#NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT THIS. ITS MOND

[monards]

can a girl ramble aboutthe way you can interpret so many parts of the propaganda and characterization of rhine by other the people/general populace of teyvat as people largely antagonizing neurodivergent traits without being chased with pitchforks and torches.

[wildishmazz]

Well this got rambly

Starmania is intriguing. It has so many random elements that feel like vestigia from rewrites, and this feeling is never stronger than when listening to the 1990 Tycoon album after getting familiar with Starmania(Edition Rouge, anyhow, the 1989 version).

It's perfectly possible that Tim Rice didn't know what happened in the show and made it up as he went along, and no-one dared to correct him when he seemingly reassigned songs by including the wrong character details or hints of backstory in them, but it’s far more interesting to go from the assumption that he was writing according to a planned major rewrite that never actually materialised.

The most obvious indication of this is Nobody Chooses, because while it's understandable that Rice might confuse the fading movie star for the tv presenter or maybe even the antiestablishment terrorist mastermind, I don't see that anyone could reasonably completely rewrite a song to change it from an angry young man telling his tragic backstory to an omniscient narrator's(accurate) commentary on the doomed romantic relationships in the story by accident. Additionally, recycling Banlieue Nord as Nobody Chooses would mean that it couldn't go in the same place in the plot.

This would then explain why A Little Damage Done has a more persuasive tone to it than Quand On Arrive En Ville, adding the sentiment of "embrace the cause, we know you know we're right", and overall sounding like a direct response to the questions Cristal was asking immediately prior to Banlieue Nord, if it were moved to Banlieue Nord's position from its place near the beginning. It would excise from there reasonably cleanly - the libretto would simply go directly from Roger Roger's news bulletin about the Black Stars straight into Marie-Jeanne talking about them in the bar, and introducing them in person. The trouble would then be that they wouldn't be introduced with a bang.

So maybe they could have half of Il Se Passe Quelque Chose À Monopolis(which even scans better as "Something's Going On In Monopolis", though it doesn't actually exist on the English album), and crossfade the song into the news report, giving them time to get to the next scene.

And Tim Rice's lyrics to Le Monde Est Stone, The World Is Stone, sound like they should be in Cristal's mouth, or maybe Stella Spotlight's - it sounds less like the words of the world-weary robot barmaid who yearned to see the sun and had a hopeless crush on a gay man than the revelations of one of the sheltered, privileged women who only recently came face to face with the harsh reality of the lives of the 99%. Which then suggests that maybe Cristal wasn't going to die.

But then, Only The Very Best requires that she was. And making the last line "Oh, it's getting cold"(and including "I was immortal, til today") strongly implies that Johnny was going to die too, which he didn't at the end of SOS d'un Terrien de Détresse. And doesn't "only the very best, reasonable request" sound more like something that would come out of Zero Janvier(unholy amalgamation of Donald Trump and Elon Musk)'s mouth than street brawler Johnny Rockfort's? At the very least, you could reassign the song to the titular Tycoon and it wouldn't sound wrong.

Le Reve de Stella Spotlight is absent from Tycoon, no Dream of Stella Spotlight is recorded, so does that perhaps suggest that it was going to be cut and Stella go straight into Stone instead?

And thinking of Stella Spotlight(Eva Peron by way of Norma Desmond), Rice references her apparently famous persona "Babydoll" in two songs, You Get What You Deserve and Farewell to a Sex Symbol, allowing the inference that she was going to sing both. Why would Sadia, revolutionary mastermind, be referencing "Babydoll, teenage queen" in her introductory number, and bragging about all the different roles she can play? Seems more like the defiant declaration of an aging movie star insisting that she’s not past it to me, rather than a version of Travesti, Sadia's original "I'm trans and fuck you if you've got a problem with that" manifesto.

And then in the show generally there are the scifi dystopia elements established early on - the world is homogenised, no-one gets to see the sky any more, everyone has a number on their back(is that what the black stars on their jackets are obscuring?) - that just sort of get mentioned once then dropped. And the implication is there at the start that though the official line is that there is no crime in Monopolis except that perpetrated by the Black Stars, that official line is a smokescreen - the Black Stars may throw a few bricks through windows, and release press statements taking responsibility for any disruption, but they’re largely innocent of the crimes they’re accused of. We see them blamed for a breakdown of the ventilation system in a commuter tunnel. I mean, come on - that sounds much more like an official body shirking responsibility for an accident caused by poor maintenance by blaming those pesky ne'er-do-wells who cause havoc for absolutely no reason at all they just like chaos and certainly aren't political activists trying to draw attention to the fact that Monopolis is not "this bloody perfect town", actually, it's a "damned metropolis", a harshly stratified society with those at the bottom living in squalid tunnels where they never get to see the sky and those at the top dancing in a penthouse nightclub called "Naziland". But these things mostly get mentioned once and then never really come back.

I wish I was a better fanfic writer, there's so much here to work with.

[aro-daydreams]

Ils ont toujours joué à la balle.

J'ai toujours vu le jeu de la balle.

Je connais toutes les règles,

Lus les livres,

Regardé chaque partie attentivement,

Étudié la théorie et les stratégies,

En rêvant du jour où, moi aussi,

Je jouerai à la balle.

Peu m'importe la couleur de la balle,

Peu m'importe mon équipe,

Peu m'importent beaucoup de choses.

Puis arrive un jour

Où je peux enfin rentrer sur le terrain.

Tout fuse autour de moi,

Je suis un peu dépassée

Mais je résiste.

Je reste forte,

C'est ce dont j'ai toujours

Rêvé,

Non?

Je vois la balle s'approcher de moi,

Je la frôle du bout des doigts,

E l l e

m e

t r a v e r s e

c o m p l è t e m e n t

.

Et c'est mon monde qui s'effondre.

C'est terrifiant.

Tout se brise,

Mon cœur, ma vie

En morceaux à mes pieds.

Autour de moi,

Le jeu poursuit son cours.

Ils s'amusent tous, avec leurs balles.

Personne n'a rien vu.

Je suis seule,

u n      g o u f f r e

b  é  a  n  t

En face de moi.

Je suis seule,

En face de moi.

Puis, même quand je ne pense pas,

Quand je laisse la balle derrière moi,

Elle ne me laisse pas.

Mes amis parlent toujours de leurs balles.

Ils me montrent comme elle est belle.

Avec des photos.

Parfois, ils la sortent pour de vrai.

Ils me racontent leurs problèmes.

Elle ne rebondit pas assez haut.

Elle est dure à attraper.

Mais au moins, eux, ils ont une balle.

Je grimace un sourire et fais semblant de rien.

Ma voisine y joue dans son jardin tout les matins,

De l'autre côté de la barrière.

Elle n'est même pas cachée.

Même chez moi, je ne suis plus à l'aise.

Parfois elle me demande même

Où est la mienne.

Je grimace un sourire et fais semblant de rien.

Les gens dans la rue ont aussi des balles.

Ils la tiennent à la main,

Y jouent parfois au milieu de la voie.

Ça me dégoûterai presque.

J'ai un peu envie de m'énerver.

Parfois, je les déteste tous.

Mais ce n'est pas de leur faute,

Je grimace un sourire et fais semblant de rien.

J'avais 6 ans et des rêves pleins la tête.

J'ai 18 ans et un gouffre béant devant moi.

Je n'aurais jamais imaginé qu'une balle ferait si mal.

🌸 translation 🌸

They always played ball.

I have always seen ball.

I learned all the rules,

read the books,

Watched each game carefully,

Studied theory and strategies,

Dreaming of the day when I too

I would play ball.

I don't care what color the ball is,

I don't care about my team,

I don't care about a lot of things.

Then comes the day

When I can finally get back on the field.

Everything fuses around me,

I'm a little overwhelmed

But I resist.

I stay strong,

That's what I always have

Dreamt of,

Isn't it?

I see the ball approaching,

I brush it with my fingertips,

I t

g o e s

t h r o u g h

m e

.

And my world collapses.

It's terrifying.

everything breaks down,

My heart, my life

In pieces at my feet.

Around me,

The game continues its course.

They're all having fun with their balls.

Nobody saw anything.

I'm alone,

a   g a p i n g

h   o   l   e

In front of me.

I'm alone,

In front of me.

And now, even when I'm not thinking about it,

When I leave the ball behind me,

It won't ever leave me.

My friends always talk about their balls.

They tell me how beautiful it is.

They show pictures.

Sometimes they take it out for real.

They tell me their problems.

It doesn't bounce high enough.

It's hard to catch.

But at least they have a ball.

I fake a smile and pretend.

My neighbor plays it in her garden every morning,

On the other side of the barrier.

It's not even hidden.

Even at home, I am no longer comfortable.

Sometimes she even asks me

Where is mine.

I fake a smile and pretend.

People on the street also have balls.

They hold it in their hands,

sometimes play it in the middle of the lane.

It would almost disgust me.

I almost want to yell.

Sometimes I hate them all.

But it's not their fault,

I fake a smile and pretend.

I was 6 years old and my head was full of dreams.

I am 18 years old and a gaping hole in front of me.

I never imagined a ball would hurt so much.

I have another more hopeful aro poem but I guess I should wait a bit before submitting it ?

[fictionkinfessions]

I miss discussing books with Fischl.. debating the major themes and who shouldve been with who and which scenes were well written and which the author rushed just to finish the book. I miss digging out random books on the most obscure topics to prove that the author didnt research thier source material well enough, and Fischl groaning and telling me that it doesnt matter because the inaccuracies made the story fun.

I miss having to explain complicated plots of the books to Bennett. Then having to tell him that no, whatever mystical plot it had isnt actually real, and no Oz talking just like the animals in the book doesnt mean all animals can talk. Ect ect ect.

I miss when Fischl and I got to meet Xingqiu. And we tore into his book like little demons. And he appreciated all the criticism. He even took notes.

I miss him staying in Mond for a few weeks and joining us for a few book discussion sessions.

