It's lonely without Izzy. Edward feels his absence like he's been run through, and the sword is still there to catch against the walls whenever he rounds a corner and twist inside his guts as sharply as Izzy's dry humor. While Edward is not alone--never more than twenty feet from Stede, not that either of them feel a desperate need to keep the other in sight--he can't help how the hole where Izzy should be swallows any semblance of joy in interacting with anyone else, even Stede. He should still be here.
The cheap table and chair set Stede bought for the kitchen has only two seats, and Edward can't look at it without wondering where Izzy is supposed to sit. It's absurd when Izzy didn't dine with them, but Edward feels entitled to irrationality right now. Stede said as much while Ed laid on top of the dirt they buried Izzy beneath, pretending he could still hear him breathing, whispering all the words left unsaid into the damp earth.
Izzy wouldn't want a chair at their table anyway. The version of Izzy Ed remembers, the one that mocked his flights of fancy, would scoff at the idea and perhaps knock over the vase of lillies Stede arranged so carefully. He'd call this a waste of everything Edward is.
Then again, there's a version of Izzy that Edward didn't know well enough to realize his existence until after they were broken beyond repair. It was still Izzy who painted his face in gold and sang for them at Calypso's birthday. His last words in life were a comfort for Edward. That feels like the Izzy Edward knew as well as the back of his hand, but the open softness in his face and the peaceful acceptance of endings does not.
Rather than thinking too hard about whether Edward really knew Izzy at all, he sits cross-legged opposite Izzy's makeshift headstone with his eyes on the tarnished shine of the ring knotted into the cravat. He can't figure out why they denied Izzy a burial at sea, and no one has explained, which Edward suspects is because it has already been laid out for him. The several days between Izzy's death and funeral are a grizzly blur of which Ed has little memory beyond a soul-churning ache for Izzy to be beside him again. He forgave Edward before he died. It wasn't enough because he only did it to get the words out while he still had the chance, not because he was past the horrors he endured at his captain's hand.
Stede comes to check on him and deliver a cup of tea, sweeter than Izzy ever made it for Edward because he was smart about rations and Edward never went with him to make sure he wasn't skimping. It surprises him when a question of where Izzy's cup is slips from his mouth, but Stede was prepared for this and sets a tea cup next to Edward's good knee. Vaguely, Ed remembers the meltdown he had the first time Stede made tea after Izzy died, demanding to know why there were only two porcelain sets. Izzy liked tea when he was hurt or ill. If making tea for a dead man who can't possibly be aware of its presence bothers Stede, he gives no such indication. Instead, he tells Edward he will leave the two of them to chat and turns back toward the house.
Ed drinks his tea before it gets cold. He pours Izzy's over the grave, the best approximation he has for holding it to Izzy's chapped lips, before its steam dissipates.
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Reagan flings herself into the high-backed office chair, slouching to pretend the mismatch between its height and her own is intentional. AlphaBeta walks over to her. The concept, while not novel, is a stark readjustment; Reagan whipped up the new limbs this week with his cool input from the corner, and attached them on Sunday morning between cups of coffee. The bags under her eyes are dark, but only three percent more so than normal, and her hair appears to have been brushed within the last twenty-four hours, so whatever stress harasses her must be a fleeting one.
“I absorbed every textbook on the internet,” AlphaBeta replies. “Remember when you connected me to it and showed me how much of a plague the entire human race is?”
She scoffs and waves a hand at him. “Aren’t we past that?”
“I suppose.”
Only the left side of his face smiles. Both could, if he wanted them to, but he has found a certain pleasure in the uncanny fear people get from the exposed metal above his right cheek. “My point stands, Reagan. I’ve read more about psychology than you’ve read anything in your miserable human life. You are quantifiably abnormal.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Hey.”
Reagan tilts her head back so she can look at him. She never shies away from his visage, though she doesn’t look in his eyes. He doesn’t take offense to that, though- she tends not to make eye contact with anyone. That represents another data point on his graph. He drags a smile onto the other half of his face for her, even though he doesn’t need to, and takes the shoulders of the chair in his hands. Two hands, he thinks quickly, both attached and functional.
“I also absorbed a lot of research,” he starts, “and therapy could really help you. Not change you, not in the ways that matter, but help you cope with your… everything.”
