Title: Assassin

Author: Scribe

Fandom: Nip/Tuck

Pairing: Pre-slash

Rating: R for a couple of words.

Summary: Matt reflects on Christian.

Archive: List archives, WWOMB, otherwise ask

Status: WIP

Sequel/Series: Playing Games Series

Disclaimer: I did not create the characters here, I don't own them. I derive no profit from this effort. I mean nothing but respect for the creators, owners, and the actors and actresses who portray them.

Assassin
By Scribe

Matt

Christian Troy--he's a killer.

Oh, not LITERALLY. I mean, to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever died on his operating table. He's done--probably DOES--his share of drinking and drugging, and hasn't always been one-hundred per cent when he's gotten behind the wheel of one of those fine-ass cars he favors, but no one has ever gotten run over or knocked into a ditch. Metaphorically, though, the man is an assassin--a cold-blooded killer. Or maybe that's HOT blooded.

Mm... Both, actually. He can wield words like he wields his scalpel. Slice, slice, slice, and the target is left stunned and bloody. I've heard what he does to some of his one-night stands. He fucks them senseless, then in the gentle morning light, when they're maybe feeling a bit smug that they scored with this gorgeous, successful, talented man, he starts to point out all the tiny physical flaws that make them less than perfect. They can go in feeling like Venus and leave feeling like Medusa, and all because of the thousand natural flaws that flesh is heir to. What? Yeah, we did Shakespeare this semester. So I changed a word. Your point is? We were talking about Chris.

It isn't that he CAN'T be tactful. The man deals on a daily basis with people who are already shaky in their self-confidence. He can listen to them enumerate the things they hate about themselves, giving an empathetic nod now and then (and why would having someone AGREE that something about you was so bad you needed to be cut to have it changed would REASSURE someone is beyond me). Then he'll tell them that sure, they can help them, can make them look better, and feel better about themselves. He doesn't say BE better, but it's there, between the words. And they buy it. I don't know how many patients ultimately decide they don't really need work after a consultation, but I have a feeling that the percentage is DAMN small.

I've listened to Dad. I know that Chris will do surgery that isn't really necessary, but hell--he's a plastic surgeon, right? Unless there's some sort of gross disfigurement, it's all vanity. Basically Chris's job is mainly to cater to the ego of the people who seek him out. It just seems to bother Dad that Chris is so GOOD at it. That's the cold-blooded side of what makes him lethal. Then there's the other side.

He's about my dad's age, just past forty, but looking younger. And, as he says, he has access to the best in cosmetic enhancements, so there's no reason he can't STAY that way for a long, long time. Dark hair, dark eyes, a hard body that he works at. He's visited the gym a hell of a lot more than he has church, I can tell you that. Christian Troy is a hot, hot man. He knows it, he glories in it, and he uses it. Stud, babe-magnet, lady's man, Lothario, Casanova--lots of names for it, but they all mean the same thing--the man just DRIPS women. As one of my friends once said after meeting him, "I bet he has hot-and-cold running poontang." Crude, but pretty accurate.

I've known Chris literally since I was born, and during all that time, I don't think he's dated any one woman more than five or six times. In fact, if he sees only one woman exclusively for more than a week, he counts it as being 'faithful'. Yup, Chris has a few issues with commitment. But hell, he's pretty much living the American man's dream--or at least the American ADOLESCENT'S dream.

And Chris isn't just smooth when he's talking a patient into a bit of liposuction to go with that boob job ("You're going to be on the table anyway. Just think of how much better those new breasts will look if you can show them off over a flat tummy.")

He's a wonder to behold when he's at a party. He works the crowd. He can pass through a room and emerge on the other side with business contacts, potential clients, phone numbers, that night's conquest, and a handful of people who think he's one of the most charming people they've ever met.

Mom says he's a natural flirt--it's just his nature. He flirts with everyone--female, male, childhood to senility. He does it with Annie. She giggles like an idiot when he teases her. I think that her future boyfriends are going to be frustrated, because they won't know that they're being held up to the Troy Standard.

Mom says that the only people he doesn't flirt with are the ones he isn't interested in, and the ones who know him well enough to see through it. He doesn't flirt with her, or my dad, or their nurse, Liz.

He doesn't flirt with me, either. It must be because he knows that I know him--I can see past the surface flash and charm. That has to be it.

God, I hope it is, because the only other possibility is that he isn't interested in me, and that WOULD kill me.

END