I miss mom gently shaking me awake in the early morning after falling asleep in the library studying.. I miss having to lecture her about not overworking herself with her permanent injuries. I even miss her laughter as she dismissed how serious it was. I noticed pretty easily when she leaned extra heavy on her cane. She thought I didnt. But Im her son, and what kind of son would I have been if I wasnt as smart as my mother. Adoptive or not.

I.. miss a lot right now. But. Unfortunately? My newly discovered life is an au. One that I've never seen anyone else dabble with. One I created myself from rightful anger over my original timeline.

I wish I could say I was new to this feeling. Of having sourcemates of your loved ones around you who dont even recognize you? Because youre not the version they remember? I suppose thats how kinning obscure/original au's goes though. Nobody ever remembers you properly. Been through it too many times. This one isnt new. But it hurts less at the moment I'll admit that.

Short explanation is I'm Razor. Sure don't sound like him with how Im talking but- Well the new au is a bit stronger than Razor's original timeline, so theres alot less third person talk and more full sentences. I never got lost this time. Parents left me in Varkas care after they died, he passed me off to jean and Kaeya because hes a fucking deadbeat who doesnt understand kids unless he's teaching them to hold weapons, and Lisa adopted me after she returned from Sumeru.

It's a fun timeline so far. definitely a step up from the original. It's nice not wanting to strangle a man over leaving me in the woods for a decade. (Yeah og tl is NOT happy abt that one, Varka. Its all I ever scream abt when Im shifted.) It's nice having a Razor shift that doesnt make me feel braindead or angry (really can hardly think in the normal ones, when I do its about how idiotic Varka was.)

I just wish other people seemed as interested in it as I seem to be. At least my friends don't seem to be responding much when I ramble about the new memories.. I dont think anyone has thought of this au. Almost wish other people would acknowledge what Varka did to canon me so this kinda au would exist a bit more.

Maybe after the festival next patch people will open their eyes a bit more.

Anyway- This went on much longer than I intended, ended up rambling when I just wanted to miss my loved ones hah- Sorry for the long post everyone.

~Razor Minci 🐺📚 (Please leave the last name out of the kin tags mpc, its a timeline specific thing, canon name for proper tagging is just "Razor")

[galactia]

@dilucisms​ | unprompted ask - always accepting!

diluc's only been back in mondstadt for a day, having spent the previous week hunting fatui in snezhnaya on a ... "business trip"   ---   and he looks every bit as worn as he feels.   the more time goes on, the more prolonged usage of the delusion takes a toll, it seems ...

it was a lapse in judgment:   he'd forgotten to lock the main entrance to the angel's share after he'd let himself in to start preparing for the long and busy night ahead ... but he'd figured most of his patrons would have the common sense to not bother him before first call.   which is why he hadn't particularly bothered to make himself presentable yet:   he's sitting hunched over at the bar counter, head in his hands; his left hand is wrapped in bandages, thanks to the latest set of burns from the delusion.   his head is pounding ( even the pain pills haven't begun to take the edge off ); he hadn't been able to keep dinner down, and he suspects it won't be long before his stomach rebels again.  

nobody is supposed to see him like this, so when the main door opens, diluc snaps reflexively, his voice a low, hoarse growl:   "we're still closed.   i'm not serving for another thirty minutes.   wait outside."

but whoever it is doesn't leave, and diluc, scowling, his face written in misery, finally lifts his heavy head to level a steely gaze against the so-called intruder.   "i said   ----"

he stops short, eyes going wide upon realizing who said "intruder" is; his bandaged hand instantly disappears below the counter, and he hopes against hope that kaeya didn't see, that he won't notice.   that they won't have to talk about this tonight.

"what are you doing here early, kaeya ... ?   you alright ?"

The door to Angel’s Share clicked as Kaeya turned the lock

“I’m quite all right. I came to check on you.”

Diluc had barely been back in Mondstadt for a day and he was already behind the Angel’s bar, ready to show the good people of Mond his best. Except to Kaeya’s perceptive eye, Diluc looked like he hadn’t slept in all the week he’d been absent on ‘business’ and in that time had been well warmed over by death herself. 

Perhaps it would be to his brother’s chagrin, but Kaeya had spotted the bandaged hand, and even if he hadn’t, he knew Diluc better than anyone. He wouldn’t be turned out the door with promises that everything was all right. 

“Come on, let’s see it.” He strode toward the bar, rounded its edge and extended a gloved hand. “You’re injured, Diluc. And though I won’t pretend that my skills are near to what Barbara can mend, I know enough.”

The Angel’s Share had a set aside stash of medical supplies, originally for use when there was rare but occasional scuffle or scrap among drunken patrons, but in the most recent days, Kaeya suspected it was used for the wounds of its proprietor far more often. He’d even dropped more salve and bandages in it when Charles was behind the bar and would not notice his movements.

The Cavalry Captain’s voice pitched lower, his eye clear with worry,  “Let me help you, Diluc. Please.” 

[guiltycorp]

Owls in Genshin (as symbols & factions) 1) Two different groups (’owls’ and ‘falcons’) in Sal Vindagnyr ~more than 2600 years ago. Owls only hunted at night and had a gift of foresight, yet nobody listened to them and after the great tree had withered the owls gained dominion over the mountain. The one who fed the surviving 'weak young falcons' was 'a crimson-red falcon' who later took on the night owls' name (perhaps Imunlaukr due to somewhat similar stories, specific parallels in Icebreaker's Resolve; he continued fighting in a war torn land, fitting the description of the Archon War).

''In the silence of the night, they call out, passing the secret along: We shall rise again. The withered tree has sprouted anew, for a time of greater trial is coming.''

Also, the Abyss and its monsters must have already existed since Imunlaukr's sword was said to drip with black blood when he briefly returned to the mountain to find everyone already dead. Interesting parallels to those Sal Vind owls can also be found in the tiaras’ description, each of them tell the same tale in different words, a tale about ancient civilizations coming to an end by Celestia’s hand and ancient priests trying to understand this cycle. For example Tiara of Thunder describes one of the chief priests - And into the deep places he went, seeking the hidden wisdom of the silver tree in the ancient capitol... And Prayers for Springtime: A mountain of crowns in a secret place, beneath a withered tree — each one hiding a lifetime of secrets kept. Describing the crowns of those chief priests, presumably. I think the owls might have come from that ‘deep place’, too. Just in case I should note that Khaenri’ah only appeared by the end of Sal Vindagnyr’s fall so no, it wasn’t Khaenri’ah. Might be the kingdom described in The Pale Princess and the Six Pygmies though!   And this might be reaching but some of those abyssal visuals are kind of owl-looking immo. 

2) 2600 years ago when Decarabian was overthrown and the Archon War ended:  "May the dawn be our spirit and follow us into the winds of true freedom." ... 'A red-haired warrior turned his back on the newborn god, hidden like a single raindrop in a tidal wave of humanity. He was first among those who passed the secret sign of Windblume, the one who wove threads of dawn throughout the long night.' ... 'The fate of this clan will likely never change: they shall ever live in the darkness and bring forth the flame of dawn.'

If we assume that the red-haired warrior was Imunlaukr or a descendant of his, the references to living in darkness, as well as his disdain for the gods (including the newly ascended Venti) would make sense. And the clan in question is then the future Ragnvindr, both because of identical appearance and references to dawn.

3) 1000 years ago there was a Lawrence clan member who had been a part of the Wanderer's Troupe. He formed Kreuzlied after the Troupe's disbandment. While its initial goals were to overthrow aristocracy, the organization later devoted itself to working for the city's benefit in the shadows, possibly spreading to the whole of Teyvat in current game events (unconfirmed so far). At the same time there was an aristocrat and a knight in training called Ragnvindr the Dawn Knight who nicknamed himself after the Dawnlight Swordswoman from the Wanderer's Troupe. He participated in the rebellion on Vennessa's side and returned to the Dawn Winery (or founded it, it's unclear). His descendants seem to be named after him. By the way, since he saw the swordswoman in gladiatorial combat which the Imunlaukr clan inspired... it would make sense to me if his name was actually Ragnvindr Imunlaukr, like maybe he abandoned the family name thinking that it only represented the aristocracy and that woman's death. Her own origins are so far unknown.  4) 500 years ago Rostam the Wolf Pup (the right-hand man of the Grand Master of the Knight of Favonius, Arundolyn) apparently led Kreuzlied. He was from a peasant family but his personality seems to parallel Diluc's as he is now (unsmiling, curt, focused on destroying evil, almost never drinking alcohol). Tbf Arundolyn who was ‘from a long line of knights’ also has parallels to Diluc since he was 'a crownless king at the head of many knights' which to me personally looks better anyway since 1 to 1 reincarnations remind me of naruto in a bad way.

5) Current times - the organization that Diluc joined during his 4 years of absence from Mondstadt is an underground intelligence network 'from the north' (which fits Mond actually, it's called a Jewel of the North in the comic and Andrius was the King of the North) and in the winery there's a figurine of an owl with a line about the dawn. At the Light of Dawn EP has full text:

O watcher of the night, forget not the splendor of the dawn. O ye who contend with evildoers, sway not from the path of righteousness. On this long path under the faint light of dawn... Even the herald of daybreak once lingered, lost in thought...

Diluc's name comes from 'dawn' in latin, his constellation is an owl, his favorite bird is an owl, too (a mistranslation in eng). He's always talking about corrupt souls, demons, evil doers and what have you... Walking in darkness before the dawn comes etc etc. Master of karate and friendship for everyone. Also, his mask (and batarangs haha) in the comic looked like an owl.