The door to Reagan’s office slams open before she can respond, and while there’s only a handful of people in the building with the balls to enter her office like that, AlphaBeta still yanks the chair back and slots himself between Reagan and the intruder.
“Dude-!”
“Hi, Reagan!”
“Prepare to-”
“AlphaBeta, stand down!”
At Reagan’s panicked order, he does, sidestepping and taking his requisite place behind her once more. Brett gives him a somewhat shaky thumbs up with one hand, the other still holding the door open from his dramatic entrance. Just this idiot. Again. AlphaBeta connects to Reagan’s personal security cameras and pulls up the feeds for her office, allowing him to study Brett from every direction. This allows for unflattering angles and a high-definition rendering of the sweat on his upper lip, which AlphaBeta gleefully saves to his hard drive for later.
“You guys have to stop doing that,” Reagan groans. “He’s gonna blast your face off one of these days.”
He smiles with the left side of his face.
“My pleasure.”
Brett audibly gulps and loosens his tie. “Not necessary, Mr. ROBOTUS, I will start knocking!” Clearing his throat, he tightens his tie again, then fixes his suit carefully in the kind of meticulous way that anyone besides Reagan would have mocked by now. She and Brett seem to be cut of the same cloth, as humans say, but her section was clearly far superior. Perhaps they’re merely similar in origin. AlphaBeta scans his knowledge for a better metaphor and settles on paintings. Reagan and Brett were both painted with the same tubes of thick oil paint, but Reagan’s creator was a master with his brush, and Brett was made by her painter’s two year old son.
“Anyways, Rea, I came to tell you that Gigi has officially certified me in the-” Here, Brett stops to fish a notecard from the interior of his blazer, “-art of manipulating the stupid masses with my pretty face and subliminal messaging.” Now the notecard goes back in place, and Brett pats his chest over it as if to ensure it feels tucked away inside. “So I’ve done my lab certs with you, I learned how to milk Myc- yuck, by the way, and now media. What’s next, boss?”
“Andre and Glenn,” AlphaBeta answers for her, “obviously.”
He reads and archives the several emotions that flit across Brett’s face in quick succession. Overall, it’ll take him through the afternoon to process them in the background, but he gets the gist easily enough. Brett isn’t excited at the prospect. He has always had a weak stomach for a Cognito employee, or so AlphaBeta understands, and it doesn’t seem like a shock he has no excitement for drugs and weaponry.
“Do you have a preference?” Reagan asks, haltingly.
Brett interprets her tone just as AlphaBeta does: a statement of forced nicety. “Do you?”
“Yeah, actually.”
She shoots out of her chair and to the decorative bookcases against the wall. With a gentle tug to a thick blue volume, the shelves spin into the wall, a computer interface taking its place. Truly, the system is a work of art, possible only through the most talented mind the human race has to offer.
“I trust you to use common sense in Andre’s lab, so…”
“Brett, common sense? Really?” AlphaBeta questions.
Reagan ignores him. “It would make more sense to learn there first. Glenn has a certain zest for blowing things up, and in case it’s contagious, you’ll still need to know how to do things quietly.”
“Look at me, coming up in the world and learning all about our company!” Brett exclaims. The excitement is fake, but AlphaBeta pockets that information for later. “I’ll just go, then?”
“Yeah, uh, tell Andre I sent you.” Reagan has gotten sucked into something on her screen, but it’s the one system AlphaBeta isn’t connected to, so he isn’t sure what. “See you at McUltra’s tonight?”
Brett gives a silent thumbs up behind her turned back, but she doesn’t acknowledge his lack of an audible response, nor does she seem bothered by his departure. While she can get sucked into work, usually Brett’s presence serves as a potent distraction, so whatever she’s looking at must be the source of her stress. AlphaBeta comes up behind her to stare at the holographs.
The screen she scrutinizes is written in some sort of cipher, but unfortunately for her, she’s the one who programmed AlphaBeta’s computer, and he cracks it in under a minute- a new record for him, but he keeps that to himself. Instead, he translates everything and documents it behind a secure firewall.
“Lovely eulogy,” he comments. “Very kind.”
Reagan draws her knees up to her chest. “Ron isn’t dead.”
“You think he faked his death again?”
