Cal assumed the duel had gone off well--an outcome about which he had mixed feelings. On the one hand, it meant he could finally relax. He could stop running over all the ways his protective spell might have gone wrong, and he could let Jasper know it was safe to come down into his shop. That he did, though he maintained some of the strange distance he always kept around Jasper in company.

He'd stayed downstairs to mind the shop while everything went on. Patrick had come early that morning and they'd done the swap; Jasper had gone up to a hidden room to lay low. Cal had in fact made precisely zero sales. He had scared off a total of twenty-nine customers through a combination of pointed glaring and brittly cruel commentary.

Jasper would forgive him his edginess. After all--

After all, if Everard died (not that Cal would mind otherwise), Jas would be in a really sticky situation, wouldn't he? They might've managed, but--

Anyway, it was Not The Matter At Hand. Because Everard, in Jasper's body, had returned unscathed. They had done the switch, Cal had lifted Jasper's protective potion (ignoring the very confusing effect two Jaspers in one room had), and given Everard the less-savorily-flavored version of the potion, not without a certain malicious glee.

Now he was keeping an eye on him while Jasper manned the shop.

It was confusing. Cal had taken over the couch in the study, and left Everard to an armchair. He slouched against the back with fingers steepled, glowering.

"So. It went well--did it?"

Oh--sh-t--had he left one of his shirts half-shoved under one of the couch cushions? He swallowed and shifted. It was so very disconcerting, Patrick in Jasper's body. They had another forty minutes by his reckoning, but the time couldn't pass quickly enough. It was--it was--it was like watching Jasper, if he were taken over by a cheeky, malevolent spirit, who, moreover, had nothing but emptiness in his eyes when he looked at Cal.

Oh, maudlin, maudlin...

His scowl deepened.

Patrick was so full of adrenaline and so mightily pleased with himself that it was hard to walk through Diagon Alley with the calm that Jasper always possessed. Luckily, it seemed that once people caught a glimpse of Jasper they felt no need to stare--or at least, stare questioningly. Plenty of people were staring in awe. It produced a strange mix of emotions in Patrick. He was proud of the "Jasper saunter" he'd perfected. He reveled somewhat in being so known by everybody, though he knew that if everyone really did know who he was he would be out of business. No one spoke to him, except a large man who ran over raving about some strange creature in the shop who had tried to kill him with the evil eye.

"Please calm down, sir," Patrick said in Jasper's silky voice. "It was only my pet gargoyle. I removed his wings last night and he's still smarting."

The man had walked away with a look of mixed confusion and understanding, and Patrick had to deny himself the pleasure of smirking with this face that didn't belong to him. He reached the jewelry shop without a hitch. He amused himself watching Gollum's reaction to two Jaspers; he looked as though he didn't know whether to run or die of happiness. For that amusing interlude, Patrick felt he could forgive the creature for the vile ingredients that must have gone into the potion he was given. It certainly wasn't the worst thing he'd been forced to consume.

And now Ferox got to babysit him while the Polyjuice Potion wore off. Patrick looked forward to the forty minutes or so he had left. Not only was he in Jasper's body, which had some kind of effect on the man...Ferox couldn't leave. No matter what Patrick did, Ferox was stuck with him until the Potion wore off--their own terms! Patrick could hardly contain his glee when he thought of the informative prospects that lay before him. So he sat down in the armchair across from Gollum's couch, smiling a very Patrick smile from Jasper's face.

"So. It went well--did it?"

"It was over and done in ten minutes," Patrick said, laughing. "Mstislav doesn't duel often, he just assassinates. His Shield Charm is worthless, as are all his defenses. One opening--bam! He's in the Sahara desert. He speaks no African dialects, and no English. It'll be amusing to see if he makes it back." Patrick smirked, satisfied, and leaned back. And maybe I can convince Aleksandra to employ me as her top hitman once she finds out I'm the one who dispatched Mstislav. Yes, she might do that! Once she's done scolding me, of course.

Cal had had enough of pondering the Jasper/Not Jasper dichotomy. Instead he decided to pretend Jasper's face was an overlay, a paper-thin veneer stretched around the self-satisfied, smug Everard leer.

