moment, his hand frozen in place above the wood of the door.

It took him a couple of deep breaths to work up even more resolve, now that the shadows were telling him not to knock on the door.

Caden's a nice boy. He repaints my shutters all of the time, when they're chipping. I've seen him take pictures of us too; it makes us pleased.

Aw, but Basil, he never slams us shut. Do be kind to him and let him sleep.

Pleeeease, he'll faint again, and then he'll give us more bruises.

Basil was confused for a moment before he realized that the shadows in the floor cracks were speaking to him, and he rapped sharply on the door. "Floors can't bruise, you wimps," he muttered darkly, shoving his hands into his pockets and kindly (rudely) telling the shadows to keep to themselves, please.

And so he waited for the occupant of the house to come already. He would not hesitate to ring the doorbell.

[/center]

[Maximilien Robespierre]

The knock resounded through an otherwise placid dream, and Caden, always ill-suited to sleeping on sofas, fell gracelessly onto the floor with a thud. He blinked at the thick darkness, sat up, and promptly hit his head on the coffee table. "Owfuck." He carefully stood, avoiding any other lurking pieces of furniture. Glancing at the luminous dial of a digital clock on a side table, he realized that it was two AM and he ought to make his way to his real bed.

By the time he stumbled blearily into the main hallway and glanced at the door, it seemed far too surreal that anyone would be at his door at that hour. The knock had likely just been part of his dream. Still, he should probably at least check the front door.

He walked up and peered out. He did a double take, and then he flung the door open. The cool air stung his face, pulling him out of his sleepy daze. He stared at the man on his porch. He stepped back, opened the door to let him in, and said, "Do you know what time it is?"

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Basil glared, and held up a menacing finger. "Don't you go changing the subject, boy," he growled, as he sidestepped into Caden's home. The moment he was inside, he sneezed. He didn't sneeze once, or twice, but he sneezed four times in succession before he managed to get a hold of his nose.

As his eyes watered (which hardly made for a threatening face), he stuck a hand into a hidden pocket inside his coat, and pulled out a small bottle of pills. It was, of course, his allergy medication, which he had regretfully forgotten to take. Every particle of dust has its own shadow, regardless of how small that shadow is, and every dust shadow and dust piece itself was attacking his sinuses. He skillfully managed to get the child-locked cap off, and took three of the small blue things quickly. "Dammit, Caden," he said, his nose still plugged as he waited for the five minutes the pills would use to take effect to be over. Of course, since his nose was plugged, his 'n's and 'm's didn't sound quite right, but he managed to get the idea of the sentence across (hopefully).

"Ob course I dow wud dibe id is." (Of course I know what time it is.) "Do 'ou dink I'b ad idiod?" (Do you think I'm an idiot?) "Well, I'b dot." (Well, I'm not.)

As a test, he released his nose, and (from another hidden pocket inside his coat) whipped out a Kleenex with which he proceeded to blow his nose. Kleenexes, of course, often tried to attack his sinuses too, but with the medicine already working on fooling his senses, it thankfully did not.

There was a Ziploc bag in his other pocket, into which he placed the Kleenex, before resuming his glare. Of course nobody was allergic enough to have filters galore in their house, but one at least would be nice. "Did you know what time it was when you...when you..." He huffed, and folded his arms across his chest. "You know very well what you did."

[Maximilien Robespierre]

Biting his lip to stop himself laughing, Caden shut the door behind Basil. "I'm sorry. Are you going to be okay? Should I make you some tea or, er, something?" He chewed on the pad of his thumb. Had Basil ever had a fit like this before? And where was Benjamin? Oh, for the love of God, had Basil left him at home? Had the man gone mad? Oh, fuck, if he were there to declare some sort of awkward passionate love that would be—

" 'Course you're not an idiot, Basil," he said. "Come on." He steered Basil toward the kitchen at the back of the house. "I'll make you a cup of tea or something." What the hell is he allergic to? Me? For fuck's sake, he'd best not be allergic to the jade plant. I'm not giving him a plant that makes him sneeze. He'll ignore it, and poor Greg doesn't deserve that. He smiled affectionately at the thought of the thriving jade plant. At first, he'd worried that the little thing wasn't even going to survive, it'd been so poorly treated at the nursery, but it had done unexpectedly well with a little fertilizer and a lot of sunlight. It was sad to see him go, but Basil would give him a good home. Well, at least Benjamin would get a good snack.

Fucking cats.