She doesn’t answer him. AlphaBeta takes the liberty of scrolling through the page himself, reading everything that was released. Ron Staedtler, active agent of the Illuminati, died in the field, literally and figuratively, in Appleton, Wisconsin. It makes sense on the surface, but he knows better. He was built better. Ron had no memories left, and was alive the last time Reagan turned on her surveillance of his home, before her guilt won out as per usual and she disabled it again. The last thing that sack of meat was doing was field work for the agency he fought so hard to leave. Besides, even if he was, his death would have gone unreported. No one cares about the footsoldiers of the shadow world. Whether or not he’s alive, this publication was made for a single reader, and she seems exactly as shocked as one might expect.
When it takes longer than the standard five seconds for her to return to normal, AlphaBeta places his hand against the back of her neck, careful not to squeeze or press too hard. Data pours in. Her heart rate is extremely elevated, as he suspected, as is her temperature and blood pressure. Her respiration and oxygenation are fine. Her blood glucose is slightly low, however, and he pings an intern to bring her a donut and some water.
“Reagan,” he prompts gently.
“No, it’s fine. They almost found him and he got away, so now they’re covering their tracks. It makes perfect sense.”
Reagan stands suddenly and stiffly powers down the system. It goes back into its hidden spot behind her bookcase as she begins pacing behind her desk. She jumps when a knock sounds at the door, though she hadn’t for Brett’s arrival.
“It’s alright,” AlphaBeta soothes, checking the cameras to be safe as he approaches the door. “I sent for some breakfast.”
He opens the door enough to take the water bottle and box of assorted donuts from a terrified intern with six eyes and shuts it as softly as he’s able. He deposits both onto Reagan’s desk and fusses over picking a donut for her for a moment: she likes the ones with strawberry frosting and rainbow sprinkles, but the closest this variety offers is chocolate. He’s going to fire that intern, and he’s going to use real flames in the process..
“Thanks, but I’m not hungry right now. I have to figure out where he’s hiding and help him.”
Reagan pulls the corner of her lab coat up to her face to chew on it and opens one of the drawers of her desk. She goes through it like a madman, tossing irrelevant finds over her shoulder in a way that reminds AlphaBeta too much of her father. Rand is a genius, much like his daughter, but she has the distinct advantage of emotions. No, not that, he corrects himself. Rand is capable of selfish emotions like pain and paranoia and possessiveness and pride. What he lacks is the array, filled with beautiful and hurtful human things like love.
“Reagan-”
“I need a minute.” She lifts a small notebook from her desk and flicks through the pages. “Just- a little space? For the morning?”
AlphaBeta nods. “Of course. If you need anything-”
“I know, I know.”
At that, he lets himself out of her office. He heads straight to Andre’s lab with the purpose of supervising the two overgrown children, but arrives to see Myc there as well. To be honest, AlphaBeta has yet to make up his mind on Myc; on one hand, he’s not a human, and he is rather funny, but on the other, he remains deeply irritating. The two of them cannot read each other, which serves as a point of friction for two entities so used to simply knowing.
“Really? That many?” Brett asks, oblivious to AlphaBeta’s entrance as he looks into a microscope. “Honestly, I tapped out on number three.”
Andre pats him on the back. “You have to work up to it, man, I’m telling you. If you want, I could whip you up a cocktail that’ll make you jizz your brains out.”
“That doesn’t sound very good.”
Myc makes a partially indignant, partially distressed noise from his position in the corner. “I can make Brett jizz his brains out just fine without artificial chemicals, thank you very much.”
While he tries to process all of that information, and Brett’s now obvious lie about his opinion of “milking” Myc, AlphaBeta makes finger guns and pretends to shoot them, complete with little “pew pew” sounds. All three turn to look at him.
“If I was a real intruder, you would all be dead.”
“I hate when you sneak up on me, it’s fucking rude,” Myc informs him. “I can’t hear you, you know. You don’t think. It’s really freaky.”
AlphaBeta rolls his eyes. “The feeling is mutual. What are you working on?”
“None of your business, Robo-Asshole.”
“Spores that turn you into a Cognito controlled zombie. I engineered it from Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis, the fungus that turns ants’ brains to mush in rainforests.”
“I’m not sure but it looks cool under a microscope!”
Carefully skirting the side of the worktable, AlphaBeta reaches for the microscope. “May I?”