On that bore, it had to be admitted, a distinct resemblance to the self-satisfied and smug Christie leer, but by effort of will he shook off the frisson of horror creeping over his shoulders at the very thought. His own glare would've been more effective if he could have kept his face from twitching. Or his foot. That he caught in one hand and leaned back. Glare. Twitch. Glare.

"Oh, the Sahara desert, is it?" His voice cracked in the middle of the sentence, and Cal cleared his throat. "And what will happen when he does get back, imbecile?" There was no rule saying he had to be polite to Everard; he only had to keep an eye on him. In fact, he'd do his best to make the next thirty-four minutes as much like torture as one could without flesh-melting potion, the Pear of Anguish, an iron maiden, or the Crocodile Tube...

Cal had spent a satisfying half-hour on Saturday, in the throes of intense paranoia and anguish over the Plan, leafing through an old Spanish Inquisition manual. It had been one of the most cathartic experiences he could recall.

"Jasper may find your sycophancy appealing," he said at last, "but I don't, and I want to be very f-cking clear. If you're wrong, and the Saharan sands fail to wear the chip out of Mtsislav's shoulder, I will destroy you." His fingers twined tightly around each other, and twinged.

Possibly his logic was faulty (once a grudge duel was over, retaliation was no longer more than a faint possibility). But God that had been satisfying.

What was it about Gollum that made him such a close companion of Jasper? He was creepy, lurching, suspicious and impolite. This was not the sort of person someone like Jasper usually associated with, unless it was in business and through a middleman like Patrick. Patrick assumed that they had met in some kind of business dealing, since a scientist didn't usually travel in the same circles as a jeweler.

Patrick had done some research since meeting Gollum. He had learned that Cal Ferox had worked with almost everyone he had, but almost never in person. He was reclusive to a fault but the best potion-brewer in the underground, both in technical precision and in that he was willing to brew potions that were illegal, and also developed potions for specific needs or purposes. He was also, according to one or two people, a magical theorist. Patrick had also learned that he was the first son of the Salem Feroxes and that he had never gone to the Salem Academy.

"If you're wrong, and the Saharan sands fail to wear the chip out of Mtsislav's shoulder, I will destroy you."

"Never fear, Gollum dear," Patrick said cheerily. Ferox's absolute conviction only served to amuse him, though he was sure that wasn't the creature's purpose. "I'm smarter than Jasper looks. In addition to sending him to the desert, I wiped his memory quite thoroughly. He doesn't even remember he has a wife, let alone that Jasper sold him a fake diamond for her. He won't trouble us anymore."

Now, why would someone so brilliant not attend the magical school his family has been tied to for generations? Patrick wondered. Why come to England for "advanced study"? Why not work for the Department of Mysteries, if theory and experimentation were his areas of interest? These things were all just as interesting as what his relationship to Jasper was, and Patrick felt they were somehow connected. Ferox's "hobbies" and services to criminals rarely involved black market jewelry and gemstones from what he understood; he wanted to know what kind of business had allowed Ferox and Jasper to meet.

"It was really a neat bit of dueling," Patrick continued. "The spell I used, it's really a specialty of mine and I'm quite proud of it. Here, let me show you!" he said, standing up. He just wanted to rule out a vague possibility. "I promise I won't hit you, I'll just aim above your shoulder; but you might want to throw up a Shield Charm just in case," he said helpfully.

He had promised he wouldn't start trouble. Promised. But only the thought of Jasper's safety kept him from chucking something at Everard's head whenever he saw that smug smirk.

"Never fear, Gollum dear. I'm smarter than Jasper looks [...]"

Cal raised his eyebrows at that, trying to contain both his dangerously bubbling anger ('Gollum!')--and just a little bit of his own smugness. He was insulted, of course, on Jasper's behalf... but he had the jealous man's glee in the tearing-down of his idols. Now that he thought of it, Jasper did sometimes look a bit vacant. Still. Everard had no right to say so, and, furthermore, it confirmed Cal's opinion that he didn't respect Jasper as much as his actions might have indicated.