The man is committed to his aesthetic. He left the mask behind along with the delusion though. Then there’s Kaeya's line about owls - 'Have you ever seen the owl of Dragonspine? If you look directly at it, it seems to look right through you, while letting go of none of its own secrets..' and coupled with Wings of Concealing Snow it does seem like he is referencing the original yet unknown faction of Sal Vindagnyr. Or perhaps he’s just talking about regular owls which weren’t placed in the game because there was no time to make owl assets, also possible to be honest!  TLDR: most of the game so far we get references to owls and dawn in relation to ragnvindrs and mondstadt, but there is also definitely some other faction which they originally imitated, unclear if it's still active, unclear what side they take, but it all goes back to the Abyss 

[fieryhonesty]

The life of You

[AO3]

Words: 3619

You and the traveler accompanied by his floating friend were nearly close to your final destination. Passing through the entire Liyue, taking a short stop to relax a bit here and now. Enjoying the view at the marvelous land. It never stops to amaze you how beautiful the sunsets are when you can observe how the sun is disappearing behind the mountains.

Liking more Monds as it was a more free and easy going country. The green everywhere was easy on your eyes and overall didn't remind you all that stress tied to business. However you have to admit some parts of Liyue are way too pretty. Perhaps one day you could visit those pretty spots with your friends.

Having a nice walk and observing the never stop to amaze you lands. Some special kinds of flowers and herbs grow only here. Animals you can't see in the anemo Archon domain. Simply put, this is an experience one has to feel and see at least once in their life. 

You made sure not to wander too far away from the main road. Being pressed by time and distance was one thing. Being lost in the middle of somewhere was another. You sure knew your way in Liyue but mostly around habited areas. Not really have spare time to explore the land in detail.

Sometimes you had a short trip around here and there, in presence of other people. Those trips were mostly to bring you and your employees closer and take a break from all of that exhaustion. 

It's really sad how people in Liyue are different from people in Mondstadt. They are always in a rush, stressed out and business is always on their minds. However they are also willing to help with anything related to their field of expertise. 

Can't choose between this and that? Or not sure if this would be a good deal? Well you can be sure they will shower you with advices. However be aware of smooth talkers. They know a lot and know how to make one agree and probably buy more than they were willing at the start.

After all it is all just a part of the never ending flow of contracts. Tied to mora exchange and customer's satisfaction. You were sometimes thinking if Liyue being mostly yellow has something to do with currency. This color is so dominant here, everywhere. One would think leaves and grass is dying but it was healthy just like everywhere else. 

Mora is yellow, Liyue is land of contracts. Money is flowing in and out. This surely can't be coincidence, Morax must have been really smart back then.

You guys were close to Harbor's gates, a few more steps and you could see the entire city. One side enveloping it with azure blue sea, ships being docked in harbor. Supplies being carried out or in, depends on the ship's purpose and destination. Also there were smaller boats as well. Those were personal ones, more than for transport they were for amusement of their owners. 

You often heard about wedding proposals being made at those cute boats. Also there were people who used those boats for business, they transported people between north and south Liyue. It was sort of a trip one could say.

Hearing amazed 'wow' from your companions, turning to them with a smile on your lips.

"Just wait for the night. Then it gets super pretty but also really hectic. As that's the time where citizens are really free from their responsibilities and can enjoy free time." 

"Paimon can't wait to see all those stalls with delicious food!"

You chuckled at her remarks. Not needing to spend too much time with them to know the floating girl is easily manipulated when it comes to food. Just a mention of it and she is all yours. When you said about local specialities her eyes were beaming with excitement. 

By the look at Aether's expression, that was just a normal thing he got used to. As he had to get used to Paimon's big mouth. On your way here, to be more precise when you passed the middle part of Liyue. You came across some beggars. Asking for spare coins. You are still unsure about being glad for what Paimon said or not.

If it weren't for her you two might have got robbed. It turned out to be a bunch of treasure hoarders, not poor beggars barely living. When they found out both of you are carrying weapons and can channel elemental energy. They rather backed out of the trouble.

"Well then, let's head down. Shall we?" 

And so all of you slowly descended down, crossed the city's gate. Passing through streets and making sure the two are following you. Getting lost here is quite easy. 

As you arrived with one day spare, you could have just breathe out and rest for today. The rite will be held tomorrow. The question is what now? Turning to your companions.

"I'm hungry, fancy to get some food?" 

You didn't have to ask twice. Especially when it came to Paimon who was just excited flying around. Checking on stalls and observing various things. The street you were in was mostly for small merchants, selling their handmade goods. Be it art, jewelry, porcelain or those cute paperweight things. Often having sea and boats inside of them.

Moving to the next street which was purely dedicated to kid's enjoyment. Various toys shops and things which sometimes were too inviting even for yourself. You can just silently applaud those toys makers. If an adult like you has a hard time then what about the kids?

Quickly making your way to the small square which was dividing enjoyment shops from more practical ones. Such as herbalists, perfumes, food shops and also some kid's forbidden places. Starting with bars and ending with places you rather not want to think of ever entering. Otherwise you'd die in shame. 

Leading the way to your favorite shop. Knowing your friends probably won't know how to use chopsticks, it will be better to grab some finger food. Sweet dumplings, regular dumplings filled with various things, fried meat. Heck they even sell fries here which you thought it would be only in Mondstadt. 

Once you have all of your food, you have moved to a quieter place. A park with a lot of ponds, lotuses in, fish literally swimming under your feet as you were crossing via the small bridge. Sitting in the least busy place. It was just afternoon and there were already enough people to make you feel uncomfortable. Luckily you are used to crowds now.

With stuffed bellies you guys were barely able to move so you decided to sit around for a bit more. You explain them basics about the city. Like where to go if they'd need this or that. How to avoid being scammed. Liyue might be the land of contracts, one still has to negotiate about prices. People will always try to nudge prices in their profit.

"Paimon wonders. We have been around every major street and miss y/n told us about important places but..." 

She scratched her head.

"Where's your business?" Tilting her head to the side while making 'hmm' noise. Which immediately Aether joined in. 

You didn't plan to show them the building where your now middle sized company was residing in. For some reason you felt uneasy about showing your friends. You still didn't like the fact of inheriting it but at least it's in better shape than before.

As the previous owner was barely able to sign contracts and fulfill her duties. It was slowly fading, many employees had left the company. Also there was a debt written in its name. 

You didn't know why exactly you just didn't turn away and leave. It was none of your business. It was her mess. But somehow you decided to stay and help. It was awkward, especially meeting the dying woman. But you hold back your grudge and remarks. 

You knew it won't be an easy task especially after seeing what has happened in a very short period of time. First of all you needed to gain some trust from the remaining employees. To them you were nobody. Well. It wasn't far away from reality.

You were just a teenager who wanted to train and become a guardian of the city. Perhaps later on find somebody to get laid with and have a happy family. More happier than you had. But that all was taken away or so you thought.

However as the time passed you realized something. One can still be a guardian without having the title. When the debt collector came everyone was scared and shaken. There was no doubt about it might end up pretty bad for everyone present including you. But you played it smart, managing to convince the debt collector about giving you a bit more time.

It was the last chance you will get, he said before leaving. You were shaking and felt like vomiting. But at the same time proud of your smooth talk to get your through it. One thing you could thank to a certain bluenette. 

Since that day you got more trust from employees. It no longer being just the assistant who stood by you, willing to help. With a young mind and great ideas you managed to slowly but surely get the company back to functioning. Guided by your assistant who happens to have enough experience to actually lead the company. But for whatever reason she was not named as the next successor. 

You never felt any hateful feelings from her or desire to take the post from you. If anything she is keeping everything under control and is really modest. Admitting just half for her effort no matter what you said. 

It took over three years to fully recover for the company and be able to compete with others. Or at least partially. No longer being in debt and haunted by the Fatui agents. However to prove the company's worth you had to make a bigger showcase. Everyone was able to attend and observe. Enjoy the food and drinks. The event cost quite a bit but in the long run it turned out to be very worth it.

Eventually getting more offers for material, more interest from not only people from Liyue but also from Inazuma. However that didn't last long as it one day became completely locked away from the world. You really liked the direction where everything was going, nearly forgetting about your life in Mondstadt.

Warming up to people, growing fond of them. It was no surprise to see you spend time after work with some of your employees. Going to a tea house or dinner. Despite you being overly busy you still found some free time to hone your swordsmanship. You still wanted to be able to protect the weak. 

One night after a very long and tiresome week you found yourself staring at the clear night sky. You just finished one of your training. The sky was so nice, the stars being so bright. You wondered if they are looking at the sky right now. If you do see the same thing.

You were one of those people who were forced to grow up and become an adult quickly. Acting like a grown up despite being still pretty young and inexperienced. If it weren't for Mrs. Yue you'd be doomed. Also many others who often offered help. You liked those people but never admitted it aloud. 

When one day supplies didn't arrive in time, nor any message about delay. You got worried about what could have happened. The road which you chose was relatively safe and there were loaned guards for the cart. Something inside of you was telling you to take a look at it. 

Taking your trustworthy sword, leaving a message for Yue who happened not being present at that moment. So when she arrives at the office she would know. There was also stated if you don't return until noon, she will have to alert Millelith.

Just as if you knew. It didn't take long until you found a damaged cart and unconscious guards. However your people were missing, supplies being destroyed. Looking around and noticing tracks. 

The further you follow the more you know you are being lured into a trap. When you entered a place covered by an obvious illusion, you knew there's something really wrong and you just couldn't leave it be. Finding your way around, coming across cocoons. Hearing silent cries coming out of them.

Just when you tore through one of them and saw one of your employees. You realized what made those cocoons. Freeing them out. They were exhausted and pale. However fear allowed them to push forward and retreat from that place. But you did not. 

You knew the thing might attack again. Somebody else who won't be that lucky as your people. Giving them a reassuring smile, saying that you will be alright and they should have enough time to get back to cart. With some luck Millelith will be there already, taking care of them. 

Turning back and running deeper into the weird hive. Just then you realized how much naive and stupid you were. Risking your life just like this. Could it be bravery? Or just being a complete fool? Probably the latter. Your sword skills were impressive however facing the beast proved you were not strong enough. 

You could feel how your life energy was leaving your body during the encounter. You will die here. But you didn't care. You were devoted and wanted to protect. You got poisoned in the middle of the fight. As the poison was slowly spreading across your system. Fingers becoming numb.