At Andre’s nod, he lowers his face to the lenses and peers at the slide. He has to adjust the focus, as it seems Brett didn’t bother, before he can make out the microscopic cells that have the power to control a human mind as easily as any machine. They look innocuous. Yet, if it does come from O. Unilateralis, there is a nonzero possibility that recovery from infection is impossible. The one thing to soothe AlphaBeta’s rising frustration is the fact that both Brett and Andre have gloves on. He superheats his face and hands briefly after leaving the microscope to kill anything that could have clung to him, lest he transfer it to someone unintentionally.
“We start human, and humanoid, trials next week,” Andre says, unable to contain his excitement, instead allowing it to leak out in his loud enunciation, glossy eyes, and big smile. “Apparently The Robes have some prisoners for us to test it out on!”
“Lovely,” AlphaBeta says, before consulting a book on effective management techniques and adding, “good work. Keep it up.”
Even though Myc has no eyes, AlphaBeta gets the distinct sense he might be rolling them. He pastes his half-smile in place and beams at each of the three employees in turn, delighting in the squirmy discomfort it elicits from them- Myc included.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to.”
He leaves as abruptly as he’d arrived, pushing his navigation to Gigi’s office into background processing to make room for this. The list of prisoners was sent through Reagan’s official encrypted email, which AlphaBeta has the distinct pleasure to manage, but had not yet been sorted for its official purpose. He hadn’t known it. He hadn’t particularly cared, either, nor would he now if not for a single name on the list he knows Reagan can’t agree to.
Raya can’t talk to her father about it, because he was frozen much longer than her, and all her friends lived through much of the same that she did. None of them have nightmares, or flashbacks, or this inability to carry on without feeling like the world is going to end at any given opportunity.
She stays in the river most of the day, where she knows she’s safe from the Druuns. They’re gone now, everyone says, and the dragons are here to protect them. Sisu wouldn’t let anything happen to them, least of all Raya, but she still lives in fear. She remembers too heavily the face of her Ba in stone. The faces of so many. She didn’t get the chance to process any of it at the time, but now it seems to overcome her. She isn’t grieving, she doesn’t think, but she is suffering. Something in her has broken, something she cannot fix.
Namaari comes and sits beside her, feet dangling in the river instead of placing her entire body in its swift current, and does not speak. At least, she does not right away. Instead they remain still in their silence until finally, Namaari places a hand on Raya’s shoulder and she flinches.
“The war is over,” Namaari says. “It’s all over. No more Druuns, no more five nations. We are safe now. We are at peace.”
“I don’t feel peaceful.”
Slowly, Namaari lowers herself into the river beside Raya. “Don’t worry. I don’t either.”
In the shallows, they both sit with their knees drawn to their chests and their eyes on the dragons frolicking about the river. There are always some near what used to be Heart. Sisu is playing with her siblings today, as well as some others, none paying any mind to the two small humans lingering at the bank of the river.
“Sometimes I feel so heavy it’s as if I’m still made of stone.”
“I sometimes feel as if I might be floating away,” Namaari counters. “But you anchor me. Let me lift you in return.”
She takes Raya’s hand and holds it tight. Raya leans her head against Namaari’s shoulder and wonders if she can share this burden with someone who will help her carry it. If anyone will do such a thing, it is Namaari.
Kendall pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth. He hasn’t been to this restaurant before, because when it’s left up to him, he more often than not goes to the same places he’s been to a million times. The familiarity is comforting. He knows what he likes and how long it will take for what he likes to be in front of him, steaming hot and ready to be devoured. Stewy, on the other hand, loves trying new things and probably has a mental yelp page for every single place he’s tried. Tonight, it’s an upscale teppanyaki place, where Kendall has simply gotten bored of the chef trying to impress them. Despite the high price tag on merely getting to sit at one of the grills, Stewy bought out the whole table so they don’t have several strangers crowded with them while they eat. Kendall has tried everything, and only really liked a couple of the options, but he keeps eating everything Stewy holds up to his mouth because it’s difficult to say no.
“Vacation?” he repeats.
“Yeah, a vacation. You’ve heard of ‘em.” Stewy leans back slightly in his chair and pops a hand-roll into his mouth. "I was thinking somewhere warm and beachy, like the Maldives. Thoughts?"
