Manic || Cake/Mashton AU

ii: coffee date

"I brought this for you," Calum said as he walked into the examination room, sliding a Starbucks cup full of iced coffee toward Luke. "I didn't know how you take it, so I got it with coconut milk and sweetener. The admin already cleared it, so you don't have to worry about getting in trouble or anything."

The murderer grinned down at the beverage, leaning forward to wrap his lips around the straw. "You're an angel."

Truthfully, Calum brought the drink for the sole purpose of making Luke feel more comfortable, thus more inclined to give straightforward answers. He wasn't an angel, he was a briber. But, hey, he'd take the compliment.

"I was hoping we could talk more about some of the things you said yesterday," the student said, fishing through his messenger bag for his pad of paper.

"The sex stuff?" Luke asked, an almost hopeful expression on his face.

Calum cleared his throat, shaking his head. "No, uh... You mentioned something about animals never doing you any wrong, and you later went on to say, quote, 'Most people are a fucking plague'. What experiences did you have with others that made you feel this way?"

"Haven't you ever watched the news?" the man questioned. "Hell, haven't you been outside?"

"Let's assume I haven't. How would you explain humanity to me if I– hypothetically– had no experience with it?"

Luke laughed, sipping his iced coffee. "I wouldn't. Purity and kindness like yours are hard to find in this world, babe. It's important to preserve that."

"What about the purity of your victims' friends and families?" Calum asked, admittedly a bit confused. "Don't you think they deserved to have their innocence preserved?"

"I liberated them," the blond objected. "I crushed the thing that was keeping them corrupt. What they do with that freedom is out of my control."

"Could you elaborate on that?"

"Think of it this way," Luke began. "If a puppy is forced into a dog fighting ring, and then the puppy's owner goes to jail, is that bad for the puppy? No, of course it's not. Even if the puppy misses its owner, it's going to be better off without him. Then, the puppy has the option to be a sweet, innocent dog again, or it can keep being violent. Does that make sense?"

Calum wrote down the man's contentions. "Yeah, um, I think I get your point."

"That's good. I'm glad you see where I'm coming from," the serial killer said with a calm smile. "How was your weekend? Do anything interesting?"

"I'm not here to make casual conversation, Luke," the interviewer sighed.

"Actually, why are you here? No one ever bothered to tell me."

"The assignment is to analyze a violent criminal's psyche in order to come up with a theory on why they turned to violence," Calum explained, trying not to giggle at the bored look on Luke's face. "I guess the hospital lets us do it because it's sort of like therapy that they don't have to pay for."

Luke nodded as he finished off his drink. "Did you ask to get paired with me?"

"It was randomly assigned."

"Huh. I guess we were just destined to meet," the man purred with a wide, toothy smile. "I wonder if anyone else gets treats."

"I don't know," the psych student said with a shrug. "We should get back to the questions, though. I don't want to run out of time again."

"I wish you could stay longer than an hour," Luke pouted, looking as sweet and innocent as a man who didn't have over fifty confirmed kills. 

It was almost hard for Calum to keep the man's insanity in mind, despite the fact that it was both of their reasons for being there in the first place. There was just something about him that made everything he said seem so normal, even when he was describing his warped perception of the world.