pacing the cage

Who: Andrei
Where: His living room
When: Sometime after midnight

Andrei was restless, dangerously so. He was literally pacing around his living room even. And he had been at it for, oh, maybe an hour? Even a man as apathetic to politics as him couldn't help feelings the effects of their surrounding stress. The Syndicate was on edge. The O'Malleys were a has-been name now, to both the delight and ire of Andrei's 'superiors'. He personally had spent quality time with the last of that dying breed, extracting any and all information that could be extracted from an unwilling party: which, it turns out, could be a hell of a lot. And then he had spent other parts of his time creatively disposing of said informats before, in their panic, they did something to weaken the Syndicate further. And any normal day that would've been enough to send him on his happy little way.

But the days had been getting less and less normal. They had been pulling at him: the people who like to be addressed by 'sirs'. The people who fancied there was some chain around his neck they could tug any which way they pleased... And if there was one idea that could really bug him? one thing that made his perpetual smile twitch the way very very little could? it was being bound. restrained. chained. He was a man who loved to use his hands, and even the concept of them being metaphorically tied didn't sit well.

He might not have been so sensitive about the issue had he not spent most of last weekend in handcuffs. But he had, and so he was. It didn't help that They were holding his stint in jail against him, when they were the ones to had sent him to the falling family's establishment where he had been shoved out with hands bound. Oh, Mr. Cheer n' Smiles might've been more than a little sore on that issue. He was already prone to regarding anything related to the incident with irritation: that idiot of a cop who cuffed him, that Babylon whore who was late, the O'Malleys for being so sloppy, the Syndicate for sending him there...

So once certain members of the Syndicate started their games of power? trying to assert to him, remind him where he was in the pecking order? He didn't take to it too kindly. He didn't appreciate being sent on sessions so numerous that even he didn't have the energy for. And he was really starting to hate the constant 'errand boy' runs -- the ones that he was emphatically told were 'talking only'. They were a waste of his fuckin' time.

The idiots had forgotten that he wasn't some dog playing 'sit', 'stay', and 'sic em' because he was too dumb to know any better. He had signed on because he wanted to, because it was the most fun he could have without having to deal with the clean-up or legal troubles afterward. Their perceptions were all off, thinking he was like some low-level grunt. He had stayed where he wanted to be, where the work most appealed to him. He had been the one lending his services to them. But they had fooled themselves into thinking he was with them under some sort of duress, some sort of control they held over him, and they seemed quite smug at their supposed ability to abuse it. And, oh, it was irking him.

But he didn't express his frustration, not yet. That would be stupid, what with the Syndicate so on-edge they were quick to off anyone who seemed discontent, anyone who might be skittish enough to fancy themselves rats leaving a sinking ship. Instead he was paying attention, playing their game, and -- for once -- starting to play some games of his own. Like, oh, maybe not passing along all the information he got out of those numerous sessions? Picking out which members he would first 'express' his discontentment to in a not-so-quiet backroom...

Because, when it came down to it? Andrei knew the real reason behind the power-play: Fear. Weakness. That underlying instability pervaded through their smug smiles as they imagined the O'Malley's downfall actually made them stronger. Just as they imagined his disinterest to be stupidity. But Andrei was a lot smarter than they gave him credit for, and he only needed to be patient; quietly testing the boundaries as he went with the role of a dumb mutt. Because this cage they pictured him in? Like with everything else, their judgment held little water there. It wasn't so secure, and he wasn't so content in it.

His mouth curled up in thought as the pacing stopped. With a little patience, all of it would probably come falling down around him.