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Cesare's last attempt to catch Steve, like all the others, had not gone well. He sits in the driver's seat, brooding and thinking his violent clown thoughts, slumped bonelessly over the dashboard, as the Zomburger crew takes the brief lull in business as an opportunity to inanely chatter about whatever insipid thing fetal humans found so captivating these days. The way they behaved, they seemed so young; he had been surprised to learn they'd even reached double digits yet. He certainly didn't act that way at their age, already employed as he was for over a decade as an apprentice to a harsh, unforgiving carpenter, who would punish him by not letting him eat for a week whenever his hand slipped while using the awl and, pushing past the hardened calluses of his hands, gouged himself, blood stains making a month's worth of handiwork at an exorbitant hunk of oak unsellable.
He certainly hadn't shed a tear when that prick died, had caught himself smiling even, as he'd entered the shop one morning and found the old miser slumped over his crafting table, dead as a doornail, making the shop his. Most of the larger wooden items that had been left behind ended up being whittled down into all manner of painted characters, marionettes, which Cesare had only started doing while thinking of one of his master's repeat clients who had caught his eye- an older man who was part of a traveling theater troupe which would commission set pieces on occasion, whenever they rolled into town. Whatever reason he started it for in the first place, he realized he enjoyed doing it now, whether for the craft itself or simply because it gave him an excuse to destroy the things his old master had worked so hard to create, he wasn't exactly sure.
He's jealous of the old bastard now, though, who he's sure is resting peacefully six feet under next to his old doting wife and spiraling legions children, while Cesare is still stuck up here babysitting a trio of kindergarteners.
Why is he thinking of this? Cesare scolds himself internally; the past was the past, it didn't matter anymore! He scrubs at his face and scalp fitfully with his knuckles, realizing belatedly he should be taking it easy if he wants to keep anymore of his dead hair, scowling at a few strands that have been knocked free by his lack of care who stare accusingly up at him from the dashboard. It won't grow back, after all. Nothing will. He isn't sure if it's impossible for upper management to get his body into a working order more similar to his living state, or if they were just being stingy with the revitalizing magic he depends on to live. Well. Exist.
God, he really was in a bad mood, wasn't he, to be letting himself ruminate on his own sorry state again. Usually when he's like this, and god knows its been happening a lot lately, one of the kids would peek their heads around the door into the cab and ask how he was. After a few needling attempts at getting him to talk he would bark at them. He knows their hearts are in the right place, but he doesn't want to talk to any of them. They're children.
His last attempt at catching Steve had gone abysmally bad.
He doesn't even want to think of it, but he can't stop- and then, any time he even tries to stop, he's just bombarded by all his woe-is-me thoughts again. Being as old as he is, he's had a lot of time to think. Being a watcher was like fishing, except he couldn't even use it as an excuse to get drunk and pass the time. Most of the time, that was all it was. Just thinking, and waiting. Having one thought branch out and connect to another in a way he never thought possible, to reveal something about himself to make himself miserable in some new sick way. When he agreed to what he did, he couldn't have known that death would be better. At least that way, the thinking would have stopped.
Catching Steve made nailing jello to a tree while herding a pack of cats look easy. Cats, he thinks, and grimaces. Why did his most recent target have to be so goddamn whimsical? So smug? Why did he have to be so unbothered by the fact that he had a ruthless stalker who dedicated every moment of his life- EXISTENCE- for the past decade to thinking of ways to do him harm, to fatally incapacitate him once and for all.
It wasn't even hunting at this point, it was a total crap shoot- just trying to find out what would even work on Steve. Nets didn't work, the bastard was too strong and fast. One time he'd burroughed down *through concrete* to get out of a box trap he'd set for him. He'd gnawed his way out of a lasso. Attempts with a shock prod earned him a few giggles. Bullets didn't work, he dodged them. Cesare was sure that a larger projectile would do the trick, spent countless nights hunched over various blueprints and schematics redesigning the layout of the truck to have a cannon installed, but of course not. His most recent attempt with the harpoon gun had been one in a long line of failures- he'd caught him dead on, right in the back, and had watched in horror, lamenting every passing millisecond as the deadly sharp tip had *bounced* off of Steve's rear end with a frankly insulting honk and rebounded to lodge itself decidedly in Cesare's chest, right where his heart would be if it hadn't sagged downwards over the years, the connective tissue which once held it in place having grown brittle and disintegrating with disuse.