Kendall pauses and considers this. All the vacations he's been on in life, besides his honeymoon, were family events. As an older teen, sometimes Stewy would stay for a few days at the summer house, but by and large it was just the family and whichever higher ups were in favor. The honeymoon, which Rava begged to have in Hawaii, had been more sunburning and nightly missionary than anything else. He has fond memories of the honeymoon, looking back; Rava had held his head between her thighs, knees planted next to his ears, and praised him as he went down on her for an hour, they hit every destination beach with white sand, and she held his hand like she would never let go.
He's never been on a vacation with anyone else. Part of him worries this is a vacation in the way Bellevue was a vacation after his first overdose, and it's a trick he's teetering on the edge of falling for, but then he reigns himself in. It's Stewy. Stewy doesn't lie, even if he does misrepresent or leave out details.
"I don't know if I'd want to go to the tropics. It sounds sticky."
Stewy laughs as he signals the waiter for a refill. "Fair enough, man, fair enough. Maybe we go to like, Europe. I know you've been, but still. Maybe we go to France. Get some good food, piss off the Parisians, get really drunk." He pauses. "I don't know. I just think we've earned a break."
Kendall rolls his eyes. "Stewy Hosseini, taking a break? I never thought I'd see the day."
"Well, the married life has changed me," he jokes.
But neither of them laugh at that, instead letting his words hang between them. Stewy doesn't take it back, because he never does, but the knowledge of how close their lives have become to marriage is too much brought into the light. In another world, maybe. Not this one. They can't, not with Kendall's baggage, family, and the minor inconvenience of not being gay. Stewy has never come out to him, per se, or even expressed interest in men in front of him, but Kendall knows. It's impossible to be someone's best friend for most of their life and not know that about them.
"I'm serious. Fresh start, even. We go for a month or two, I'll work remotely on whatever needs it, and we just put it on pause."
Kendall shakes his head with a smile, watching the surface of the hibachi instead of looking at Stewy. "This sounds crazy."
"We need a little crazy. Come on, don't tell me you haven't ever wanted to fuck off to somewhere no one knows you with a suitcase and a dream and all that bullshit. You never wanted to swipe your pretty little Amex and be?"
"Well," Kendall says, debating his next words, "my therapist talked me down from it in the middle of a manic episode."
It takes a moment for Stewy to mull this over. "Yeah, okay, I get that. Was that Harvard, in '99? I remember you being obsessed with teaching yourself Portuguese."
"Oh. Right. Um, yeah I was gonna fuckin, uh, go to Peru. Dad doesn't have people in Peru."
Nodding, Stewy thanks the chef for depositing the lobster onto their plate. They both start eating, and although Kendall doesn't enjoy lobster too much, he's still more than impressed by the vegetables and steak. They companionably finish their meal, Stewy pays the cheque, and on the way out, Stewy appears to check his emails. By the time they get into the town car, Stewy has pocketed his phone.
"Would you rather go to South America?"
"No."
"Cool. Do you need anything from home?"
"I mean, I have my wallet and phone. Stewy, what-"
Stewy leans toward the driver. "JFK, please. The private gates." He relaxes back into his seat just as quickly. "We're going to Paris. You can sleep on the jet, it's a long ride."
"I don't sleep much when I'm not depressed."
"Then it'll be good for you."
They get to the airport a short while later, where their flight is already waiting for them. Stewy's latest assistant, who might be named Mona or Monique or something like that, is waiting for them. Her usually stiffly coiled chestnut hair has been piled in a messy bun, and her business flashy-casual is absent in favor of a sweater and leggings. She has a backpack in one hand and a duffel in the other.
"You fucking suck," she tells Stewy. "I hate you so much. You know it's almost midnight."
"Thanks, Monica."
Stewy air kisses her cheeks and shoulders both bags, not even bothering to check them. Kendall remembers how it had been like that with Jess. He knew she was diligent and thorough, and she dropped everything to do weird things like this all the time. It's nice, but it's a luxury of wealth.
"Anybody I need to talk to has my international number, so any calls and appointments can wait," Stewy says, but Kendall gets the impression he's already texted or emailed this to her. "I'll be checking my email, keeping an eye on shit. Honestly, as long as you check your email everyday, you should be good. I appreciate you so much."
Monica laughs. "I'm honestly surprised you didn't have me pack a bag too. How will you get on without me?"
"I thought about it. But I'll be fine."