He hoped that Basil had enough tissues for the evening— morning— visit because he wasn't sure if he had ever bought any. He knew he hadn't done since the last time he'd been coughing up his lungs after a bad bout of flu, but that had been a good six months before, and goodness knew he might've actually cleaned the bathroom cabinets since then. And there might have been horsemen riding and seas of blood and rains of fish, but it just wasn't very likely.

"I have no idea what time it was when I kissed you. I must have forgotten to check my watch." It was three forty-seven in the afternoon.

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Basil was slightly taken aback. What? Preposterous. Caden didn't remember the time that he had kissed Basil? Surely it hadn't been just some run-of-the-mill kiss. No, no, this was Basil he had been kissing, hadn't it?

Wait, what was Basil thinking? And why was he thinking in third person? The sneezing must have knocked some of his brain cells out of wack. Yes. Yes, that had to be the only possible explanation for such acrazed thoughts. And so, in a little bit of a daze at the audacity of his inner mind, Basil came to the realization that he was walking towards Caden's kitchen.

"Dust," he finally said, clearing his throat, and trying to get his mind back into a semblance of normalcy. "I'm allergic to dust, and you have a lot of it around here. It's all of the books. And the floor. And the walls. You know, it wouldn't hurt you to buy an air filtration system."

Basil shook his head in disapproval. "Anyways. I've taken three anti-allergy pills, and should be good for about a half-hour. If I'm still here around then, remind me to take some more, lest I start to sneeze again."

He cleared his throat, when they had arrived in the kitchen. "Well, anyways. About the...the...kiss," he said, wrinkling his nose as he thought about it. "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?"

That was, as he had decided, the best response. And he had taken the entire afternoon to decide.

[Maximilien Robespierre]

It was alarming at first that he couldn't feel Basil's emotion, but as he walked further down the hallway, he could feel it becoming stronger until the nagging feeling formed into— anger? No, not anger, perhaps worry. It was oddly elusive, slipping away from him when he finally got hold of it. It shimmered and oscillated, and he knew what he would have said it was had it been anyone but Basil.

Caden walked through to the kitchen, trying to gather cohesive thoughts (rather than, "IT WAS MY PERVERSE WAY OF GETTING REVENGE ON THE WOMAN YOU HIRED WITHOUT CONSULTING ME," which sounded pompous and egocentric, even to him). "Would you like chamomile?" he asked as he flicked on the electric kettle. "Or mint? I hear mint's good for clearing the sinuses. I'm not sure if I've got any, though." He began to chatter endlessly, waiting for Basil to either flee the house or sit the hell down and wait for the tea. Swinging open a cabinet door, he pulled out a large mug. He routed through the tea-and-coffee drawer, finding a spare bag of peppermint sitting about. He smelled it, winced and dropped it into the cup. The kettle, by then whistling, he turned off, and he poured enough water into the cup that, without the tea bag, it wouldn't look too empty. "Do you take sugar?" he asked idly. He set a sugar bowl that never emptied (Caden had gotten too lazy to retrieve it long before) and the mug of steeping tea down on the table in the center of the room.

He sat himself down at the opposite side of the table. "Sit down," he said.

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Basil's gaze, during the walk down the hall, was transforming from a slightly confused and angry glare to a full-out glare (confusion not included). Tea was such a trivial matter that he almost didn't sit at the table: he wasn't here to drink warm things and chat about the latest knitting project that he had in mind. No, he was here to demand an explanation from Caden, but apparently, Caden was deciding that now was tea-time.

Basil was not happy with this arrangement.
Relinquishing his iron grip of power was not something that he often enjoyed doing. He liked having power over people, but inside Caden's house, Caden was the boss.

Damn. Coming here was most likely not the best decision he had ever made concerning his life.
He noted Caden's comment about him sitting down, and decided to do so as he adopted a sort of glowering expression on his face. It was almost a cross between a glare, and a sulk.

"I do not take sugar," he snapped, the glower on his face leaning more towards the frowning side of things. He noticed that the tea was in the middle of the table, and whether that had been intentional or not he could not fathom. Nor could he manage to conjure up a fathoming thought as to what it could possibly mean, were it an intentional move. Sometimes humans were too hard to decipher.

"So," he said, after what he felt was a slightly uncomfortable moment of silence. "That's...I mean, we're...As you can see, I...Just...Just damnit all, Caden, why'd you have to do it?"
There was no end to the awkwardness that surrounded this subject, and as if to diffuse that, Basil sourly reached out and took the tea in order to slide it closer to him. He needed something to drink so that he wouldn't have to concentrate on keeping up the glare (which was actually a very tiring thing, thank you very much), and if it was going to be peppermint tea, then so be it.