He leaned back against the couch and crossed his arms over his chest. Everard looked distinctly calculating, but of what Cal wasn't sure. His relationship to Jasper? He cast an eye warily toward the corner of his shirt sticking out from beneath one couch cushion, and decided it wasn't incriminating. It didn't have a tag labeled 'Cal Ferox' or anything. Was it--

"It was really a neat bit of dueling, [...] Here, let me show you! [...] you might want to throw up a Shield Charm just in case."

--it was the Squib thing. Did he know? Cal gritted his teeth and shifted side to side on the couch, shoulders rising tensely toward his ears once more. Jasper had pulled the same thing, bloody testing him. As much as he'd love to go off on Everard, he couldn't show weakness. More than you already have, idiot. All of this pointless pressure was beginning to make his head ache.

What was Jasper doing right now? They still had more than twenty minutes before Everard could be on his way. What did he seek to gain from torturing Cal? Was it just mutual dislike, was it competition? Everard, he'd learned from Jasper, was just a petty dealer; they trafficked with the same people, but otherwise had no reason to dislike each other. Was it jealousy? No, that made no sense. I hope.

"I know better," he said at last, uncrooking his elbows and holding up empty palms. His teeth were gritted. "I know better. Than to duel with someone I don't like. I refuse to--" It struck him that Patrick might just go ahead and do it, and he felt his throat bob nervously. Sometimes he carried a time potion with him--it could deflect a rare few curses if he threw it accurately--but it was not, however he might aspire to make it so, a replacement for a good Shield Charm. And he didn't have it anyway. "Don't." He was flinching, mouth caught between cringe and snarl.

Ferox didn't seem to like Patrick's quip about Jasper's looks. Of course he'd take it the wrong way; Patrick had spoken without thinking. He'd meant to imply that he was smarter than he looked, but at the moment he looked like Jasper; and anyway he'd imagined that since Gollum favored Jasper so much he'd imagine Jasper looked pretty smart (which he usually did). It had been an ill-phrased attempt to remind Ferox not to underestimate Patrick.

"I know better, I know better. Than to duel with someone I don't like. I refuse to-- Don't."

Patrick blinked. It seemed that he had overestimated Ferox. That he was a Squib had only crossed the Irishman's mind as something trivial to rule out, for the sake of being thorough. He hadn't actually considered it a possibility. Even now, he felt like he was jumping to conclusions. For all he knew, Cal just wasn't good at dueling and had a worse Shield Charm than Mstislav. But his refusal, the slight hint of fear in his eyes, the fact that he never went to the Salem Academy or any other wizarding school Patrick had checked--and the absolute hatred in his expression--made him think that it was true.

He tried not to show his surprise. Ferox obviously thought Patrick knew or had known he was a Squib, and if he thought for a second it had been otherwise he would think Patrick had just been making lucky guesses, stabbing in the dark. That would do no good; Ferox needed to be under the impression that Patrick was in control and in the know. Slowly, he sat down and crossed his legs, folding his hands in front of his chest.

"Fair enough," he said, grinning. "Some other time, then. I really perfected it while I was at Hogwarts. Did you do much dueling in school?" Patrick knew he'd say no, and wished he could think of a more enlightening question, but he was still somewhat shocked that Cal Ferox was a Squib. Quick now, Patrick. Get your wits about you. What would Jasper want from a Squib? Or...Patrick thought, looking at Cal. What would a Squib want from Jasper?

Everard smiled widely, as only the vindicated and pleased tended to smile. Cal felt his molars grate against each other. It was probably thanks only to magical dentistry and a horde of enamel spells his mother had put on him as a child that he hadn't cracked a tooth by now. He shut his eyes for a moment to think. Were the question at hand a matter of physics or mathematics, he could have solved it in a quiet moment. Since the question was rather more emotionally fraught, it took concentration and--

--probably gave away precisely what he was trying to hide.

Still. He thought. Patrick was probably bluffing. Or he wasn't bluffing; even if he weren't, it was safer to act as though he didn't know Cal was a Squib. If he did know, he'd only be mildly amused that Cal was protesting. If he didn't know, and Cal acknowledged it, he'd give up a position of power.