He smiles at Kendall, and it feels like there's something going on that's flown over Kendall's head. The sensation isn't unfamiliar, but he still doesn't know how to figure it out, so he casts the thought aside as they finish their conversation for Stewy to lead them both into the jet.
He immediately starts rooting through the duffel and produces sweatpants for Kendall to replace his jeans with, as well as loungewear of his own. Instead of going into the partitioned back half or to the bathroom, Stewy strips down to his boxers right there and redresses. They used to live in the same dorm, so it's not unheard of for them to change in front of each other, and yet this feels so much different. Kendall stares at the floor as he changes, and when he looks up, Stewy is reclining in one of the seats and looking through his backpack.
"Monica grabbed your meds too, by the way. I have your daily and as needed ones." He gets a bottle out and checks the label before putting two green and white pills in his hand, swallowing them down with a chaser of his flask. "Do you need the traz?"
"I wouldn't mind."
Stewy finds the correct bottle and hands it over. Less than ten minutes later, before the plane has even taken off, he's out.
There is something beautiful about her. Not just her face, though that is undoubtedly lovely, but something within Raya is undoubtedly so. She will be a great leader when her father passes. She’s faithful and trusting, but not naive. She is world weary and strong. Raya is selfless.
Namaari knows she is none of those things. She is critical and sheltered and shortsighted, unable to see past the immediacy of an action. But most of all, she is selfish. It is her actions that broke the Dragon Gem, and she tried to stop Raya from putting it back together. She killed Sisu! She’s not beautiful in the way Raya is beautiful, and it kills her inside.
When they cook together, preparing for a gathering of the chiefs (save for Tail’s, who had passed away), Raya is happy, beautiful in the sunlight filtering through the windows. She gives her voice and touch, her everything, freely. Too freely, almost. Namaari cannot imagine being so open, but she gets to bear witness to it every day. She is blessed in this manner. Her whole body seems to light up when Raya’s hand presses to the small of her back when reaching past her to grab the palm sugar. She still cooks like her father did the day the world broke. Stew and rice fragrance the large kitchen of what had been Heart. It’s bigger than Fang’s throne room used to be. Raya dumps various ingredients into the stew and reminds Namaari to check on the rice, the only task she is permitted to perform in the kitchen. Sometimes, she is not even allowed that.
“I love rice,” Namaari says, peering into the pot. There’s still water. “The way it soaks up flavor when you mix it with the stew… incredible.”
“I’ve never thought to put them together.”
“They mix well.”
She doesn’t comment on the ways Raya is the stew, hearty and made of many things. She is fiery and strong and seasoned and sweet. Namaari, in comparison, is rice. Plain and boring and off to the side and broken into a thousand tiny pieces. She cannot forgive herself for being rice, any more than she can love Raya for being stew. She cannot love her. She knows better.
But it is difficult to draw such a line, when she sees the coppery glow of the sun on Raya's brown skin and the dark, bottomless pools of her expressing eyes. Namaari wants to run her fingers through Raya's long silky hair (the likes of which Namaari has never been permitted to grow) and learn the way it waves when it's been braided. She wants, oh, she wants everything that is Raya. Everything that is beautiful and worth having in this world is Raya. Her voice, like honey over dappled leaves, is a balm to Namaari’s aching heart. The sight of her is particularly made for sore eyes. She is the light at the end of every tunnel. She is so beautiful.
Namaari turns away before a single word can spill out of her mouth and checks the rice again. While she was lost in thought, the rice has finished cooking. She removes the pot from the heat and carefully fluffs it with a wooden spoon, letting its earthy aroma wash over her. Plain. Perfect.
“Let’s put it in the stew when it’s finished, then,” Raya says. “I’ll try it. I think I can see why you’d like it.”
She doesn’t comment on the transformation. In the past, Namaari wouldn’t have dare tainted the rice with stew when it is such a rare delicacy in Fang, but she has grown comfortable and safe enough to taste it with other things. She knows enough to trust the plentiful harvest of Kumandra in a way she never knew was possible before. It has not let them down in the five years since they restored Kumandra to its peaceful unity. Namaari has grown to know and love the taste of palm sugar.
She has begun to crave the knowledge of if it tastes the same on Raya’s soft lips.
But she will never find out, nor will she ask to gain the knowledge, because Raya is too beautiful and Namaari cannot hope to compare.
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He doesn't recognize himself in the mirror anymore.