You were half accepting the truth of never making it back. To never see any of the people who you consider close to you. To never see your employees' faces. Or never held a party to celebrate somebody's birthday. Or never be able to chase your dreams.

Just when you thought 'that's it I die here' you felt intense energy surging through your body. You could feel how it was encouraging and empowering you enough to rise up, avoid the fatal hit. It was like just all the fatigue has left your body. The poison was no longer effective. 

Swinging your sword, a wave of elemental energy being released. It cut through the beast's thick shell. It surprised you to see what happened but not letting it take over. You thought of channeling more of this weird yet powerful energy. It felt cold but at the same time warm. It might be because your body is getting confused over all of this elemental power, flowing through you.

As you rushed forward with cry, your blade met with the beast's arm. Cutting it off like it was a butter, following to its face. You cut through the entire thing, leaving a crystal like pattern behind. Was it ice? The beast has fallen with a loud and dull noise. 

Looking around, the place was covered in icy fragments. Surely the place didn't look like this before. Glancing down at your hand as you felt something appeared in it. A turquoise orb with a snowflake symbol, socketed into a silver frame with a pair of small wings on bottom at each side.

You knew what it was. Taking a hold on it and looking up. You never thought of ever receiving your own vision. Never feeling worthy to have one. Yet the cryo Archon thought otherwise. 

You did not remember how you got out of that place or what followed. Your body was exhausted and all you know is you will live to tell the tale. Whatever happened you just pushed it away, thinking it was the remaining strength you had, carrying you to safety.

Finger snapping brought you back to reality. Making you realize you had spaced out. Giving apologetic smiles to your already worried companions.

"Gosh. We thought you got possessed by something! We kept calling for you but you didn't respond!" 

Poor boy. His voice was worried and by the expression Paimon was making she was not feeling any better.

"Ah yes. I uh... Something crossed my mind, sorry about that, haha!"

Your eyes dropped down as you nervously fiddled with your fingers. They really want to see your workplace. Letting out a sigh. This had to come eventually. It's not like being ashamed or something, just feeling nervous.

"Alright then. I'll show you, with some luck we might catch up with my assistant so I could introduce you.~"

meeting with yue, talking about the stormterror, skip, rite and inspection, later the day meet traveler talking with tart and be not so nice cuz he fatui have some not really warm talk between you two, offering aether new clothes, then leaving after yue cuz you were going to tea house lol

The building was quite far away from the center. Hidden between two bigger ones, making it look smaller than it actually was. The receptionist was already gone. However people from security who were counting their last minutes for today greeted you with a bow. You motioned to them and kept walking with your friends right behind you.

"So this is the main hall where clothings get sewed together, the opposite doors are where all the fabric cutting happens. And the last door at the end of the corridor is the warehouse. We have another one on the upper floor, but that's for cleaning items only." 

Leading them around, letting them inside to check stuff from close distance. You even met somebody who was going home late, wishing them a nice evening. 

As the building seemed to be quite small from outside, there were many rooms inside. And even more things stuffed in.

"What's this room for?"

The blonde asked while he stood in front of the nameless door. Whilst you just chuckled.

"Some call it a relaxing room, others a sleepy room. It's just to assure nobody gets overly overworked. I know some people stay here until evening despite their work hours ends in mid afternoon." 

Both Aether and Paimon's lips are curling into an 'o'. Probably they did not expect to come across such a room like this. They followed you to your office. Well the office you shared with your assistant.

When you opened the door you found the lady sitting behind the table. She looked up and her eyes sparkled with joy. Getting up and coming closer to embrace you as always.

"Welcome back Lady y/n! I did not expect you to come this week!" 

You returned the embrace as it was something you always do with her. She was like a close friend to you despite the age difference between the two of you. She might have two kids around age of 10 but she is still looking so young and pretty. Also she loves to spoil you like you are one of hers.

"Mrs. Yue this is Aether and his friend Paimon I told you about during my last visit. Aether, Paimon this is Mrs. Yuefeng, my assistant and probably the main pillar of this company."

It was hilarious to observe how the two of them didn't know the greeting here. Trying to mimic what Yue did. 

"Welcome at Qingshan Clothing! You are indeed very cute as Lady y/n said, hmm maybe too much."

Your eyes glancing between her and Aether, mouth partially opened to say something. Coughing away the awkwardness. 

"Please don't mind it. Everyone's cute in her eyes. At least everyone who is younger, which is practically all of us."

"Mmmh! Indeed! You are cute kiddies. I can't believe you are the ones who saved Mondstadt from the Stormterror. You look so innocent but you know what they say. Don't judge a book by its cover."

Yue giggled at her own remark. She was always like this, it was hard to believe such a nice lady like herself can deal with rough business so flawlessly. You glanced over at the table, noticing the mountain of paperwork.

"Well it's getting late. How about you go home my friend? I told you several times not to stay overtime." 

It felt weird to actually lecture a woman who could be acting as your mother but you had no choice. She smiled at you with a tired face.

"I hate to break it to you but this is urgent and has to be done by tomorrow morning. We were stressing about finishing the order in ti-"

"And that's exactly why I order you now to pack your stuff and go home. Relax. Enjoy kiddies and your husband. I'll finish it."

You gave up on having the entire evening free but oh boy you hated people working overtime. Why people can't just chill out. Always in stress and rush.

"But Lady..." She didn't finish her sentence. Your expression was more than serious. 

"Very well. Thank you, I'll treat you tomorrow for some tea. Oh! The rite! We could go there together and after it ends we will crash at our usual spot!" 

Well not like you had something against it. You came here mainly because of the rite. Everything else was just convenient enough, happening along the way. Entrusting Aether with Paimon to Yue's care. As she could take them to an inn. Observing how they disappeared behind a corner. 'I hate this work so much... I wonder if Diluc also has to deal with stuff like this or has people for it.’

Previous ✨ Next

[whatdoesshedotothem]

Friday 17 August 1838

6 35

10 5

had Josephine at 7 40 – she said A- had had her bath and seemed better – very fine morning F71 ¼° at 8 10 from then to 9 wrote out yesterday to the bottom of p. 321 breakfast at 9 5 to 11 ¼ having sat reading the paper and talking to Charles and ordering with Josephine about my old Vignemale gaiters and latterly eating a few strawberries perhaps the last we shall have – A- very poorly .:. the horses ordered at 3 ½ to go a little way – afterwards on talking to Charles determined to go to Gèdre, and ordered the horses at 2 – A- if not well enough to go to Gèdre, can go out later – and take Pierre and go in any direction she likes – Cazos likely to be at home today as it rained yesterday and the sooner the matter with him is settled the better – A- had been at breakfast a minute or two before me and looked the picture of sulky ill-temper I hoped she was better   yes pretty well    I said no more but turned to the newspaper in silence tho’ looking as if I never thought of anything but her being ill    I saw she would hurry off   Charles was coming at ten   very sorry she was sso poorly that I thought she could not bear to ride    yes she could   I was very glad of it so ordered as see above  and A- walked off to my great relief    what a temper!  it is malady enough without any other   I shall do the best I can and think of and care for it the least possible I think my present tack is the best  that is   to treat it all as illness never seeming to dream of the possibility of anything else   what can she do or say   when I only condole with her on her illness     she told me only on Wednesday just before going to Luz  she said how much better she was    how much good the baths and doctor Double had done her   I laughed and said well it is my doing   no she never thought without thankfulness of it when she remembered how much it was by accident that she had Double she was always pleased with his giving her no medicine  an English physician would have thought nothing was the matter with her   but to be sure I had come with her here   yes and here she will keep me well or ill tied to her every moment I never dreamt it would be quite so bad   tied forever to such a companion?  nous verrons   now at 12 35 I have just written so far, and am better – Hail! all hail my journal! thou kind beguiler of many an irksome thought and many a solitary hour – thou friend of old! thou faithful mentor that hast calmed alike the burst of joy and grief, and taught my soul to hoard its best resources far from the reach of human gasp!   the following is a verbatim literatim copy of the certificate written by M. Latapis – ‘Je soussigné Henri Cazaux, demeurant à Gèdre, déclare, pour rendre hommage à la vérité, que le sept du mois d’Août courtant j’ai servi de guide à Madame Anne Lister de Shibden-hall, pour l’ascention qu’ elle a fait au pic culminant de Vignemale ledit jour. Elle avait avec elle deux autres guides qu’elle avais pris à Luz (Jean Pierre Charles, et Jean Pierre Sanjou). Je certifie que tous ensemble nous sommes parvenus au point le plus élevé de Vignemale, et que, à ma connaissance, personne plus n’avait jamais monté si haut. En preuve de cette

SH:7/ML/E/21/0169

ascention, il a été dressé une espèce de collone [colonne?] en pierres, dans le milieu de laquelle nous avons placé une bouteille, renfermant un papier oû Madame Lister a écrit le date du Août, son nom et les noms de ses guides ; cette preuve matérielle durera long-temps, si quelqu’autre voyageur aussi intrépide que Madame Lister ne va détruire ca petit monument.

En foi de quoi à Gèdre le 17 d’Août

Signé en présence  de     Cazaus [Hij]

Alaubon

Jean-Pierre Charles et Jean Pierre Sanjou, Soussignés, attestent la vérité des faits rapportés dans la déclaration ci-dessus.

fait à Luz le 17 d’Août 1838.