Moving his shoulders a little and trying to rotate his suddenly stiff neck, Cal opened his eyes and looked at Everard. There was something so disturbingly familiar about the way he was smirking; he had, over the course of the conversation, nearly lost track of the fact that Everard was in Jasper's body. But opening his eyes again cast a wash of surreal familiarity or novelty over the other man. The way he was smirking: it was all very Jasper when he had a secret--and more disturbingly still, it was usually the expression he wore just before the subject of ties came up. As it were.

"Some other time, then. I really perfected it while I was at Hogwarts. Did you do much dueling in school?"

He was still quite young--Everard. Younger than Jasper. He didn't necessarily know what he was doing, and he was cocky. Or something... Cal wasn't actually sure of the characteristics of the young, but one heard this about them. So: bluffing.

"I didn't," he said quietly. "I prefer not to make unnecessary enemies." That makes no sense, Ferox, because you very much want Everard to be your enemy. Even though you know you shouldn't... but look at him, you have to want to punch him in the--Jasper's nose. And he didn't.

"Not that I don't anyway." He had to look away from Everard, lest his coincidental appearance wreak havoc on Cal's judgment and force liking or goodwill on him.

Cal shut his eyes. Patrick took this opportunity to stare very intently at the other man's face, and noticed then--was Cal clenching his jaw? Patrick was too far away to tell for sure. Gollum opened his eyes and Patrick quickly dropped his gaze--now, what was that? Half a collar and what looked like the seam of a shoulder poking out from under one of the cushions on the sofa occupied by Ferox. Now, Patrick didn't know Jasper quite well enough to know whether or not it was a habit of his to leave his clothing strewn about the place and stuffed in unnatural crevices in his furniture...but he knew Jasper's reputation for expensive attire and immaculate appearance. He had, after all, seen the man himself on more than one occasion, and though Patrick was hardly a connoisseur the quality of the clothing was clear.

Gollum stretched and rolled his head. He seemed uncomfortable, but that had been expected. Was he more uncomfortable now than he had been before? It was hard to tell; he'd been very uncomfortable to start with. Patrick took in his appearance. He wore quality clothing as well, but it was different from Jasper: slightly rumpled, certainly not worn as well. His gaze fell to Cal's waist; his shirt was close to coming untucked at some points. Amused, Patrick glanced at the shirt again. If the Irishman had to guess who that shirt belonged to...well, he just didn't think Jasper was the kind of man who stored his shirts in his sofa cushions.

If he assumed the shirt was Cal's (hypothetically; he needed a closer look to confirm), the next question was how it got there. Under what circumstances would Cal store shirts at Jasper's, or change in and out of them? And how would it get into the awkward position it was now in? There were a few possible scenarios that would satisfy the first two questions; the mostly likely were either that Cal had needed to change for some reason (mess, disguise, evasion, etc) and used Jasper's place for privacy, or he'd spent more than twenty-four hours in Jasper's home and needed new clothes for a new day.

And how it got there?

"I didn't. I prefer not to make unnecessary enemies. Not that I don't anyway."

"I can't imagine that, Cal," Patrick said, the taunting now out of his voice. Ferox was no longer looking at him. He glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes. "I understand ye have a lot to offer, and if a man's smart he won't alienate such a person without good damn reason."

Patrick felt like he should say something else, something about their starting off on the wrong foot or starting over as friends or some other nonsense, but he kept his mouth shut. Something told him Cal would only perceive it as fake...which, of course, would be absolutely correct. He stood up and reached into his jacket, pulling out a cigarette.

"Do you mind if I smoke?" he asked briefly, not waiting before he snapped the end of the cigarette and lit it with a bit of wandless magic. He lifted it to his lips and took a long, slow drag, exhaling just as slowly.

Everard was looking at him, quite intently, with a chill judgment he hadn't seen on Jasper's face since their first meeting. His gaze moved over, and Cal followed--the shirt, stuffed into the sofa. He ignored it. What could he do? It meant nothing; the shirt was Jasper's anyway. His paranoia was useful sometimes; and sometimes it was only a handicap.

"...I understand ye have a lot to offer, and if a man's smart he won't alienate such a person without good damn reason."