Jack was never a scrawny kid; growing up helping out on the farm made sure of that. He hadn't particularly wanted to join the military, but it was the only option that made sense. He didn't get into the schools he applied to because his applications were too average, and his family never wanted him to go to college anyways. They said he wasn't smart enough for it. None of that is even to mention how badly the debt would cripple him. He only enlisted to get off that God-forsaken farm in the middle of nowhere Indiana.
Then everything happened. He went to war. He was recruited for SEP. He fought the omnics. His body is not the same one he was born into, and that becomes unbearably apparent when he finally gets a chance to reserve a private training room with Gabriel for some good oid fashioned sparring. The two of them are the only ones who can come close to matching each other, so they try to do this when they can. But now he's standing here while Gabe stretches, looking in the mirror, and unable to find himself in the image that he sees.
Those are his eyes, and that's his nose, but the shadow along his jaw would have never been acceptable back home. His body is shaped differently, now nothing but muscle and sinew because the enhancements don't allow him to store any fat. In just a pair of shorts and his sneakers, he can see the litter of scars across his now hairy chest. One particularly nasty gash is still puckered and indented across his stomach. He remembers getting it, remembers Gabriel hunched over him and holding Jack's organs into his body while he begged him to stay awake until help arrived, blood soaking them both and Jack certain he was going to die.
"If you're done staring at yourself, pretty boy, I'd like to spar before we lose the room."
Jack turns away from his reflection. Gabriel has changed in a lot of ways, too. He's also gained a lot of muscle, though he had been bulky before SEP anyways. There's scars on his body, proof of battles won, and his eyes are much more jaded than the day they first met when they were both recruited. He's not Soldier 24 anymore, but Commander Reyes, the most dedicated and successful man Overwatch has at their disposal. Without him, Blackwatch would be nothing. Overwatch would be nothing. Hell, without him, they would probably still be smack in the middle of the Omnic Crisis.
His thoughts are interrupted by a harsh punch to his face. It knocks him off balance, but he doesn't fall- years of training will do that. He blinks at Gabriel, who doesn't look the slightest bit sorry.
"Where's your head at?"
"Anywhere but here."
Gabriel's eyes soften, but he doesn't drop his defensive pose. "I get it. We can talk after this, if you want. But you should really take this time to train before you get too out of practice."
"I'm not on the front lines anymore, Gabe."
"You're still the head of Overwatch." Gabriel swings at him again, but this time Jack sees it coming and blocks the punch. "I'd hate for something to happen and you get hurt because you haven't kept up with your training."
This time Jack is the one who lunges, but Gabriel easily sidesteps him and sweeps his feet out from under him. "You're not my commander anymore. In fact, I think I'm technically yours."
"Doesn't mean I don't worry about you, Jackie."
Jack glances at the mirror again. He sees the two of them there, and realizes that between them, the whole world rests on their shoulders. He wishes things were different, wishes someone else was responsible for saving the world.
That was her whole goal for after her last tour- the VA would pay for the surgery, whether they liked it or not. Her marker was changed years ago. She went off of E while she was on tour, but she was finally beginning to feel a little more at home, and while this immortality is in some ways, a blessing, it is a curse in this aspect. They heal. Any surgeon would know, and it wouldn’t stay, based on her experience. Joe excitedly told a story about how he got his arm blown off, and how it took nearly a full day for the thing to regrow. She can see for herself that it all works fine. So that’s that.
She mentions it once, over dinner, faux-casual as her way of telling them this about herself. It’s safer to know now if they will hate her for it. Before she gets too attached. It’s better to know, she rationalizes, as she says over sloppy joes that she’s kind of disappointed that she can never get it done. That’s the point when Nicky gives her a strange look.
“You’re upset you can’t have surgery?”
She shrugs and doesn’t look up. “Yeah, our bodies don’t exactly take to mutilation.”
“That is not mutilation, Nile.” He sips his water casually. “No more than piercings, and we all have those.”
“All?”
Andy touches her earrings as though it’s a habit when they’re mentioned. “Believe me, you don’t want to know. But yeah, I mean, it’s not. We don’t view it that way, anyways.”
Nile isn’t sure if she’s being preached at or not, so she takes a bite of her sandwich and waits for someone to say something else. Like always, Andy has gone back to digging into her food like it’ll be taken away from her the moment she’s finished saying her bit, which leaves Joe and Nicky to carry on, if they choose to do so. At the very least it feels less like they might kick her out on a whim.
