#and nate shelley who is going to endure something

[c-l-y-d-e]

ah yes here we are setting up for a final season full of relentless emotional punches

i love my team of himbos each and every one of them

[laiqualaurelote]

I had a really hard time choosing, but: Can we see Bex to the Future? That smells like Rupert suffering to me.

Thank you for choosing from the DVD extras menu of Such Great Heists! @corvidcorgi also asked for this one. I guess Rupert is suffering, but somewhere in the background.

Bex To The Future

“It’s a lot of work, you know, being a gold-digger.”

When Nate began his evening seated at the bar in his black suit, nursing a glass of whiskey, he was already painfully conscious of how much of a movie cliche this looked. So when a beautiful woman slides into the seat next to him, he is instantly suspicious. His alarm is validated when the woman turns out to be Bex, formerly Mannion, last name now unknown.

“I mean, do you know how much effort it took to hook Rupert?” Bex goes on. She looks good, relatively speaking, for a woman who’s had to endure the ignominy and inconvenience of divorcing a husband in prison. Her honey-blonde hair is done up in a loose chignon; her dress, jet black, bares her shoulders. Her accent has changed from when Nate heard her last over comms at the gala, a little Estuary slipping in. “It’s one thing to snag a man for a night, and another to get him to the altar. Oh, sure, he’s pushing seventy, and he’s maybe got some dodgy dealings on the side, and it’s not a great pre-nup to speak of - but there’s me thinking, ‘Bex, my girl, here’s your nest egg all sorted out, just play nice and you can put your feet up at last’. More fool me.” She turns to face him. “Aren’t you going to buy me a drink, Nathan Shelley?”

“I - ” stammers Nate. “I, ah -”

“Sidecar, please,” says Bex to the bartender. “Put it on his tab.”

The bartender glances at Nate, who gives him a panicked nod.

“How’d you find me?”

“I’ve been watching you all for a year,” says Bex matter-of-factly. “I’ve had the time, since you undid all my good work. Moved back in with my parents, got a job at the shop, thought - is this really what I’m going to do with the rest of my life? So I started following her - Rebecca the first. And I asked around. Found some things out. Like how you’ve struck out on your own from Lasso’s crew. Tired of languishing in his shadow, weren’t you?”

Is that the word on the street about me? Nate wants to, but doesn’t, ask. Into his mind flashes suddenly the look on Ted’s face that day, when Nate had thrown those words at him. You made me feel like I was the most important person in the whole world, and then you abandoned me. And if he’d walked out, then? And if he’d said something into the right ears, and somewhere down the line it tipped off the wrong person - what, then? Counting on honour among thieves will only get you caught. He catches his own eye in the mirror behind the bar. He wishes he could spit in it.

“Is it revenge you’re looking for?” he manages. “For what happened to Rupert?”

“God no,” says Bex. “Who gives a flying fuck about Rupert? He’s no use to me now. Oh, no. You see, I used to think that trophy wife was the farthest a girl like me could get. I should thank you all, really, for showing me the light.”

She leans in, her breath ghosting across his ear. Nate knows she’s working an angle, but the proximity of her makes him shiver nonetheless.

“I don’t want revenge against Rebecca Welton,” she whispers. “I want to be her. And for that, I need my own mastermind.”

She raises her glass to his. “What do you say?”