"Ha. Ha." Cal rubbed uncomfortably at the back of his neck and drew his feet up onto the couch, curling in on himself. He propped his arm up against his thigh, hand half-obscuring his face, and looked past his fingers to Everard, then back at the potions-stained lines of his palm and fingers, then back at Everard, as though his hand were a fan. It gave him the time he needed to regain his composure between glances.

"I have." He paused. "In your case, after all, why speak in generalities, they are always useless, in your case, Everard..." Hesitated; was it a good idea to show off his antipathy so baldly? Cal suffered from an optimistic excess of truthfulness sometimes. "In your case I don't trust you in the least, in the least, Everard, can't you understand why?" He ran his fingers over the side of his face and then down to his lips, which he'd pursed. "You volunteer to help Jas--to help Christie," an unfortunate and belated correction. "For no reason I can discern, apart from he's a charming fellow; proceed to demonstrate in various subtle ways that you don't think very much of him besides; and you ask for nothing in return, or nothing substantial..." He shook his head. "But maybe I'm overly suspicious. It's one of the hazards of the--trade." He shrugged, and sighed, and settled back, hiding behind his knees.

Patrick seemed to want to change the subject as much as he did, since, Cal realized, addressing one's suspicions to the person of whom one was suspicious was not particularly clever or useful.

"Do you mind if I smoke?"

Everard pulled free a cigarette in a very Jasper gesture and lit it wandlessly. When he leaned in to take a drag, Cal found it affected him rather unfortunately. The associations, no doubt. He brought his hand up to his cheek and resettled himself, turning sideways a bit awkwardly; looked back at Everard/Jasper between his fingers. Everasper. Jasperity.

Inconvenient lust.

"Not at all," he muttered, fumbling for his own doxy cigarettes and hoping the oral preoccupation would keep him from saying anything else stupid. "Though it's Christie you ought to ask." He struck a light on his third try and sucked in a lungful of drugged smoke.

"In your case I don't trust you in the least, in the least, Everard, can't you understand why?"

Patrick knew exactly why, and he'd spent a lot of time thinking about why he was so eager to help Jasper and why he wanted nothing in return. It didn't make sense, even to him. He had just wanted to help; Jasper had needed a service he'd been able to offer. He may have been raised to barter, but not everything needed to be on an exchange system, right? What was so wrong with just doing something for someone because you can, without expecting anything back.

Normally these kind of thoughts made Patrick pace and rub his forehead, but he did neither of these things. He stood still, staring off into nothing while he listened to Ferox detail all the reasons why Patrick shouldn't be trusted. He was perfectly right, of course; going by all the rules he had no reason to trust Patrick. Jasper trusted him, though. Wasn't that good enough for Gollum? Apparently not; and Patrick said nothing by way of that argument, because even Jasper was wary of his unconditional offer of help. Besides, the expectation that Jasper's views influenced Ferox's views was too telling. Cal's response could be enlightening, but the question itself gave away too much about Patrick's ideas.

"Not at all, though it's Christie you ought to ask."

"Well, it might be awkward for customers unaware of Christie's twin brother. Some things are just better kept secret," Patrick said dryly. "Maybe I'll just conjure up a mirror and ask meself, hmm?" He took another drag from his cigarette and wondered how long Ferox and Jasper had known each other, or how long he'd been in England. He couldn't just ask, though. He'd have to check that out on his own, later. He just needed an idea of where to star. He looked over at Ferox, who had lit his own cigarette; hand-rolled. Patrick lowered his, holding it slightly away from him, and walked slowly across the room, inhaling deeply as he passed the other man. His sense of smell was somewhat inhibited by his own cigarette, but he had worked with drug dealers before and recognized doxy powder as the scent. He lifted the cig back to his lips.

"Smoking's terrible for you, ye know," he said, walking back over to his armchair.

Jasper-Everard (Everard) unfolded himself and walked slowly across the room. Rather elegantly, in fact, in a prowling way. Obviously he had practiced the Jasper walk, or it came naturally; in either case, Cal froze. Blinked. Watched him warily, unable to keep from dissecting the minor, tiny movements that betrayed his identity, cataloging his confusions...