Charles

 how droll that the prince de la Moscowa should have unwittingly put me upon narrowing his own purpose! – I thought not of certificate – nor cared more for mounting the Vignemale than Mt. Perdu the ascent of which last mountain nobody believes – what mattered it to me – I made each ascent for my own pleasure, not for éclat – what is éclat to me? what is éclat to anyone? too often a dangerous bauble – the lightnings’ forked flash that kills the object it has fixed on – But come what may I’ll make an effort to tear the Cazos-laurier from this silly prince – ‘Hommage à la vérité’! ‘tis all I want – and I am not inclined me laisser tromper pour rien – tis now 1 ¾ pm and F73° in my cool cupboard – A- too poorly to go out at 2 – Pierre to come again at 4 – I left her lying down and was off with Charles at 2 20 to Gèdre – overtook a drunken berger about ½ way between St. Sauveur and the Pont de Sia and could not get rid of him till he turned up ½ way between the Ponts de Sia and [Douroucate] to go after his masters’ bétail on the Mt. de Mâle beyond the Bué – he and his master had drank 4 litres of wine at Luz. he walked unsteadily but safely, and his motions reminded me of those of drunken men in general but of the queer roll of his hips and shoulders and head that I have some often seen in poor Eliza Raine – I mused on this as I rode close behind him and Charles who said his conversation tho’ incessant was reasonable he observed on the new carriage road began since we went to Spain to go to Gavarnie that if cows or oxen were drawing a load along the precipitous part they would probably throw themselves and their load into the gave – he regretted there were no cabarets on his road as if there were he could drink a great deal more wine – we watched him along the precipitous part of the road he had to go just after leaving us – he got on quite well the cool air of the mountains and the perspiration he was in from walking would probably sober him before very long – as we went to Luz on Tuesday observed several men at work (1st time of our seeing them) beginning the new road (that is to avoid Luz) to St. Sauveur – at Gèdre at 4 20 Cazos at home sent for him to the Inn as also for the aubergiste himself who was at the Douane, and for his brother-in-law who was with him – I ordered wine and bread and cheese for them all, and, leaving my tartan cloak upstairs, went down into the kitchen, and staid with them all the whole time – It was sometime before Cazos came and we had talked over the leading particulars of my ascent – Cazos came perhaps in 10 minutes or ¼ hour and then joined heartily in talking the story over in everything agreeing with and confirming the statement of Charles and myself – I told him my femme de chambre had told me the people at Luz would not believe that I had got to the top but gave the laurier to the prince de la Moscowa – that was not right – I must have some proof to shew and Cazos and Charles and Pierre must sign me the certificate which I then read aloud – and Cazos, and then the aubergiste read it – Cazos made not the least objection to sign it – declared fully and openly that all I and Charles had said was true, and that I had got up to the very top and got up very well too – Cazos then signed and Charles, and the aubergiste saying was maire and could not sign these things his brother-in-law signed as witness and I paid Cazos the twenty francs as agreed, and said I, now you asked me 30/. on the Piméné – here there are five fr. more which with the 5/. I gave you on the top = 30/. and here is a 2fr. piece to go for what I was to give you on the top to drink my health – Cazos seemed much pleased – I desired him to consider the 5/. piece I had just given him to be for taking care, of my column and bottle at the top of the mountain – to see that nobody either destroyed the bottle or raised a column higher than mine – I then told him to drink his wine, and turning to the aubergiste said, Monsieur le maire, je ne demande pas ce que je vous dois pour le vin (I had just called for a 2nd bottle good vin ordinaire) mais voilà...... on which I put into his hand 2 five fr. pieces – this was too much for him

vid. line 4.   21 next page

to resist – his heart opened – he said I paid en prince (and in a whisper adding et meme plus) and said significantly mais je connais beaucoup de choses – vous avez bien payé – vous devez être traité avec bravoure – on this I begged him to tell me some of the things he knew – and in the midst of his fighting off Charles had taken poor Cazos to task about his letter to the prince and here a scene commenced of pro and con – Cazos denied having written that I had not gone to the top – I said if Cazos had been calumniated I would stand by him – all joining in begging Cazos to face the prince and have all cleared up – at last M. le maire explained that if Cazos had written as Charles declared his letter would prove, he had done it for money for his family – le mond was hard pressed here, and he hoped I should excuse the man who had made me all the reparation in his power...... poor Cazos owned his fault, and all present agreed to forgive and M. le maire our aubergiste promised to intercede with the prince and hoped I should do nothing against poor Cazos – no! said and held out my hand to the poor man, saying je ne [sens] que de regrets pour conduit envers moi – c’est une affaire d’honneur et je lui arracherai ce laurier à tout prix – rien ne me manqué pour bien le faire – j’air de l’arme, et de force, et de l’argent, et je n’en épargnerai rien – je lui arracherai ce laurier – the aubergiste agreed with me as to the petitesse of the prince’s declaration that he would not make the ascension if I had done it – and that it was not well to engage Cazos for Wednesday whether the weather was fine or not

SH:7/ML/E/21/0170

when it was known that I had engaged him for the 1st fine day – the prince thus compelling me to hurry my ascension – besides tho’ he had engaged Cazos for the Wednesday he the price still waited the arrival and did not go up till the Saturday – I hope, as I said to Cazos, that the prince had paid him much better than I had done – I saw the aubergists’ significant look – probably his princeship did not pay the man better –

vid. line 21. next page

we had now being above 1 ¼ hour – there had been a stranger (a guide? who said he had heard the prince say he would not go up if I had gone up) present a little while at 1st and 3 or 4 women – judging from A-‘s manner on my return from Mr. Latapis yesterday that being too late for dinner today would be terrible I bade Charles make hast and leaving behind me, as it seemed, the cordial approbation of all present Charles and I were off on our way back at 5 40 – the aubergiste (Mr. Palasset, maire) had said he recognised me on 1st seeing me again and said he was sure I should ascend the Vignemale – yes! said Charles he knew of our ascending Mt. Perdu – Charles! said I, il faut se depêcher – Mademoiselle ne voudra pas diner sans moi – poor Charles set off at trot, and kept my little mare at such a high jolt pace, that we were obliged to pull up for 2 or 3 minutes to read just my combs qui avaient grande envie de s’échapper – yet [not] withstanding this stoppage we came up with A- at the Pont de Douroucate at 5 8, and, passing by the Pont de [Soutant], alighted at home (having trotted almost all the way) at 7 5 – on meeting A- I had at the moment literally forgotten all about her poorliness, and was beginning to tell her all that happened when her manner at once refreshed my memory and I refrained from fatiguing her by saying more – Had Josephine – shewed her the certificate that she might be able to say she had seen it if she chose and that she knew for certain that I had made the ascent – dinner at 7 35 at 8 ½ - on telling A- I had ordered the horses at two tomorrow (Charles wanting to get some hay home from his grange on the Bergonz had asked me to give him till twelve but this I did not name to A-

she made no answer   too soon? said I   she replied crossly it was useless to ask when I had ordered them and that I ordered everything without consulting her   no said I gently I am of a very different opinion   but when I ask you you always tell me to do as I like  she denied this    very well said I   then you had better order in future it is indifferent to me unless when I myself have something particular to do   when I shall order for myself and you can order for yourself    and here the conversation ended   she soon after went to her room and I saw no more of her   she will die of bad temper?

came to our rooms at 8 ½ - fine day – threatening rain this evening after meeting A- but held off – F71 ¼° now at 8 38 – on the shred of paper (common English thin foolscap about 1/8 of the shut) was written as follows

Mercredi 7 Aout [Août] à 1houre pm

Madame Lister de Shibden-hall

Avec ses trois guides

Henri Cazos de Gèdre

Jean Pierre Charles de Luz

Jean Pierre Sanjou de Luz

sat musing sometime before getting into bed – thought first time of Glasgow as a place of cheap ins[t]ructive residence till I can properly settle my affairs    nil desperandum -

[the-prince-of-pigs]

Horror fans and Good Omens fans hear me out

Cigarette Burns AU (below the cut tl;dr long post)

