( evanescence )

RODRIGO IS MOST CERTAINLY NOT A GENIUS. not in the traditionalist sense, anyways. not how he wants people to see him, though certainly some people ( everyone ) sees him for his genius. he gets tired of it sometimes, having to correct people. having to sort through their misconceptions, trying to explain the way things work in his mind. his brain fires off neurons with all the commonality that notes are tied up in the staff lines; there is a longing, a sense of wanting to be free, sending them spiraling higher and higher with every twist, every flick of his wrist, longing, longing, longing―

and then rodrigo screams. and sneezes.

he was lost in thought, to be sure, and in doing so forgets two very important, crucial details. one, hai-lai is at the door. well technically she’s already let herself in, but he doesn’t find that quite so pressing, although she near scares the piss out of him with her closeness. two, and considerably more crucial in his eyes, his nose has been itching for about three hours now. 

*picazón con rencor, he thinks to himself bitterly, sniffing from the floor. rodrigo is a heady sprawl, his scarf instead around his head and his tower a mess on the table.

‘ ¡oye, hai-lei! ’ rodrigo snarls half-heartedly; his pride is more than a little bruised, but that may just be in how he fell so suddenly, and with an auspicious lack of grace in a moment’s frantic antics. 

‘ oh hey, that rhymes. ’

THERE ARE SUBTLER INTIMACIES AT WORK than are readily apparent to him, and certifiably less to anyone else witness to the occasion. the flies perhaps; he thinks that people have often underestimated the flies capacity for anything, let alone it’s persistence, which seems to be so token in the eyes of today that it’s almost all but forgotten. it is the flies that accompany him, the flies that he prefers abuzz and around his mind’s eye, provided it doesn’t omit him from him his vision…whatever that may be.

‘ hai-lai, shush! shushshushshush *estoy muy centrado en esto ahora mismo, don’t move from that spot! stay right there…stay right…there… ’

❝  dad, c’mon.  ❞  just this once, they allow formalities to drop  (  it’s been years, certainly they can’t be expected to call him father after going so long without seeing him  ). they lift a hand, bat at his that’s tugged their hair.  ❝  don’t be all… that.  ❞  all what, exactly? they’re not certain  (  colour rises to their cheeks, and they feel warm, and they realise that genuine softness is something that has evaded them for the last several years  ).  their smile drops at his words, forming something of a grimace before they roll their eyes. the compliment is genuine, for sure, but they can’t help but to think it feels a little… backhanded. but, they suppose, he is the teacher and he knows best.  ❝  thank you, though. i’ve… i’ve been wondering if you’d been keeping up with me. i’m kind of… everywhere now, i guess.  ❞

they shift, the full impact of his words hitting them: i am proud of you. it sends a spark of something through their chest, and their smile comes back anew.  ❝  really?  even… after everything?  ❞

                 HIS EXPRESSION SOFTENS AS  he looks at his daughter, his firstborn -- his heir, in more ways than one. He had never truly appreciated the concept of passing down a legacy to one’s children in his youth. Perhaps because he had veered so drastically from the path his parents had planned for him in favor of pursuing his passion & then pursuing love. But in the intervening years, since Sabine’s birth, then Tristan’s, he had discovered the joy of passing things along to the both of them. Tristan had inherited almost no artistic ability, but he had taken other things from his parents’ example. Sabine, on the other hand ...  perhaps in his heart of hearts, Alrich had always considered Sabine to be his special gift to the galaxy. His daughter had always been an extension of his own most deeply held convictions. He had not told them often enough, it seems. 

     “Especially after everything,”  he says, the hand they’d batted away falling to rest on their shoulder. He gives them a small squeeze of assurance before letting his arm drop to his side.  “You are stronger than I could have ever dreamed, and though I am sorry for the path your life has taken, the hardship you have endured, I could not have asked for a braver, more talented daughter.”

