Red Notice (2021 Thurber) Oneshots

look at me, please

When all Nolan wants is someone to care.

••

Nightmares were a bitch, if you asked Nolan Booth. He'd been plagued by them every night for the past week.

Waking up in the middle of the night, sweaty, pale, and shaking.

These weren't just any nightmares for him, though- they were memory nightmares. You know that feeling when you dream, where you know what's going to happen, but can't stop it? Can't change anything because it's a dream/the past.

It was a shitty feeling, that's what Nolan would tell you.

Of course, it was the watch memory. The stupid piece of shit his father had chosen to care about more than him. God rest his father's soul in the deepest, fiery pits of hell,

Damn it, honestly. He was glad he'd smashed that stupid piece of metal against the wall. Sure, he'd never wanted anything to do with it- the treasure hunt- but it had brought him great success in some ways.

I mean, look at where he was right now: plotting to steal from the Louvre with the Bishops, of all people! His so-called rivals- Sarah Black and John Hartley.

They were three of the greats thieves to ever exist, and they were working and living together in Paris. Yes, this entire scheme was supposed to be a part of his revenge scheme on them, for that entire fiasco with the eggs a couple of months ago.

It was simple: hit the jackpot, tip-off Das, and by morning, he'd be halfway to New Delhi or some other fancy place.

But he did have to admit: as much as he wanted to destroy and make a mockery of their lives as they did him, he was also beginning to realize their annoying qualities were growing on him in the slightest.

So yeah, this relates to the dream thing. Dreams typically reflect your subconscious mind and what you're thinking about the most. God, what was he turning into? A psychiatrist? Pffft...

Anyway, he guessed that now that he felt like he had people in his life that cared- though, it was probably barely anything - he was worried.
Worried to be invisible again, in his plan, scheme.

The Bishops put up with his antics, and the reason he knew they cared, if only a minuscule amount, was in the small ways that it showed.

Their insistence on keeping him out harm's way; his saying was risk and reward, and it was typically a massive risk that came with a whole lot of pain. They took the serious crap of my is my temple? Blah, blah, blah.

They wanted everything to be perfect, to click together perfectly like two jigsaw pieces before they got anywhere in heisting.

So that meant scouting trips, learning the layout of the Louvre, every item's place. Sarah had insisted also on helping him make an even more realistic replacement for the item they would be stealing.

When Nolan had heard that originally, he'd groaned, staring at them, saying, "I've gotten pretty far with risks, you guys."

They'd simply looked at him, serious business set in their gazes, and said two different things:

"That's why you're only the second-best art thief in the world." Sarah.

"How many times have you gotten arrested now?" John.

In the end, he knew they were right in some ways, but there was also the thrill of the chase, adventure, not knowing what would happen next, the adrenaline running high.

When he'd mentioned that, Sarah had sighed, knowing he wouldn't give this up, and relented. She promised to work in a big chase scene where he could have creative freedom, as long as it stayed within the layout of their plan, and didn't get them caught.