Crowley is a rare antiques finder (human) tasked with finding an incredibly rare film, that of course being the infamous La Fin Absolue du Monde. Crowley needs the money to get his theatre up again and to pay off some rather nasty folk he invested with (namely Hastur and Ligor). He hears about the deal from an aged (also human) Gabriel, whose greed has driven him to be obsessed with the film, said to have only been shown once and ended up causing a riot. Crowley debates, because he has standards and Gabriel is a sleaze, but then Gabriel shows Crowley his prized possession, a set of unnervingly realistic angel wings said to be a prop from La Fin, and the being that went with them. And Crowley can’t help but gasp and feel rage, rage towards Gabriel, and a desperate need to help. Help the poor, shivering creature (man?) on the pedestal, shackled by the wrists and spared nothing but a wrap for clothing, a crude mockery of a robe. A being that seems to glow without a light source, whose pale blue eyes plead with Crowley, whose pale blond curls seem withered with mistreatment and abuse. Gabriel prattles on about how much the film means to him, how much he’ll pay Crowley, how proud he’d be to own the final piece of his collection. Crowley cuts him off. He’ll take the job, he says. He tells Gabriel that he wants double the pay. Gabriel agrees without hesitation, and the deal is sealed. Crowley goes on a quest for the rarest film ever created, with no other thought in his mind anymore but to use the opportunity to save the suffering being. He tracks a journalist to his reclusive home, a journalist who, since viewing the film, has found himself under a curse to destroy any mechanical device he touches. Crowley discovers a long list of everyone ever involved with the movie, all dead. Everyone seems terrified of this film, and nobody will talk to him about it or help him find it. Everyone who has ever searched for the film, they tell Crowley, has gone insane. From country to country he looks for clues, haunted by images of the pale man with beautiful eyes, and sometimes he swears he can hear the being screaming at him, screaming for help, pleading with Crowley to stop before he dies, crying out for the safety of humanity that follows the film staying forgotten. His cries only spur Crowley onward. He no longer cares what happens to him; he only wants to free the divine being from the cruel collector. He gets closer when he’s attacked by a group in France, who reveal themselves as fans of La Fin Absolue du Monde, who idolize the director and wish to create a film of their own. They show him printed shots of the movie, and Crowley suddenly understands the violence the film caused. An angel, held captive, mutilated and tortured on camera. Such a divine and pure being put through pain and torment and filmed raw and uncut, it would cause any mortal to go ravenous and scream for murder. Barely escaping with his life intact (the film fans attempted to murder him for their own snuff film, but somehow Crowley got away... could it have anything to do with the being—the angel—‘s image appearing to him the moment the blade swung at him? Was he being helped?), Crowley finally tracks the whereabouts of the film to its current owner, Anathema Device, the daughter of the long-dead director. She keeps the film from harming her with spells and hexes, and pleads with Crowley not to take the film. Not to show it. Never to watch it. She tells him, that once people start seeing the angel’s image and hearing his voice, their death draws near. That the producers were death, famine, pollution, and war. They caused what they created and allowed the mutilation of the innocent divine to happen on the mortal realm. No! Crowley argues. He’s not like the others! He doesn’t care about the film, doesn’t want to harness its power or whatever. He only wants to help the man, to free him! Anathema looks doubtful, but once she hears of Crowley’s escapades, and how the tortured creature seemed to be helping him instead of harming him... perhaps Crowley’s motivations are pure enough? Perhaps he’s truly not like the other seekers, greedy and hungry and corrupt and bloodthirsty. Perhaps if he took the film, he could truly end the curse attached to this film. Cautiously, she hands him the film reels, and asks him to promise that he’ll end the suffering. Crowley says he’s already promised that, to himself and to the pale creature. When Crowley returns to the collector, he tries to bargain with him. Let the creature go, and he’ll have his film. Gabriel laughs him off, and muscles him away. Betrays him, throws him out. Furious, Crowley tries his damnedest to break into the mansion, and after succeeding, realizes he’s too late. Gabriel has watched it, and is dead by his own hands, self mutilation leaving his blood and horror everywhere. As the film plays on, Crowley shuts his eyes and screams, screams to drown out the chorus of terrors booming through the speakers. Blindly, he gropes his way towards the trophy room, and finds the hands of the pale being, still bound in irons. He pleas for help, he begs for the angel to forgive him for even seeking the movie in the first place. He feels the trembling hands grip his own, hears a soft but weak voice hush him and tell him it’s all right now, that he’s done nothing wrong, that he knew Crowley wanted to help, and his righteousness won out over his greed. He softly tells Crowley that he’s forgiven. Crowley sobs, clings to him, while the gentle angel strokes his hair, until the awful sounds in the other room die away to nothing. It takes a while for Crowley to undo the shackles around the angel’s wrists and ankles, but he manages, refusing to return to the theater room for the proper keys. Once they’re off, Crowley throws his coat over the shivering being and tries to lead him away, but the angel refuses to leave without the film. As long as it’s in his hands, he tells a quavering Crowley, no human will ever be able to show or see it again. He collects the reels, and Crowley brings him back to his own place. Gently, he tends to the poor creature, bathing him and dressing him and tending to his wounds. His wings, which have long been cut off, are naught but scabbed stumps. Will they ever grow back, Crowley asks. The angel admits he doesn’t know, but it doesn’t matter now, since the film can now be destroyed. Crowley points out that he’ll be trapped in earth forever, to which the angel smiles thinly, replying that he’s been trapped here, and it isn’t so bad. If you are in the company of the right people. Crowley has no idea where to go from here, no idea what to do with his failing theatre, and feels such a devoted attachment to this lovely angel. But, he thinks, as the angel recovers and protects him, and his theatre mysteriously wins a grant big enough to stay open, and the angel smiles sweetly at him, and squeezes his hand while they sit together in the theatre and share popcorn over classics, and shyly gives Crowley his name as Aziraphale, and gently calms him after nightmares about La Fin Absolue du Monde, and presses soft kisses to his forehead while ethereal whispers praising Crowley’s deeds dance in his ears, that maybe things will be all right in the end.

[the-firebird69]

It says finally Monday and we made it finally they're going to produce their findings and yeah that was a long long investigation for someone who is so guilty is so many crimes and sent them forever but Trump tried to kill them so many times and it's one of the main reasons yes. And he's threatening our son now he's just a f****** loser and we're going to hit him. And on Monday they will produce all the criminal referrals and it says to the doj and other agencies and places in other words he's guilty of so many crimes their going confused charges not recommendation so criminal charges too many different groups of law enforcement and judicial systems it's amazing. From reality what they're saying is just that but they are charging him with a myriad of crimes not only for but he tried which would be enough but for so many things you would not believe it but they're all doing the authorized members of Congress and the Senate and they have the power to do so and they're doing it and even though it's headed up by Tommy f that's what they're using as a shield they are going to file those charges. And let's face it this guy is it next door and he's a scofflaw and he needs to be brought to Justice and it's ridiculous the guy made a big deal out of free loading next door in the apartment and now he's going to jail forever granted they're already doing their investigation but boy it made it sure thing there's nothing that was stopping after that point and everybody said it too you're out of here buddy nobody does that in front of everyone and admits that stupid everyday for a year and gets away with it you're an idiot and a retard and you're fired you got your you got your whole race fired too stupid c***. You're such an arrogant swine too that you can't figure out what we've done to yourself and yours I'm bothering us non-stop well filthy little f****** piece of crap. But finally okay finally somebody's doing something about you John remillard AKA Donald Trump and your little poster is not going to protect you from you getting hit with a blaster it's a blaster not a laser you're a loser you a******. There's a lot of people that want to hit you and your idiots and they're starting to do it cuz it's leading up to Monday and you assholes have your mouth open right now you're a loser is okay it is took everyone's stuff and they're finding it because of Jason and they're getting rid of yours. It's a huge War we'll see against you Trump. Weather say you put so much stuff up to my son and keep on trying to make it stick and it's all yours that you're you're a fool you're a complete God damn idiot you go to jail for what you're saying it's your stuff okay imbecile you look so stupid it hurts.

These charges are going up Monday on you that's right this s*** had next door, it started with your January 6th attempt to forcibly change their election results and illegally take over the American government

-treason due to sedition Its worded correctly opposite next door it's just that you're stupid.

-many many homicides that they're going to charge you with they plan to in the foul right there on their desk and they're talking about it out loud and you saw it for some reason you don't get it that's what they're saying in English for most people it's simple to understand murder one and there's 500 charges that's right out loud they're going to see the stuff to the whole world about you former president it's never been done and they're going to do it so well it's going to be awful there's a reason for it it's because presidents don't do what you're doing you're you're a pissant in a low life piece of s*** murder scoundrel and it's never should have allowed you in there admitted the whole time that friend here was right that was disgusting mac got him in exposed tons of stuff and meant to take over Trump's stuff I couldn't and it got really messed up but it's supposed to Tommy f too and that's what it meant to do. Trump's a schmuck Tommy f.

-they're also charging him with complete negligence and dereliction of duty as president and many crimes as president that are called abuse of power there's a big list that they have that they're charging you with on Monday and if they don't get it out it's going out because of this post in part

-election fraud and rigging. And yes you thought it was this one little s*** pile they couldn't get you one and you encourage them to keep dragging it on and keep doing their work and you couldn't figure out what they're talking about cuz you're a s*** head they've got tons of charges on you that are all real who knows which one you're going to fall to possibly it's these sexual abuse stuff that he got in trouble with. But here in this case you are going to your charges for what you're doing as president and you're right in front of everybody wagging your tail about it seeing this stupid s*** out loud and sending orders out there and illegal and all sorts of people and they're going to hang you high and stick your name up in lights until you're all dead because of you including you Dan there's pursuing you too you're involved heavily it's a massive crime ring they said and it is and they've been deleting it unfortunately for Tommy f he's part of that ring but he's trying to make it stick to you so he's doing it because he's one of you all right. After using Tommy f as a means to do it do you understand that concept yet Trump he's a vehicle get it a vehicle you f****** moron

-they're adding to the charges today to charge accomplices like Dan with all the crimes that they found cuz they're tired of him I'm tired of being abused by the piece of s*** cuz he is a piece of s*** and yeah Dan didn't run out of the house cuz last time he got his ass kicked by everybody and you have to kick his ass like five times a day for him to remember it they need to be burned and they are being burned and treason carries that penalty

-they have a slew of other charges including draft corruption fraud they're making a point of saying that you abuse the office of president so badly that they don't want anybody like you in there ever again and that's what they say in the report says he is such a flimflam and flimsy little a****** that nobody his nature should ever be elected and they also say in the report that you're a criminally mentally ill and you're a goner but there's a lot more crimes and it's outside of the presidency too

-and they're getting you for what you stole tons of stuff and top secret stuff too and documents and and Mar-A-Lago incident an information you stole and diamonds and huge ones all sorts of stuff is in the charges and it doesn't say exactly what it says specified elsewhere because it's top secret and saying that you accumulated all of illegally and you had an illegally armed illegal army and a huge one is still having it running around taking things from everyone and basically you're incompetent and you've exposed them to invasion by foreigners and you invaded this is leading up to the next one a little bit more but

-at the end of the report they're sending to the military because as president you're part of the military for them to execute charges on you and you are to be considered as an arrested as an enemy combatant of the United States because you're attacked on the United States including the one on New England and Tommy f says it clearly you ruined my business you expose me over and over excuse me of doing things that you're doing and you're going to be arrested in fact it's both of them but he's right this guy is a slob and a mean person and an idiot and exposes people that he works near or with it says he exposed us but no we use the phenomena for yourself from you they're exposed Connie f who figured out some of the secrets and was hoarding them you are guilty of doing that to this man and his forces because you are a moron oh you stupid it took the secrets of all ages and you handed them out to the public Trump just out here and forced it to happen and yours are on trial for it because yours are incompetent and can't fight over such things so you told people so they would fight over it and fight off other things so they can just take the ships and that's their style and they're charges that are being levied that reflect that and you're getting your entire race and yourself killed

Thor Freya

Set the brightness in the Earth for Tommy f to do but he's made to do it because he's part of the problem and he really is part of the problem for the max and others and they recognize these people are too stupid to do the job and would rather do this stupid a****** show trials and all this other crap and have other people fighting stuff then do anything that's effective and that's the whole point of what they're doing you're in the way you get your stupid fat ass waving around you smacking into each other seriously too and you're not really going to ever accomplish anything you've done it for a long long time so I have to get you out of the way and this is how they decided to do it. Just to make it legal. And you break the law so often you needed to go anyways. Surprise

Hera Zues

Olympus now get out Trump you're fired

[pingou7]

Nous allons enfin nous régaler! (Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are)

the food travel au 

3 ½ month film schedule. 31 countries. 24 episodes.