Steve has the decency to look over his shoulder at him with mild confusion, at the half meter of metal jutting from his pectoral as the rest trails out of his back. Cesare lost it at that, running at him with an unhinged scream tearing its way out of his throat, barrelling into him and knocking him down, pummeling any part of him he could reach with his fists, clawing at his face with his nails and feeling them peel dangerously back from their beds with the effort. He hasn't lost his temper like that in a while, and frankly it was embarrassing, especially with the way Steve only looked up at him with mild irritation as he absolutely lost his mind above him.
He'd reached up with intent to tear out a handful of Steve's hair, his stupid too-small beanie falling backwards off his giant head into the dirt as his fist tugged forward at a clump of his hair, his fingernails brushing against something he doesn't register until he's seeing it himself and he can't believe it. Revealed where he's parted Steve's wild thin hair a few inches behind his right temple, he sees *it*, flattened down against his scalp until it pops back up again, seemingly in response to the sudden lull in blows as Cesare levels it with a thousand yard stare. There, perched on top of Steve's head, pink on the inside but otherwise the same color as his hair, sits a small, round cat ear. It flicks lightly to one side as Cesare's hand grips impossible tighter at the wad of hair in its grasp.
"You're a cat," Cesare can feel the words just bursting to get out of his mouth, as inane and obvious as they are, but they don't get the chance. The force with which Steve shoves him off of himself results in him being knocked onto his own back, a crack sounding from somewhere in his body that he's sure will make itself known in the following weeks. He tries to stand, to show Steve that he's not done with him yet, only to realize that the beam through his chest has rooted itself deep into the hard dirt below him, pinning him like a bug to a cork board. He hears Steve scampering away without so little as a word, and though he isn't sure if he'd prefer a taunt or an apology, he knows he doesn't prefer this- the silence, the absolute nothingness he gets from Steve, after everything he does for him.
In a moment he's able to calculate the sheer impossibility of freeing himself in time to catch up with Steve- the rope tethering the harpoon to the gun means that even if he pulls himself up off of it, he'll still be stuck with a rope laced through his chest. He'd either have to gnaw his way through the rope or feed the metal projectile back through the hole its made in his shoulder- which is going to be even more of a pain since it's barbed on the end to make escaping this exact situation near impossible. Being steel, there's no way he's snapping the thing in half. He quickly douses any thought he has of calling one of his employees to help him- that's the last thing he needs, to risk being found out more than he already has. There'd be no clearer giveaway that he wasn't human. He's trapped. Trapped once again by his own ingenious plan spectacularly failing and backfiring. Trapped by Steve. Trapped by upper management. Trapped by his own hubris in thinking he could make it out of life alive, or at least something like it.
Cesare screams again, a ferine wall of sound that escapes from his body in two pieces, one from his throat and the other whistling out of the hole in his lung like a balloon run through with a pencil. He can feel the dew from the leaves beneath him seeping coldly up against the skin of his back as he thrashes futilely in the dirt, fists beating against a ground that has refused to swallow him now and forever. It's dark by the time he's managed to tire himself out, morning breaking just as he's managed to wrestle himself free.
Cesare stares balefully into his own eyes, reflected dimly back at him from the windshield like a ghost.
What even was Steve? Cesare thinks to himself miserably. A cat demon? Some rare form of male bakeneko? Learning something like this should give him some advantage, bring some new weakness to light, but instead, from the very beginning, all he's getting are mixed signals. Nothing he's ever encountered before, let alone some lowly cat demon, has ever been this powerful. He thunks his forehead over and over against the rim of the steering wheel, careful to avoid the horn this time.
The conversation from the trio dribbles in through the crack in the door, interrupting his cycle of rumination before it can reset itself.