     His smile lingers for a moment before he jumps back to the subject of their art. He can understand not wanting to sit in such an emotionally charged place for very long. Especially considering the many years they’d been separated -- best not to overwhelm them. Or himself. 

FIVE TIMES KISSED FOR JEAN & MARA  //  @ didntkill

( 1 ) BEAUTY ...           THERE’S A HUSH THAT  falls over the world; no wind, just their breath. He glances down at her & can’t help but think she’s the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. When he looks into her deep burgundy eyes he no longer hears the cries of war & the pounding of cannons, the rapid cracks of gunfire & the screams of the dying. He looks at her & sees beauty, only beauty ---- The rush of footsteps outside the cramped nook they’d found themselves in don’t even faze him. He’s focused entirely on the way they’re pressed against each other, the way their breaths seem to mix & mingle in the musty air. Somehow, he’s not entirely sure how he manages it, he cranes his neck down & gently pulls her face up by the chin, pausing for a moment before leaning down & pressing his lips to hers. She feels beautiful too ...

( 2 ) PAIN ...                  HE ANGRILY WHEELS HIMSELF  away from her, so that she can’t see the hot tears that spring to his eyes. He hates feeling weak, hates feeling like he isn’t the man he was when they’d been together in Central  ( You are the same man, Havoc! You are! Don’t let this define you, don’t let it steal what little you have left! ). He ignores her as she softly calls his name, ignores the thundering anxiety in his chest as he hears the creaks in the floorboards that signal her approach. He turns his face to the shadows, away from the moonlight streaming in through the window, away from the lamplight hovering gently above the counter where he’d set down the lantern. But she ignores all this, too. She comes around & lifts his face to look at hers. The light reflects off of the trails his tears had left upon his cheeks, & he tries to laugh away the pain of this encounter, the pain of her seeing him like this, but he can’t. He can’t even laugh anymore. She doesn’t care ---- or so it seems. When she leans down to kiss him, he still feels the pain, but there’s a sweetness in her lips that dulls it.

( 3 ) FEAR ...              “HEY,”  HE CALLS SOFTLY  after her, reaching out & grabbing her hand before she can get into the truck. He has this squirming feeling in his gut, a need to tell her that he loves her, that he’s always loved her, that even if this is the last time he sees her he’ll love her until he dies ...  but all those words catch in his throat; they can’t make it past the emotion there. He’s so damn scared that she won’t come back. Not because she won’t want to, but because won’t be able to. From what he’d heard, things weren’t going to be pretty in Central. He feels like he’s going to war all over again, only this time he won’t get the satisfaction of working through that angst with action. This time, he’ll be sitting back, waiting for a call. The all clear or the no good. If it’s not her voice when he picks up the phone -------  He pulls her back with a gentle tug, the movement causing his chair to squeak as the wheels fall forward just a bit  ( she’s always been stubborn, immovable, solid; he’s always loved that about her ).  “Come back to me,”  he whispers, a hand reaching up to caress her cheek & gently prod at the back of her neck, a prompt to lean down. He kisses her gently at first, then harder, then with all the love he holds that he can’t express with words.  “Good luck,”  he says, when they part.  “I’ll be waiting for your call.”

( 4 ) PEACE ...           THERE’S A SMALL HUFF as she sits down beside him on the couch -- he shoots her a playfully stern look, then nods down at the child sleeping on his chest.   “You’ll wake him up,”  he admonishes with mock severity, a hand moving from where it rested on René’s back so that he could trace the curve of his son’s chubby cheek with the back of his index finger. He can’t ever remember feeling this good. He looks over at her & he knows he’s got the goofiest grin on his face, because he can see that glowing smile of hers that she always seems to wear in response.  “C’mere,”  he whispers, his free hand reaching to find hers & twine their fingers together. When she leans towards him, he puts a steadying hand on René’s back & tilts his head. They kiss, he sighs into her mouth, & René yawns.