... which of course wasn't what he ought to be thinking about. Everard passed him and drew in a breath, Jasper's eyes going heavy-lidded with consideration. That was a Jasperism. The expression in toto, however, was not.

Slowly, Everard raised his cigarette and took another drag. Cal realized his own had nearly gone out, and tapped it fitfully against his knee.

"Smoking's terrible for you, ye know."

Without really thinking about it, still meta-preoccupied and Cartesianally confused (dualism, Ferox, dualism!)--but really, the problem of dualism was so much more complicated for Wizards, because it was quite true--he spasmed, it was very near a nervous spasm, and stuck out one leg, barring Everard's path; glanced up at him.

Almost immediately he realized it wasn't a good idea (or had been not an idea, but a reflex), that it implied all sorts of things he didn't want to imply and had definitely been intended for Jasper, not Patrick--

Haste hampered by clumsiness, he drew back.

"But it's excellent for you? Depends on the goal, I suppose." He tried to make up, in verbal combativeness, for the overly-familiar gesture. Perhaps he'd interpret it as a combative gesture. Cal could only hope. It really had been, anyway. It was always difficult for him to match mind and body, never mind emotion, which was really--of course--the motus of it all. Tiny shades of meaning propagated themselves in the cracks between fractured intention, and Everard was canny. Too canny.

"I--" He stood up and glanced at the clock on the mantle. Eight minutes. Uncomfortably, he sat back down, crossing and uncrossing his legs loosely. "You have seven minutes left."

Patrick never made it back to his chair. Ferox blocked his way, jutting his leg out before the Irishman in a stubborn, angry (and a touch possessive) motion. Patrick inhaled from his cigarette again (it was nearly finished) and traveled his gaze up Cal's body, starting from his foot and going all the way to his face. He considered the other man with the faintest hint of a smirk on his face as he raised the cigarette to his lips once again to finish it. He toyed with the idea of sitting next to Ferox; but he satisfied himself with stamping out the cigarette in the ashtray on a side table behind him. He had to lean down to do it; he wondered if Gollum would notice that he was wearing Jasper's cologne.

He straightened just in time to catch Cal clumsily drawing his foot back, embarrassed. Interesting, Patrick thought, continuing his prowling stroll back to his seat. Cal was being hasty in everything; his speech, his movements. Was he nervous? Anxious? Or was he just trying to speed up time? Depends on the goal. Had Ferox guessed his goal? An cigarette was honest, though if Patrick were honest himself he would have to admit that he had hoped to elicit a reaction with the smoking. Smoking could be very sexual, bringing focus to the lips and particularly to the lips wrapping themselves around a cylinder--and Jasper had a slow elegance that really lent itself to that perception. Patrick dearly wanted to smirk at his own cleverness.

"You have seven minutes left."

"So I do," Patrick agreed, looking at the clock. He turned abruptly and seated himself opposite Cal once more, looking at him with bright eyes and a clear smirk now. The window for gathering information was closed. Now all that was left was the opportunity for fun. "So, Cal. Have you any marvelous new theories of the universe? Enthrall me," he asked, lilting his voice and raising one quizzical eyebrow at the other man. He cocked his head to one side, exposing Jasper's long neck.

Building sexual tension was a particular specialty of Patrick's.

Cal's cigarette had smoldered down to his knuckles. He felt the flinching twinge of a burn before he noticed, and, still watching Everard, dropped it absently into the ashtray he knew Jasper kept posed on the table. What was he doing? Cal was very little able to read cues, not because, he rather thought, he didn't notice them. It was because he had no idea how to interpret them. Every gesture could hold a multiplicity of meanings. Maybe Everard was parodying Jasper. Maybe he was trying to be friendly. Maybe he was mocking Cal. Maybe...

Cal's eyes followed the line of Jasper's jaw. How new, how strange, how thoroughly different and rather beautiful in its difference--beautiful but terrifying and disgusting. Maybe sublime was the word.

Sublime. Why did that bring with it a disturbing flash of predatory eyes and a sinuous smile?