"That's so cute!" Conrad's deep voice can be heard gushing happily, probably in response to something Frances is showing him on her phone, "He's sitting up, but he still looks so sleepy."
"I don't think he's sleepy, Conrad. He looks like he's just slow blinking," Doctor's voice cuts in, "They do that as a way to say 'hi'.
"The stray by my house always does that whenever Sharon is about to attack him," Frances pipes up, "It's to show that they're being friendly, like 'I come in peace!'"
"Wow, I didn't know they have their own language and everything," Conrad laughs, "Cats really are aliens."
Cesare perks up from where he's been slumped over the dashboard. He squirms in the driver's seat until he's seated facing the door, which he then strains to shove open with a bat of his hand.
"Frances, hypothetical!" Cesare shouts into the truck proper, just as Doctor is mumbling, "Wait, Frances, you named your cat Sharon?"
"If there were two cats who were known to be enemies," Cesare barrels on, head craned to be seen by the trio around the doorframe and the headrest of the driver's seat, "And one cat slowly blinked at the other one, that would probably catch the second cat completely off guard, right? Throw him totally, irrevocably off his game? Make him think they were in some sort of stalemate, maybe... maybe even a truce of some kind. He wouldn't even think to fight back- I mean, it's hard wired into his brain, for God's sake he couldn't help it. A sitting duck. No, no- a goose that begs to have a horn stuck down its elegant throat to make the most succulent of foie gras. He'd never even see it coming!"
There's a brief silence that permeates the interior of the truck after Cesare stops talking. The Zomburger crew has learned to offer padding around anything Cesare might say, never knowing when he's about to pipe up again for round two after a dramatic pause or if he's reached the end of his monologue- only knowing that he'll get pissy and take it out on them for the rest of the day if they step on his momentum.
"I feel like this is referring to something really specific, but I can't figure out what," Frances says dryly, in an attempt to goad Cesare into further explaining himself as he was often fond of doing, but he's either too self-absorbed or too distracted to take the bait.
"Do you have two cats who are fighting?" Conrad asks helpfully.
Cesare gives a sinister laugh under his breath.
"Oh, no, Conrad. Just the one," Cesare says to him, digging something hastily out of the glove box before standing and opening the door to the cab which he tumbles out of to literally hit the ground running as he declares resolutely to the sky and to himself and to anyone else who happens to be around to hear, "Though not for long!"
The three look at each other for a beat after their boss' hasty exit.
"You don't think..." Doctor trails off, eyes dodging to look at Frances and then Conrad.
"Nooo..." Frances draws out, an attempt to be reassuring, though a hint of doubt can be heard peeking through her voice.
"He meant cats in like a jazz way. Boss has said it to me before. He's really old," Conrad explains simply, having already gone back to looking at his phone, a smile lighting up his face as he continues, "Look, it says here cats also slow blink to say "I love you!"
No matter where he is, Cesare can see Steve's location like a homing beacon, a red blip laid over the grey field of his vision which he just has to follow, growing ever larger the closer he gets.
This time, he knows to take out the metaphorical big guns, sneaking up behind Steve while he's ambling through the woods and swinging his hammer in a wide arc to knock him face first into the wide trunk of a nearby tree. Though he flattens into a pancake, his body warping almost comically into a concave shape, he slowly slides to the ground and then regains his rotund form with an audible pop. By the time Steve has flipped over onto his back, propping himself up onto his elbows to get up without so much as a grumble, Cesare has already raced up to him with undead speed and slammed a boot down square into the center of his chest, the force knocking him back onto the ground. Cesare leans over his prone form, one elbow propped casually on his raised knee (in a way he has practiced), his hammer leaning nonchalantly over his opposite shoulder. He smirks down at Steve smugly with his head tilted to one side as Steve blearily squints up at him, before looking him pointedly in the eyes and hitting him with the slow blink.
And then-
Just as he supsected-
Steve doesn't know what hit him.
Steve gasps, feeling the way his chest starts even through the sole of his boot, his eyes going as wide as saucers and then- the cherry on top, Cesare thinks, watching in awe as his grin spreads to colonize more of his face- a bewildered red flush rises to Steve's cheeks, gushing out to color the rest of his face and neck.