2 people who might just fall in love along the way. 

                        Chapter 3: France : Paris-Lille

Author: 

@pingou7

(Read on AO3)

They arrive in France on schedule and thankfully the whole crew has pretty much recovered from their stomach bug by then. Shara Bey looks a bit queasy in the morning perhaps, but everyone is still curious about what their short trip to the country of Haute Cuisine will entail.

Everyone but Jyn that is, and despite his growing anxiety — because this was France, people! — Cassian can’t help but notice that she has grown more subdued since they’ve picked out their luggage at the airport.

Okay, she’s in a mood and her French is infinitely better than what he personally recalled from High School. It’s true what they say about French being bad at languages, by the way: It’s not that people don’t bother, exactly, it’s more than they’d best not to, their accent makes it hard to understand.

Honestly, he just gives directions in Spanish and there the taxi driver gets it, easier for everyone. Until Jyn stops looking by the window and engages the conversation!

“Nous ne sommes pas en vacances. On est une équipe de tournage."

The driver seems ridiculously overjoyed to hear her speak his language and grins at her in the rear-view mirror.

"Vraiment? Pour le cinéma?"

"Non, la télévision, c'est un programme culinaire."

"You speak French?" Draven interrupts, interest picked. "I didn't know that, it wasn't on your resume."

"Now you do," she shrugs, turning back her attention on the driver.

"La cuisine française est la meilleure du monde, vous aurez de quoi filmer!"

"C'est l'idée. Mais la France n'est pas notre seule destination, on visite plusieurs pays."

Okay, all of this is so quick and fluid that Cassian can't follow. But he can see Draven's brain gear turning as he insists:

"What did you say?"

"Nothing important, I'm not disclosing anything, don't worry. We're doing a food show for TV, we do several countries. Our friend here thinks French food is the best, obviously, and that we're gonna have a lot to cover."

"It's a given," Cassian smiles, impressed by her proficiency, "it's nice of you to speak up, though. Might facilitate the dialogue, too."

"It's nothing to get excited over," Jyn grumbles, sighing, "I've been to France before and have a knack for language, this is just idle chat anyway."

He can’t explain why but there’s something unsettling for her, that has nothing to do with food poisoning. He's curious, but drops the matter when they make a mandatory stop in a boulangerie, where Cassian marvels about the variety of breads and pastries offered, not to mention the cakes...

Mothma actually volunteers, Luke is already taking out his smartphone and since Jyn has already proven her ability to speak French, she too is put to contribution. The two other cars choose to proceed however, waiting at the hotel.

Cassian, Mothma Jyn and Luke are originally sent to get some crusty golden baguettes, of course, their white crumb, thick and soft. Yet a man before them prefers a boule de campagne, round shaped and thicker still, browner and earthier too.

Fascinating.

Honestly Cassian feels perplexed yet eager to order and the seller is amiable and smiling has she suggests viennoiseries.

"We have to take at least a croissant and a pain au chocolat each for everyone," Jyn declares immediately, strangely bossy all of sudden.

"Can we get a brioche too?" Luke asks, eyeing the one in the counter with barely concealed longing.

"Sure, if you want," she agrees easily, translating the order.

"Oh, there's chouquettes too," Mothma exclaims delightfully, legit clapping like a little girl. Thus a small bag of choux buns with sugar pearls joins the order.

Like she was on a mission, Jyn finally asks for different types of croissants too:

"The regular type is made of fresh butter," Jyn explains, "but we will take the almond version too."

"Would you like some of our savoury version," the seller asks helpfully, "it's with cheese and ham."

While in English he'd known the pains au chocolat to be called chocolate croissant — even if the chocolate is hidden within — he gets primly chastised by Jyn:

"Contrary to popular belief, it's not the same thing."

"Sorry, I had no idea. How do you all even know this?"

"My sister Leia likes posh bakeries," Luke says as only explanation.

"Me too, though it's been years since I've had chouquettes," Mothma adds.

But to his frustration, Jyn doesn't say anything has she asks for the total. He commits as much information as he can to memory and Mothma actually has to chime in with a few Euros of her own since she, Jyn and Luke kept adding some douceurs to taste. Clearly they are more familiar with French pastries than they’d let on, but he doesn’t mind being educated on the subject!

In fact Cassian grins wilder as the demeanor of other clients goes from neutral to slightly amused. He even catches something akin to respect on the face of an old lady behind them, as she glances at the pile of sweetness.

Unfortunately, it’s an improvised stop and they can’t film on a whim right now — photos will have to do. That’s a shame, for Monica Mothma isn’t a woman prone to expansiveness and it would have been nice to catch this unscripted madness, even if just for themselves.

Eventually they buy enough to feed an army or for everyone to develop diabetes, at the very least. It’s all for the greater good of the show, of course... They actually film a tiny clip back at their hotel and post a few candids on Instagram.

Kes teases them for their sweet tooth, saying he should have come with just to protect the bakery’s supplies and Draven rolls his eyes, but both are getting their faces stuffed with croissants and pains au chocolat so... Though far from constituting a balanced diet, their purchases become the entirety of their evening meal.

To be fair, who knew there was so much type of stuffed viennoiseries to begin with? It’s almost maddening!

Rationally he knows he shouldn’t indulge so much on the first day but the bread is crispy, the brioche is sweet but light... choosing is a lost cause and truthfully nobody seems to care.

Jyn is seated across from him though and a tiny speck of chocolate stays struck at the corner of her plush lips. He starts to ogles her mouth and reflexively licks his own — just in case a crumb of his own is there, too — but thankfully she doesn’t pay much attention to the people next to her.

Instead, she keeps staring at an invisible point in her plate. No pastry deserves to be looked at with such sadness unless it got prematurely rotten, and he says as much, eliciting a chuckle from the guys. She momentarily meets his gaze as she bites in her pain au chocolat again but her spirits have not lifted. Failed attempt then... He hopes his heated cheeks are the result of the two glasses of red wine he had before dessert, he’s not usually this awkward.

But she intrigues him, he wants to know her better! She’s unpredictable too and rather enticing. She proves to be an asset to the show and not just as a Camera Operator. But of course there is no way he’s going to say it. Besides it’s wine and sugar load talking and they have to focus on the French schedule within the next hour.

"Last time I was here, I was 15," she finally reveals, "but there's water under bridge."

If he weren't focused on her, he might have missed it, but like a private oath, she whispers next: "Saw has no place on this job, nor in my life. Paris doesn’t change that."

He's the only one to catch that, but before Cassian can figure out the meaning of this comment, everybody’s head snaps up at hearing Draven clearing his throat:

“By public demand, we will be setting this episode slightly freelance, as we go up North. About the capital, Cassian has an appointment at “Au Doux Raisin” tomorrow. It proposes a panel of traditional French dishes that would be interesting to foreign viewers.”

Draven enumerates this in a flat voice, looking bored as usual, yet Cassian starts to freak out internally: France was renowned for its Cuisine. He even follows French cooking shows in his spare time! How is he supposed to do his own thing despite the legions of stuff available?

“Sorry to interrupt Sir, but how are we supposed to squeeze several sets in so little time? As far as I know, most traditional French recipes involve spending quite a bit of time if not the whole day over the stove.”

“Don’t fret Andor,” the Director retorts impatiently, “it’s not like you’re be the one doing the cooking, right? So spare me the nerves. Thanks to our split filming teams, most material will be easily covered too. You just have to taste and judge, not really a hardship for you, I suspect.”

No, perhaps not. But Cassian doesn’t like the way his Director is handling things tonight. Tension increases a bit in the room but he keeps his trap shut, not wanting to spark things off on their first night here. The traveling show was already bumpy enough as far as he’s concerned so better not add to the man’s frustration.

“I wanted to see the sights a bit. It’s the city of lights, it’s every lover’s dream,” Kes mumbles.

Unfortunately, it seems that he's not discreet enough.

“Dameron, if you want to play the tourist, plan a romantic vacation for your fiancée AFTER the rush. We’ve got no time for that and moreover, I don’t care for your personal life,” Draven chastises in a clipped tone.

Cassian suppresses a sigh but the case is closed, crew eventually dismissed for the night. He’s pretty sure Draven was a military at some point before going into production or he is one in an alternate universe, with the way he’s usually behaving...

The next day, the crew did some sightseeing before their appointment — they could not be here and not pause in front of the Eiffel Tower, couldn’t they?

"Come on, we gotta have a picture with all of us! It's Paris guys, you can't be more French than that!"

"We won't all fit on a single one," Wedge Antilles says.

"You already had me posing in London, Skywalker, I'm not doing this again. Besides, Cassian is the one that should feature, he's the face of the show."

"Please Jyn, it'd be a group pic, not just you this time. A memento. Don't you want to show this to your friend Bodhi?"

Damn Luke and his boyishness... Everyone caves, elbows and shoulders squeezed together awkwardly. As Kes and Shara are the only couple, they also strike a cheesy pose for prosperity, likely adding some "romance" to the collection.

They ignore people seeking them for money or whatever petition they wanted to get a signature for though... Some details must be glossed over.

"We're not airing on a discovery channel," Draven says, already checking his watch, "most of the tedious editing falls on Kay’s team anyway. Let's get going."

Of course, for professional purposes Cassian forgoes lunch, preferring to nimble on a sandwich so he’d be famished when the time to shoot arrives.

And arrive it does.

A van comes to pick them up and their materials for the intended point of rendezvous between the Jardin du Luxembourg and the Jardin Des Plantes, in the 5th Arrondissement. Quite a pretty place and Luke already mumbles about some hashtags and photos he’d like to take afterwards.