[Maximilien Robespierre]

He coughed softly. "You really should add sugar to it, sir," he murmured. "It's pretty strong without it." He considered reaching over and dumping a spoonful in to save Basil from himself, but honestly, if the man was going to be that stoic, so be it. He wasn't going to waste his time being motherly because Basil would perceive it as some perverse attempt at endearing himself to him, and he didn't need to put sugar in his fucking tea to do that because they were friends, damn it, even if it was a strange friendship.

He traced a pattern on the glossy wood with the circle of water the tea mug had left on the table, careful not to meet Basil's glare. What the hell was he supposed to say? I did it because I wanted to get revenge on Daphne who I hate for no good reason, except that I suspect she has a ridiculous crush on you and I don't want you to have a happy relationship with someone else because that'd interfere with the fucked-up, bizarre half-friendship that we have that involves me doing your bidding and you tolerating me. Also, she made me faint and I don't think you gave a flying fuck and I've been working for you for two whole fucking years as your goddam slave who comes running at your every fucking whim, and do you know what?

I hate this job.

"I— well—" No matter what he said, it would still be the wrong answer. I kissed you because I don't want you to be happy. "There's no right answer to this question, is there?" he said. He glanced up at Basil. This is a puzzle for you, isn't it? You're trying to put all the little pieces together, but you're missing the big hulking one in the middle and you're trying to fit a different one in, instead, but the idea of one of your semi-human underlings being capable of emotions, let alone love, just doesn't fit in your mind, does it? You sad fuck. If I were going to fall in love with someone, it would be someone like you.

"Would you like me to resign, sir?"

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Basil hesitated a moment before just taking the tea. He didn't need sugar. He was sour, bitter old Basil, and sour, bitter old Basil wanted to drink his tea without any sugar. So he did. He managed to not make a complete fool of himself by downing the cup's contents in a show of manly drinking. Tea was meant to be sipped, whether by men or women, and he followed that rule. However, he did not extend his pinkie even though his sister had oft tried to drill that particular manner into him.

Once he had had a few healthy and odd-tasting sips, he put the cup back on the table, and proceeded to stare at Caden. This reaction, of course, was prompted by Caden's inquiry about resignation, which would have (had Basil still been drinking the tea at the time) caused something of a choking match between Basil's lungs and the drink.

What exactly was he supposed to say in response to something like that? Of course not, you dunce, you're my slave. You're supposed to be compliant, and not lash out in fits of kissing, and take pictures, and help me solve crimes. Did Watson kiss Sherlock Holmes? Not out in front of people, at least. Wait just a minute. That thought didn't mean that he wanted Caden to kiss him in private, did it? The implications were dire, and causing Basil's already uncomfortable stomach to churn a bit more.

He hoped that he didn't seem green, as he proceeded to fold his arms across his chest, unfold them, shift his chair a bit in what direction he couldn't fathom, and of course, there was the ever famous reaching for the tea, and deciding that he didn't want to try that again just yet, thank you very much.

He decided to go for the taken-aback-and-slightly-frightened look, as he managed to enunciate a "What?". It wasn't quite sufficient as a response, and he followed it up with a clever clearing of his throat. "I mean...about...well, uh, what??"

[Maximilien Robespierre]

"I said, 'Would you like me to resign, sir?' " he repeated placidly. "I'll understand. Really, I will." Caden stared fixedly at his lap, knowing he would never forgive Basil if he fired him, even if it meant that he would be blissfully free from the man and his veritable aura of unhappiness. He was attached to the bastard and he didn't want to have to let go just because he had done something rash. "Look, I— I got you some things to show that I was sorry, but I imagine they'll serve just as well as a parting gift. I'll write up my resignation in the morning. You don't have to be so fucking forlorn about it."

That was the trouble about feeling someone else's emotions: they couldn't pretend to care. Of course, there was also the trouble of Caden bending them to what he wanted &mash;or did not want— them to be feeling. Between the look on Basil's face and the gentle mix of cast-off irritation, confusion and anger, he was only glad that his range was not wide enough to cover revulsion because he wasn't quite prepared to feel someone hating him that intensely.

He stood and made a beeline for the den where the copy of The Maltese Falcon was keeping the jade plant company. Basil's emotions were fainter from there, and Caden valiantly tried to recoup. He stared at the book and the plant sitting on the glass coffee table. He gave them a nasty look, as though they were pressuring him to do something he didn't want to do, walked over to one of his bookshelves, and removed a very battered, very well-read, very old copy of Plato's Phaedrus. He hadn't any use for it anyway.

