Work Text:
The first fact Moist von Lipwig registered about himself when he emerged from that nebulous state of youth in which the concept of The Self was, for all intents and purposes, a blob of unflavored Jell-O, was that his skin didn’t fit quite right.
His face was an answer to a math problem ending in “find the mean” and his build was remarkable solely for how completely and utterly non-remarkable every aspect of it was. His name was “you,” or “youngster,” or even, on occasion, the elusive “sweetheart.” In his spare time, he liked to imagine himself as non-bodily fluid — capable of filling any container, provided the space was large enough to fit him.
But that wasn’t quite right.
He could fill nearly any container, provided not only that the space was large enough to fit him, but that there would still be an invisible gap he just couldn’t fill.
<3<3<3
The fun of being a conman, aside from the overflowing riches and constant adventures and hordes of scantily clad women flinging themselves at him, was creating the persona.
Ethel Snake could swallow a man alive with the ferocity of her namesake. Marcelle DuPont was a master of sobbing in the fetal position before swiping goods from the pockets of whichever not-quite-good Samaritan decided some false words of comfort could transform this into his lucky night.
And Albert Spangler was a man.
Moist was the human equivalent of the middle piece of a loaf of white bread. Moist had long hair the color of a dead mouse and voice that harmonized frightening well with the pitch of a crowd.
Moist was Just Some Girl.
And Moist hated it.
<3<3<3
The frequency with which Moist returned to Albert Spangler was solely for tactical reasons.
It was infinitely easier to fool a dishonest man than an honest one, and it was even easier to fool a dishonest man if you were, yourself, a dishonest man. Experience taught him a dishonest man would be infinitely more inclined to disregard any woman, let alone a dishonest woman, as untrustworthy than a man so dishonest he deserved his own line of sleazy penny novels.
This line of thinking had the added benefits of erasing any guilt Moist may have previously had regarding the dishonest things he was doing to said dishonest men.
When Spangler talked, the words flowed, and people listened. The con came as easily as iron shillings to a magnet – both in terms of the client’s attraction to whatever bluff Moist was selling and in terms of the bluff to Moist in the first place. Glass shone more like diamond in his hand. His smile in response to “sir” glinted with a pyrite air of trustworthiness. The phrase “man to man” never failed to reel a victim in.
Albert Spangler’s grey suit was the easiest to wear. Tailored skin tight in all the right places, loose enough to conceal the more unfortunate bits everywhere else.
Some days, it fit better than his own skin.
Which was good for tactical reasons.
<3<3<3
There was Something About Albert Spangler.
Moist could pin the tail somewhere within the vicinity of what that Something was, but his blindfolded hand was never quite able to land it on the donkey’s arse.
One evening, when the only light came from the faint glow of the street across the way with actually working lamps and the only sound came from the clink of real change for fake money, he entered his shabby boarding room in the part of town held up by water-rotted wood and one of its residents wishing really, really hard, and he saw himself in the one piece of shattered glass which stood as a monument to what was, at some point in time, a whole mirror.
Nothing about him was in any way spectacular. He was Just Some Guy. Curls poked out of the hat he had decided would be his main feature for the week. His nose sat on his face not unlike a nose. If he wanted, he could probably purchase twenty identical versions of his suit at twenty entirely different stores.
It was just another outfit in his endlessly spinning rack of personality.
He thought about letting his hair down, taking off the suit and the tight undershirt he’d made to go with it, and going to bed as Moist.
His eyes landed on the shard of glass.
Albert Spangler went to bed wearing a grey suit and a rather stupid hat.
<3<3<3
The first fact Moist von Lipwig learned about angels was that sometimes, very rarely, when a man bungled every aspect of his life to an awe-inspiring and fantastical degree, when a man woke up every morning coated in a sheen of cold sweat and already halfway to a panic attack, when a man reached a point where whether by murder, suicide, or mere unfortunate chance, death appeared to be the only option — sometimes, very rarely, an angel would appear unto him, and offer a chance to go back to where it all went wrong, and this time do it right.
The second fact Moist von Lipwig learned about angels was that you only got one.
The third fact Moist von Lipwig learned about angels was that the second fact was only partially correct.
It was less about the angel and more about the man. A second chance had approximately the same worth as a ring sold by Albert Spangler if you didn’t bloody do anything with it.
There’s an angle where, when the sun hits it just right, glass becomes diamond.
The angel got you the stone. You had to find the angle.
And you only got one true angel. The funny thing once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to start over was that the name wasn’t a misnomer.
But more often than a man gets an angel, a man has to be his own angel.
<3<3<3
A few nights later, in an equally depressed part of an entirely different town, he takes scissors to his hair.
For tactical reasons.
The final result looks like something a blind man did in a speeding carriage with jittery hands and a rusty pocket knife.
But it looks more like Albert. And that’s what truly matters.
For tactical reasons.
<3<3<3
Several nights later, in an even more depressed part of an even more depressed town, he decides it would probably be easiest to pretend to be a man full-time.
For tactical reasons.
<3<3<3
Several years later, he cheats death (which is a surprise, even to him) and finds himself face-to-face with a goateed angel.
Albert Spangler is dead. Moist von Lipwig has the chance to make things right.
The angel calls him Mr. Lipwig and not Ms., and in spite of the fact that he remains one incorrect choice away from a hole of certain death, he can’t help but note that the sound of own name doesn’t ring quite as discordant in his ears as it once did.
Maybe it was less the name, more the other thing.
The “not a man” thing.
Moist agrees to be Postmaster General of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office, because it’s either that or hole, and he knows his new-old identity is almost entirely fabricated.
With one notable exception.
<3<3<3
Later, he tells Adora he was the first and only man to receive two angels in one day.
There’s the obvious one. But then there was also the moment that something deeper clicked. When a bunch of puzzle pieces that had been shoved to the bottom of a box in the attic because the homeowner was more focused on literally every single other part of the house reappeared in a moment of crisis, clicked into a clearer picture, and screamed “hey, remember us?”
There was a chance to make glass shine like diamond. And there was also a chance to compress an entirely different stone into diamond.
There was an unparalleled chance not only to be his own angel, but also to be his own maker.
And he took both.
“I’ve told you before: you’re a man with vision,” she grumbles, before forcibly confiscating a drag from her cigarette. “I think that counts as better.”
He made himself a somewhat better man, but he also made himself a man in the first place.
Mr. Lipwig has a wife and a job with a real salary and a smile in response to being called “sir” that’s only half-fake. The addiction to the excitement of the con hasn’t left him entirely, but enough of the gaps have been filled that his life feels less like a kid playing make-believe, and more like a showman slightly hamming it up for the audience.
He had a vision, and he took his damn time to see it in the first place, but he fulfilled it.
So anybody else who calls themselves a “self-made man” can fuck right off.