Cesare only stares, grinning like a wolf.
This was it.
The final puzzle piece he needed.
He's finally managed to ruffle Steve's stupid, unflappable facade and it's without a doubt the happiest, most proud he's been of his work in several eons. He doesn't fight as Steve pushes him off of him and scrambles backwards. He doesn't need to- he's already accomplished what he set out to today. What he's been working towards for years, really. He's done it; he's found the crack in the wall.
He watches, standing to lean against the tree from where he himself had been knocked back into a pile of leaves, as Steve beats a hasty retreat back into the woods.
Even if it's not a total success, it's the first victory Cesare has had in a long, long time. He could kiss somebody, if only some unfortunate crow flew low enough for him to get his hands on. He could sing the entirety of the HMS Pinafore for only the trees and birds to hear like a Disney Princess, and he just might. He feels like he's just been crowned homecoming queen. If weapons weren't the way to go, then mind games it was.
Cesare wrings his hands together as one knee bounces excitedly underneath him, laughter bubbling unbidden out of his throat as anticipation for the future builds inside of him in a way it hasn't for the better part of a millenia. He's so close. He can practically taste the salt on the Tampa beach air already. Does Tampa even have beaches? He wonders manically, is it landlocked, or is he thinking of Orlando? Is it a dry heat, or should he get product beforehand to stop the humidity from frizzing his hair? God, who cares anyhow? He interrupts himself with a completely unnecessary but euphoric exhale that shudders its way out of his larynx.
He shouts again, but this time instead of being in failure, it's in victory and he means to, and its actually a word this time instead of the hoarse cry of his soul ripping apart inside his body.
"Yes!" His voice peals off into the air, fists thrusted triumphantly over his head.
Besides, Doctor would be able to recommend something to him for his hair. He seems to be a bit of an expert, having bleached his own and then Conrad's after all. He even gave Frances a few inches of green on her locks the one time, before she had to dye them back to black at the end of the summer when she went back to her prestigious private university.
"No past!" Cesare shouts at the top of his undead lungs once more, startling several mourning doves to warble as they fly off of their branch and into the air, "Only future!"
Dislodged by the bird's flight, a rather large pinecone topples from several stories up and smacks him right over the head. This time his shout is a curse, loud and colorful, but even that can't spoil his good mood- not now. He has to get out his blueprints. His hands are just itching to start planning out his newest scheme, the cogs in his mind are turning furiously already, random tidbits of info he's collected about his target whisked this way and that before falling into place like tumblers in a lock.
A few days later, as he unlocks the truck for the morning, Cesare finds a bouquet of flowers on the driver's seat of the Zomburger truck and assumes its from one of the many groupies he's amassed on social media. He rolls his eyes and grits his teeth in abject disgust, until he gets a closer look at the bundle, his prior distaste melting into confusion. They look strange, as if they were made by something- or someone- who only had a narrow grasp on what flowers were as a concept but still quite liked the idea of them. Pink, yellow and blue puffs of color sat amongst a delicate filigree of curling white stems, blooming in odd arrangements of rings and spheres, while others consisted of fizzling wads of fluff resembling cotton candy. They even smell like the stuff, delicate and sugary in a way that reminds him belatedly of a fairground. One even has teeth like a venus fly trap, snapping at his finger when it lingers too close to its maw, though he's sure it isn't one. Bravissimo, Veccio Amico, a small card tucked inside reads in calligraphic script.
Maybe an art project of some sort, left there by Frances? She left her little crafts around every so often- had probably placed it here to remember for some after-work production or other featuring a friend. If that's the case, they're certainly impressive. He even compliments her on them, despite her apparent confusion, as for the first time in a while he's feeling chipper enough to smile in a way that isn't merely baring as many of his teeth as possible in an intimidating display.
Oddly, Frances never asks for them back. They're strange, but he supposes he likes them, as he leaves them in the sun on the dashboard of the truck. He supposes he deserves them as well, if not an Oscar or at least a Primetime Emmy. After all, everyday for the past thousand years, he's been turning out the performance of a lifetime.