Scooping up the two books and the plant, he began the suddenly much longer walk back to the kitchen. He put the jade plant on the table between them and set the books down in front of him. He winced at the intensity of Basil's emotions and finally dared to look up at him again.

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Basil was, perhaps for the fifth time in his life, absolutely speechless.
One of the times, of course, was when his mother had told him about his powers. That time had been a good time to be speechless: once he had gotten over the life-changing 'I'm not actually human?' business, he'd been fine with it.
The second time was when his sister decided to shun the family's tradition of taking Math in university, and going into the culinary arts. That time had been a confusingly speechless time, and he vaguely remembered dropping his calculator to the floor, and not picking it up for hours.
The third time was when his nasty ex-girlfriend had told him that he was too smart for his own good. Oh, that memory brought up surges of anger, which he tried to squelch by bringing up the last thought, which produced sadness. The fourth time was when Thomas Ipson had told him that since he had no living relatives, Basil was going to be his heir, and collect truckloads of money. Most of them went towards building the detective agency, and his house, but that had been a rather depressing day still, since Thomas had died later that evening.

And now, the fifth time, a time when saying something would probably be useful towards keeping his employee, he couldn't find any words. He just silently watched Caden bring him two books, and a jade plant. He wasn't sure what to do: whether to stifle all of his emotions, or pick through the mess of them and...
Empaths were so difficult to deal with.

Basil decided to lean forward and pick up The Maltese Falcon, in slightly shaking fingers, before he leaned back in his chair, the emotions playing across his face indecipherable, even to him. The book was in surprisingly good condition, and he cradled it in his lap as if it were something precious. It gave him something to look at, at least, so that he didn't have to maintain eye contact.

After a while, though, he looked off to the side, before gingerly putting the book back on top of the other one.

He could feel Caden's gaze burning into the side of his head, and he finally gathered up the courage to sigh, and turn his eyes around to meet Caden's.

"I never said you could resign," he snapped, anger a comfortable and familiar emotion. He tried to make it a quiet sort of anger though, because Caden fainting all over the place was not something he was prepared to deal with at the moment. "I expect you to be in my office tomorrow, as per usual, at seven o'clock sharp."

He paused for a moment, before gesturing towards the plant. "What's its name? And don't give me any of that snidely innocent bullshit about you not knowing. I know you talk to your plants, which means that you name them too. Spit it out."

[Maximilien Robespierre]

Caden could not stop himself from smiling when Basil picked up The Maltese Falcon. He was holding in almost reverentially, and Caden congratulated himself on picking something that Basil would actually like. "I thought you might like it," he said as Basil studiously ignored him. "I felt bad snatching my copy back like I did." Hell, was that not part of the reason he had gone into the office in the first place? To get the book back and— and to ask him about it. Where in the world had he found Caden's copy?

He flushed at Basil's accusation that he talked to his plants. Sure, it was true, but he liked to imagine that no one else knew or cared to notice. "Greg," he said. "I was pruning him while watching House&mdash" At three in the morning after having worked for forty-eight hours because I couldn't sleep my sleep schedule was that fucked up. "—and it just sort of stuck. He's a jade plant. I think he'll do all right, even if you ignore him a bit. He's a succulent; they retain water," Caden added brightly.

Pushing the plant toward Basil, he picked up The Maltese Falcon and set it next to the plant, saying bluntly, "I figured you'd want to finish it." It was suddenly vitally important that he give Basil Plato's Phaedrus because that, he realized, was the only way to explain it. What he'd done.

The kiss.

"There's a passage from this book that I want you to read. It's about the charioteer. You see, there is a white and a black horse attached to his chariot, and the charioteer must guide them. The white horse represents rationality and morality—" Caden scraped to remember what he could of his classical lit. class. It was half a miracle that he'd even kept the book; he had never had a great attachment to that class or the little book. "—but the black horse, the black horse is passion and rashness and irrationality." He gave Basil a half-hearted smile.

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Basil's eyebrow was quirked, and he reached a hand over to touch one of the plant's leaves, before he withdrew his fingers, and entwined them with the fingers of his other hand. "Succulent," he muttered, and then nodded. "That's good, I suppose. I forget to water them sometimes.
"And Greg, was it?"