who is this man?   who is this shadow that’s haunted her, chased her through her memories like a bad omen?   she remembers before: the heat, the warmth, the smell of cloves on the air, the comfort.   she remembers after, too.   she remembers knowing he was out there, knowing he was alive and working with the empire and making the choice not to find her.   she remembers giving up on him entirely.

but the shadow in her memories doesn’t fit the mold of this man.   this man is broken.   this man has lost everything, and his loss echoes her own.   his loss is her loss. 

she’s not sure whether she chooses to take the step or whether she just agrees to go along with it; it doesn’t matter either way.   the space between them narrows by feet, by years, by apologies both spoken and not.   “she was trying to save you, too.”   so soft they might not be her words at all. 

               LYRA. ALWAYS TRYING TO SAVE  everyone. That is her legacy, her eternal hope that burned brightly like a beacon in the center of her spirit. She gave light & life to all who looked at her. To him. He hadn’t known grace, peace, the deep & abiding truth of love before he’d met her. And now she is gone. She has been gone for nearly twenty years. That loss injures him daily, it is a wound which never closes, never heals. Or, he had thought that healing was impossible ...

     But now his daughter stands before him & she suffers the same wound, the same loss. And she takes a step towards him, an action which is not without significance.

     He feels some boundary within him crack, & break. The inability to properly mourn his wife & daughter all these years finally catching up with him. The tears which had stung the corners of his eyes now fall freely, heat & salt & the blessed release of the grief he had kept stubbornly within the walls of his heart. 

     He is not conscious of the movement, but he is suddenly holding her hand, clinging to it with all his strength.

SHE DOESN’T APPRECIATE how he returns her gaze ; her own frank boredom with her task seemingly MIRRORED in the engineer’s lack of concern with her threat .   She would take offense at it , the implied INSULT to her abilities , were it not worrying .   Far more pressing than her own pride , was the danger to the Emperor’s plans if the hold threats had was LOST on Erso .

Her frown deepens , emerald eyes NARROWED .   She could   ━━━   would   ━━━   kill him if she had to , that was her purpose , after all ; to be judge , jury , and executioner for those who dared to move against the Empire .   ( And Erso was SUSPECT , was he not ?   Too important to remove unless absolutely necessary , but far too suspicious , too dubious in action , to allow to work unobserved . )

    ❛   Depends on the day ,   ❜      The clipped phrase is all she murmurs in response , and though truthful , gave away LITTLE .   He was a clever man , he didn’t need for her to waste her breath explaining what she was .   ( ASSASSIN , executioner . )

                IT ISN’T THAT HE FINDS  the threat of her presence a joke -- quite the contrary. He knows that he is a danger to the Empire if they cannot ensure his loyalty. He sincerely doubts that they feel any security in that area. Even before he had left Coruscant, before Lah’mu, he hadn’t been blindly loyal to the Empire. Only to his work. That had cost him, & since then he had been careful to remain detached enough from his research to know what was going on around him.

     But, since they cannot provide irrefutable proof of his loyalty  ( though he strives to present the picture of a broken & hopeless man, consigned to the drudgery of scientific work as the sole buoy of his otherwise aimless life -- not a difficult façade to keep up ),  they must at the very least provide irrefutable proof of his cooperation. 

     He assumes that this is what the young woman is here for. She has a higher security clearance of many Imperials three times her age, & seems to command a great deal of fear disguised as respect for those military officers she does come into contact with. 

     “I see,”  he replies casually, eyes drifting over the reports on his datapad, scrolling through the data with an eye for surprising or alarming conclusions. So far, none. The tests seem to have proven the stability of their latest sub-project. 

SHE IS UNUSED to being noticed , at least , not when she is making an effort to remain hidden .   Though there is no reason for the secrecy , not really   ━━━   there are no DANGERS present for her aboard the Chimaera   ( for others , of course , but for her it was potentially the safest place in the Empire )   ━━━   there was something about the idea of being out in the open here that seemed to TWIST something in the pit of her stomach .   Perhaps it was the sterile whiteness of the medbay , how out of place the black - clad girl was among the droids and white - robed patients   ━━━   or perhaps it was that the man she was watching was only in the medbay because of her .