He was posing. That was what it was. He looked flirtatious, if perhaps parodically so. Cal could not, however, figure out why. It had taken weeks of Jasper's flirtation before it had, so to speak, penetrated. Everard's obviously wasn't serious.

"So, Cal. Have you any marvelous new theories of the universe? Enthrall me."

What?

Everard might just be a Trickster. A figure, somewhat like Bugs Bunny, who treated every situation as a mutable occasion for entertainment. Or something of the sort. He must have--he must have noticed Cal's--interest, arousal... he shifted uncomfortably, drawing one knee up to his chest again.

More to the point, how did Everard know--no, clearly it was obvious that he was theoretically-minded; but the way he said new... so familiar. So Jasper. Was he Jasper? Had there been some sort of prank, some switch he hadn't noticed? Jasper was the type... what that meant about how well he knew him, what that meant generally, Cal had no idea. It was making him twitch. He sorely wanted something more than the half a doxy cigarette he had managed.

"New, I've never told you a thing, Ev-Everard. What are you--" His face twisted in faintly disgusted, faintly tortured confusion. He didn't like this. It wasn't what he did. When the rules were circumscribed, of course, it was easy, but this... and he couldn't stop looking at Everard, or Everard in Jasper's skin.

Jasper had long appreciated the straightforward effectiveness of Extendable Ears. Although he knew a plethora of more complicated spells for various sorts of spying and eavesdropping, he often found the simple gadget, readily available at any halfway decent joke shop, the most efficient way to spy on people in his own home. With their help, he had spent the better part of the last hour listening in on Cal and Everard. It was second best to actually being in the room, but he'd had to mind the shop for the sake of appearances; it gave him a stronger alibi in case someone got suspicious about this whole business.

There had been moments, namely when the two had been escalating toward what would have been a rather calamitous fight, when he had considered intervening. But he'd gotten the impression, early on, that Everard was doing little more than toying with Cal. It surprised and amused him in some ways; Everard's audacity in exploiting his appearance to make Cal squirm (which he had been, considering the poor modulation in his voice at certain points and the erratic nature of his conversation) seemed quite Jasperesque. Perhaps that was what he liked about the boy. There were striking similarities between the two of them. However, the fact that Everard realized his appearance affected Cal in an unusual way made him uncomfortable. He seemed clever enough to deduce, given the time--

With that in mind, Jasper kept a close ear on the conversation and a close eye on his watch. As soon as the allotted time had passed he flipped the sign in the shop window to CLOSED and headed up the stairs.

"So, Cal. Have you any marvelous new theories of the universe? Enthrall me."

The tenor of voice-- This was....unexpected. Was he--flirting?

He entered the study to find Everard (Jasper-Everard, still), posing in his chair as he himself would, chin tilted imperiously upward, the last curls of smoke looping in the air above him. The resemblance was uncanny really, he'd mastered the mannerisms. Too well, it seemed, because Cal was coiling back into his chair miserably, voice wavering. It sounded, oddly enough, the way it did when he was annoyed with Jasper, but not enough to overcome his attraction. Honestly Cal, it's not me, he thought, forehead creasing as he studied his double. The impression would be good enough to fool anyone but the most careful observer, which Jasper supposed he was since he had inhabited his body for twenty seven years. For example, the way he was angling his foot, resting it on the outside edge of his shoe sole, was totally wrong. The quirk of the eyebrow just barely overdone. But the impersonation was good enough to fool Cal, which counted toward it's viability. Impressive.

"New, I've never told you a thing, Ev-Everard. What are you--"

He turned when he entered in such a way that Cal saw him first, and he came upon Everard's chair from behind. Winked at Cal as he leaned down and plucked the packet of cigarettes from Everard's lapel pocket, where he had placed it this morning (verismilitude down to the last detail).

"Cal does have the capacity to be quite interesting, but if you want to be enthralled, I wouldn't recommend you prompt a physics discussion. Sedated, perhaps."

He lit a cigarette as he rounded Everard's chair and stood behind Cal's, leaning on the edge. Glanced at his watch.

"Suppose you'll be glad to get back to looking smarter than you are." Drag from his cigarette and a half smile at Everard. "I take it everything went off smoothly? No need to recap in detail, since I was listening."