He sighed. "I knew you couldn't find a plant and not name it." With a shake of his head, he met Caden's eyes again, noticing the effort put into the smile. "Well," he said, trying to find the right word among the others in his vocabulary. He eventually gave up searching, and simply said "I'm sure I'll get to reading it. Unless you want me to read it right now, in which case, you're going to have to find it for -" he cut himself off as he started, the strangest expression on his face.

For a moment, he sat there, stock-still, before it occured to him that the strange feeling he was getting (somewhere in the vicinity of the left pocket of his pants) was his phone, ringing. It was ringing silently, and it was vibrating, which would explain everything.

He held up one long finger, and dug it out of his pocket, a frown on his face. Nobody liked him, which meant that they never called his cellphone, unless there was...

"Hello? Basil Dixon here," he said, leaning back in the chair, and reaching out absent-mindedly for the cup of peppermint tea which he had yet to finish. "Well, obviously," he said, rolling his eyes as he drank the last of the tea, and then placed the cup on the table. "I get that. Look, just tell me where to go, alright? I know, I know you expected me to not be awake, but I'm very...took you long enough. I'll be there," he muttered, and snapped his phone shut. He stood up then, reaching out to scoop up the books, and Greg.

He looked up at Caden then, brows furrowed as his eyes were concentrating on what he had just heard. "Come on, and bring your camera and whatever you need to operate it in the dark. They found another body," he said, back in control of himself.

[Maximilien Robespierre]

Caden bristled at the idea of Basil not watering his plant, but Greg was his now, and Caden would have to learn to let go. He gave the poor plant a sympathetic look and made a mental note to give it a good pat before Basil left. It would miss him, he suspected, especially if Benjamin decided to take a shine to it (or, perhaps worse yet, not take a shine to it at all). He wondered if a few packets of plant fertilizer wouldn't have gone amiss. Indeed, the fate of Greg was unlikely to be a happy one.

Groaning inwardly, Caden was about to explain that, no, he didn't need to read it, and did he have to be completely and utterly clueless all the time? when Basil's face slackened and Caden drew an emotion blank. He cocked his head and waited for Basil to recover from what he could only guess was a sudden absent seizure or possibly a sudden trip into the shadow world in his head. What the hell, Basil? After a moment, the man appeared to recover —though, as Caden reminded himself, Basil could never recover from being terminally himself— and produced his phone from somewhere in the area of his trousers.

Caden decided not to comment.

He listened patiently to Basil's conversation, getting nothing out of it, until he finished and filled him in. Wrinkling his nose, Caden stood, ignoring the fact that Basil's interrogation had rapidly turned into a full-on criminal investigation and someone was going to get fuck-all sleep that night. That someone, as usual, was him. He wondered if Basil had even considered waking the rest of his team yet. Lucky bastards. He nodded at Basil and disappeared into the black hole that was his studio.

Despite the outward appearance of complete and utter disaster, it was actually quite neatly organized into piles of miniature disasters whose contents he knew like the palm of his hand. He fished out his camera, a pair of lenses and assorted doodads in less than a minute, but he couldn't for the life of him find his flashlight. After disassembling a slew of piles and losing himself at least three times, he emerged unscathed, toting his photography equipment. He dumped this on the table and began rummaging around the kitchen area, looking for his flashlight.

Opening the freezer, he pulled out the flashlight (what it was doing there, he really could not remember, but he must have had a good reason) and a box of popsicles. "Grape or cherry?" he asked Basil. "I think I've eaten all the lime."

[Louis de Saint-Just]

Basil frowned, immediately stopping the slight hurry that he had been in. Popsicles were always serious business, after all.

This was a decision that he would have to make...all on his own.

Grape, on the one hand, was delicious like no other popsicle could fathom. It was sweet, and refreshing, all at the same time. It, however, stained his tongue an awful shade, and often people were concerned about his health. One woman had once commented on it...while the popsicle had been in his hand. Although, she had been a complete idiot, so did that really influence his decision on grape?
Cherry, on the other hand, gave him normal, but delicious-looking lips (staining them red was never bad, although it was sometimes a contrast to the stark paleness of his face), and did in fact have an awfully delightful tang to it.

Basil managed to get the books into his left hand (and he held Greg in between his arm and his stomach - rock hard abs indeed) just as an intense look of concentration came over his face. Monstrous purple tongue and possibly lips, or delectable lips that looked almost normal but that would surely taste of cherry?

Without further hesitation, he snatched the grape, and shook it at Caden, much as a teacher would shake her finger in a disapproving manner at a student. "We've got no time to lose, Caden. The smarmy bastard has struck again, and I don't want any more casualities."