Remorse is a hell of a feeling .

    ❛   Not particularly ,   ❜      Though she responds , she doesn’t step forward , choosing instead to remain cloaked in shadow .   There is no point to it , not when he knows she’s there , but it makes her feel better , SAFER from prying eyes    ( safer from guilt . )

                HE’D THOUGHT THE JOKE WAS  self-evident, but apparently not. He gets a sense that she isn’t entertained by his misery  ( of course, most normal people wouldn’t be, but then again this is, he’s sure, a punishment -- & he’s stuck on board a Grand Admiral’s ship, so ... )  Maybe he’d expected that he would be watched, & that those doing the watching might have something to say about the reasons he’d ended up with a limp & a scar down his back the size of the Kothal Rift. 

     He’s been wrong before, though.

     “I’ll try harder next time,”  he says, shifting his position until he’s comfortably situated on the bed. There’s a stab of pain in his lower back that frightens him -- his breath halting in his lungs & his lips thin, but then it passes & he realizes it’s nothing to be worried about. Just like the aftershock of an earthquake. He releases a shaky laugh, meant to calm himself & his mysterious guest.

A NEAR IMPERCEPTIBLE shake of her head , tight smile more like a grimace touching the corners of her lips .   She lowers the chopsticks , spinning them slowly between her fingers before stabbing them into the remains of her take - out dinner .   Leaning back in her chair , she glances towards the closed bedroom door , and her sleeping son beyond it ,     ❛   It wasn’t because of Ben ,   ❜      She says , looking back at Havoc with the same SHARP - EYED GAZE   ━━━   the same dangerous gaze   ━━━   that she has practically patented ,     ❛   Your people would have been content to let me have him in prison , and ship him off to the foster system for eighteen years ,   ❜      Strangely , there is no BITTERNESS in her voice , merely a matter of fact tone .

    ❛   You know who I was , right ?   ❜

               HE GRIMACES AT THE MENTION  of her son & his people. Maybe the higher-ups, those stuffy men in black suits & power ties, might have wanted that. But he’d never choose that sort of upbringing for anybody. Especially not that little boy. Ben’s taken a shying to him, & to be honest the affection is reciprocated. His oldest sister’s got a son, & he’d always enjoyed playing the favorite  ( & only )  uncle bit. Imagining his nephew in a similar situation pulls at his heart in an uncomfortable way.

     He shifts in his seat, trying to find a place of comfort once again. But pinned under her cutting gaze makes it difficult. 

               HE REMEMBERS LATE nights like these, in the infancy of their relationship, when Padmé worked long hours as an executive intern for their local government && Anakin’s only way of seeing her without building access was to sneak through a second-story window. The climb is no harder now, for all the age he’s put on between the war && the birth of their children. But now instead of avoiding her boss, he’s avoiding his own daughter. The irony doesn’t escape him, but the reward is worth the risk of upsetting Leia; who still hasn’t taken to her father’s return the way Luke or Padmé have.

               He taps lightly on the glass, suspended up the side of the house by only upper body strength && long hours of black ops training. 

                HER PHONE BUZZES & SHE  smiles to herself as she stands up from the vanity & takes the few steps over to her bed -- the screen glows brightly in the dim lamp light of her room & it only takes her a moment to read his message. She takes a look at the time  ( 2:50 AM )  & wonders if this isn’t silly. They’re both grown adults. They shouldn’t have to resort to sneaking around like they had over a decade ago. But still, it’s easier for everyone if no one knows he was here tonight. And she wants to see him ---- very very much. 

     She walks over to the window & opens it with a wide grin, the fatigue of the long day & the long wait for this moment creasing the corners of her eyes. There he is. She rests her forearms on the sill & leans forward to kiss him softly on the lips.