“You can have your surgery, if you want it,” Joe finally tells her. “That’s not a problem.”
At that point, Nicky pushes the serving dish closer to her in that way he does, making sure she always has enough. “Andy did my-” he makes a slashing motion across his chest. “Both. She did both for me in, was it the sixties?”
“1973, my love. We had that month in Malta after, to celebrate.”
“Can you explain, please?”
Andy sighs. “I cut off his you-know-whats and gave him a thing.”
“She doesn’t like the words,” Joe explains.
But Nile understands, well enough at least. Enough to know that it’s possible, and that she’s in safe hands if what she’s done lives up to Nicky’s strict expectations of everything. She knows how he is, so wary and afraid when it comes to every healing to ensure his body is the same.
But that aside, this is so much more than just the fact that she could have what she’s always wanted. It’s possible. Within reach. Andy even offers to do it now, if they just clear the table. (Nile said not tonight, they’ll talk about it later once she’s processed that new information.) Right now, she knows for certain that they will still love her, and that Nicky is like her in this way. She’s not alone. It’s another way that this family is her community and her salvation in such a world.
“You’re not alone in that, you know.” Andy bumps her shoulder to Nile’s. “The word is cisgender now, right? Yeah, I don’t think any of us are cisgender. Even before there was the concept of being that or being normal. Quynh was-” She pauses to think of the word. “Nonbinary? Is that what it’s called? We’ve been around longer than these concepts have been named. Lykon was a trans man. I’m a trans woman. Nicky’s a trans man. Joe is a…”
“I haven’t found words in English that describe what my gender is. For words you would know, I would be a trans man, and nonbinary, I think. But those words do not fill it all up.”
Nicky smiles at him fondly. “We will keep looking. And if we find nothing, then so be it. Languages change, grow and die.”
“What about Booker?” Nile asks.
“Oh. Yeah, no, he’s a cisgender. And straight. It’s very unfortunate.”
There’s a brush of laughter, but the wounds of his betrayal are still too fresh to truly tease him like they did before. This family of hers loves to rib and jibe. But without Booker here to smile and good-naturedly tease them back, especially given the reason, it hurts. She wonders what he’d say to her right now. Maybe one of those well-intentioned, self-congratulatory speeches like she got from her middle school counselor.
They finish their meal and tidy up together, like with every one they share, and she can breathe easier with the knowledge that they all understand. Without knowing it, she had been carrying too much tension in her shoulders and chest, and the way it all falls away gives her the strongest sense of comfort she’s had since she stepped foot on the sand in the Middle East to die her first death.
“You’re gonna be okay, kid. You’re with the right people.”
Prompt: You could do Will and Hannibal meeting for the first time in the mafia au?
-
Alana grabs onto his sleeve- she is one of the only people who may do so and live- to stop Hannibal from walking into the room before she’s deemed it time. “You have to understand,” she says, “he’s very fragile. He was before the murders, but all that time in a cage, especially under Chilton’s thumb-”
“I’ll be careful.”
She lets him into the room, where Will is curled up on the bed and reading a book. He seems content and at ease, tracing the words with his eyes, but his shoulders are tense. Most of all, Hannibal is drawn to the clear plastic mask secured over his face. It isn’t padlocked, merely buckled, but Will has made no move to take it off now that he’s free from transport. It’s interesting to note. Perhaps it has become a comfort object to him, a piece of consistency to ease his transition.
Hannibal will not take it from him.
He pulls up the chair in the corner of the room to sit close to Will and study him. He’s a beautiful, striking thing to be certain. He looks like a painting on life, with flushed pink cheeks turned bruising where the mask is too tight, bright blue eyes, and soft-looking curls Hannibal aches to run his fingers through. This toy is too pretty to break. He reaches to the back of Will’s head to loosen the mask enough to prevent too much harm coming to that lovely face, but Will freezes like a stunned rabbit, and his teeth click together behind the mask.
“I’m helping,” Hannibal chides.
“I don’t like to be touched.”
“Even-”
“Especially,” Will says, and meets Hannibal’s eyes with cold, deadly ones.
He may be fragile, but he is not stupid and not complacent. Hannibal is eager to see how far he will bend before he breaks.