When they finally enter the brasserie called “Au Doux Raisin”  (At the sweet grapefruit) — a little before the opening, obviously, for the team has to settle — they instantly find themselves in a typical homey Parisian environment. From the very first second Cassian knows why the production chose this establishment in particular:

The meals offered represent just as many potential discoveries, yet not always the cheapest — within reasonable price range nonetheless. The brasserie sets a real atmosphere with portraits in black and white of old famous actors, an old-fashioned counter and something in the air so uniquely French that he’s surprised the staff doesn’t wear berets with white striped shirts.

Truthfully, everyone is excited, including Jyn who looks oddly happy to be there.

“We’re somewhere straight out of the movie Les Tontons flingueurs,” she says, watching their surroundings with sparkling eyes. At the lack of response she gets, she prompts: “You know, Crooks in Clover, also known as Monsieur Gangster? Ring a bell?”

To be honest the actors look familiar, Jean Gabin and Lino Ventura most of all, but nobody shares her excitement and she automatically returns to her defensive stance:

“What? I’m a cinephile and actually did study film making, you know? These actors are legendary among French cinema, you must have at least heard of some of them!”

“Somewhat. I'm more interested in the fact that this is the first time that I've caught you smiling since we’ve left England.”

Cassian only wished to put her out of her misery as they prepared the set. He gets a bit jittery before the beginning of each filming session so he likes to see people enjoying themselves, it calms him down. Yet somehow it was the wrong thing to say and her lit-up face turns stony as she replies:

“Yeah, well, let’s get this done.”

Smooth, Andor, well done, he thinks sarcastically as Draven yells action and a waiter gives him the menu. Most of the crew will stick to plates of charcuterie and cheese but he has a few possibilities to consider. Of course the list has been communicated beforehand, but ultimately Cassian always has the final choice, to stay as genuine as possible and because he prefers to eat whatever strikes his fancy. It’s more digestible in case of several takes.

Finally he chooses a “Bourguignon meal”: traditional snails then beef and wine stew, a plate of cheese and some crème brûlée to finish. Plentiful but really appetizing. Of course, if it weren’t for the show, he’d just stick with some of the various grâtins and be done with it, but the place calls for gluttony and as a presenter he has to make sure viewers will be satisfied.

If the French can stomach as much in one sitting, so will he.

(Still, he’s thankful Kay’s not currently with him or he’d be sure to get an earful...)

The preliminary speech done in a single take, the first course comes quickly. Famous escargots, classic of the French to eat snails, so the occasion was too good to pass on.

Cassian already had some experience tasting snails in the French way, had enjoyed it so he thought he didn’t have to mask his facial expressions.

He was wrong.

The promised “Gros Escargots de Bourgogne” come in front of him and truth be told they look appealing enough. But what the heck is he supposed to make of the... unusual cutlery... that the waiter brought along? It looks more like a surgical instrument than anything Cassian has ever used.

This entrée should come with warnings, explanatory note and step by step tutorial included.

For a split second Cassian blinks owlishly at the camera then he recovers, a consummate professional. Should be easily enough, really, right? A circular plate with six stuffed snails in their shells... a tiny fork with two tines... and pliers of some kind? It has a spring with a round extremity, obviously meant to keep the shell in place while with the fork he’s supposed to stab what’s inside.

Alright, I’ve got it, he reflects after a few nano seconds  of appraisal.

He doesn’t bother with explaining his course of action yet, focused on the task at hand while he states that the snails are cooked with a butter mixed with chopped garlic and parsley.

He looms over the snail closest to him, lift it slowly from his dedicated hole in the plate... but he hasn’t got the chance to use the fork. The damned thing escapes from the contraption and literally flies several feet away from his stunned face.

Nobody moves, not even Draven says cut, yet Cassian stares dumbly at the ruined snail on the floor, hidden two tables away from his. From the way Jyn angles the camera, he guesses she’s zooming on it too...

Fucking French!

It takes three tries for him to master the so called “pince à escargots” — to the utter delight of the crew around him, as they personally try some pâté de lapin à l’ancienne, saucisson sec or saucisson à l’ail and smelly cheese like Camembert or Roquefort.

By the time the Bœuf Bourguignon is served, he feels oddly proud to have won against the perfidy of posh Gastronomie, despite his bruised ego. Thankfully the beef stew is not as challenging, with a regular, universal and most of all reliable knife. Not that he really needs to cut anything, mind you: from what he knows of the process, the beef has macerated in red wine for hours to get this tender. The serving is pretty generous too, and it comes with boiled potatoes, mushrooms, onions and carrots. Thyme and laurel too, to perfume the whole.

He’s full when the four types of cheese come next but he explains the different milks each of them were made of. He actually has flash cards ready on his knees like a cheating schoolboy but their filming time turning short calls for desperate measures. At the dessert he struggles to get through. It’s delicious, it’s just that he reached the peak of his sugary intake. After a few spoonfuls immortalized on film, he hands the rest to Shara’s extended hands.

Overall, good stuff, really. Two glasses of red wine to complete the meal and footage aside, Cassian is more than satisfied with his Parisian trip.

They wrap it up, shake a few hands but take their time calling it a night. Paris is bewitching in the evening and the company is boisterous as they go along the shores of the Seine. Cassian uses it to his advantage, walking his meal off and doing his best to ignore the taunts made over the snail incident.

"I couldn't believe the famous Cassian Andor got bested by a snail. One that was already dead and cooked too," Jyn teases.

"Hey, I succeeded eventually, and it's not the snail as much as the tool that's to blame."

"Still, I thought you'd have more dexterity."

"Sorry to disappoint you, I'll do better next time."

It’s all in good sports really, but while Jyn snorts, Antilles sniggers and Luke stumbles, slamming against his back, blushing inexplicably. What has gotten into them? But she's still smiling as they drive back to the hotel and suddenly he doesn’t mind the French and their peculiarities so much. The production duo have still a decent amount of work before going to bed, but everyone else goes to sleep.

(Maybe Kes and Shara got MIA along the way but the contract doesn’t bind them to a curfew and Mothma turns a blind eye).

Cassian only wishes he had that much freedom as the so called star of the show. But it has been a long day and he would have nobody to share a nightly tryst. Cassian Andor is reasonable, professional and single to boot, so it doesn’t cost him much.

His dreams are fitful and slightly disturbing though. Jolting awake only five hours later, the only image that stays with him is of Jyn, replacing Nicole Kidman’s part in the Moulin Rouge! movie. She looked tantalizing in his subconscious and very not herself: less pragmatic and more eerily sexy.

He shakes the feeling away as he dresses himself. He has a long day ahead and can’t afford to fantasize about the only unattached woman in his crew. She’s a pretty thing and kinda mysterious too, but he is awake now and the dreamy bullshit has no incidence on his job.

He decides to tiptoe in the free area, seeking a cup of herbal tea. Whether mint or ginger should help with the food overload from the night before, surely such things could be found on the table set for self service?

He forgets all about beverages the instant he sees Jyn awake over an hotplate, her back to him. As her name stumbles from his lips, disbelieving, she stiffens visibly and spins slowly around.

Her voice is still sleepy and his annoyingly raspy as they greet each other. In November, the sun isn’t up so early and won’t be for quite some time, unfortunately and the bleached out white neon lights accentuate the exhaustion on her face. Very far from a dreamy cabaret dancer, his mind evaluates worriedly. Has she even slept? She’s dressed in her usual clothes already and ignores the elephant in the room as she asks why he too is already awake.

“I ate too much,” he answers.

“Well of course you did, not everyone can eat as much as the French do just before going to bed. Stomachache?”

“No, just energy of the calories pumping through my veins.”

“How do you plan to work it out then?”

He represses a smirk. With her velvet morning voice, it sounded a lot like an opening for innuendo. She realizes this a second too late and just purses her lips. They are not yet close enough to tease each other, so he throws her a lifeline and gestures to the food he interrupted.

“Isn’t it what you’re doing in the kitchen Jyn?”

“I wish. It’s just... I needed an outlet and I thought I’d best do something useful. Couldn’t wake my best friend.”

He wanted to ask her about what she needed an outlet for, yet people keep appearing and she visibly closes off. Obviously Cassian isn’t the only one awake as the self-service kitchen fills in slowly with the rest of the team. Fat chance, again. He sits, rubbing the back of his neck and mutters a hello.

“What’s the delicious smell I can sniff?” Luke asks, entering the room, nose upturned and honest to God sniffing the air like the human puppy he usually personifies.

“The bread and brioche won’t keep for much longer. So I’m making pain perdu,” Jyn answers, sending a fleeting smile in his direction.

“Lost bread,” Kes translates confusedly, eyeing the slices browning slowly browning in the pan, “what is lost about it?”

“Dunno, it’s just the name,” she sighs, repeating the process to make enough for everybody.

Or maybe the food isn’t the lost thing here, Cassian muses, she is, her tired eyes and forlorn attitude hinting as much. Then, realizing how stupid his thoughts are, he mentally slaps himself and hands the coffee pot to Wedge Antilles, who is blindly reaching for it, like a drowning man and a lifebelt, a junkie and his fix.

Seriously, besides Luke and himself, Cassian wonders how these people can do this work and NOT be morning people. Like, never ever. Kay has complained he had to put with them grumping and groaning until the clock reached 8 AM in the past, but at the time, he thought his friend was being his usual pessimistic self. But as he considers the bunch of sleepyheads around, he has to admit there was some truth to it.

When a plate arrives in front of him, with icing sugar or cinnamon for him to add on if he so wishes, he’s pleasantly surprised.

“You told me you didn’t how to cook,” he says, mildly accusatory.

He leaves the first slice bare, adds sugar on the second and cinnamon on the third, to have the full tasting range. As soon as he tries the first, the goodness dissolves on his tongue, creamy and buttery, the two variations making a perfect combination between sweetness and a tad spicy. He knows various ways to save stale bread, but somehow this tastes different. Besides them Luke was already helping himself with a second serving, grinning.

“Please, this isn't cooking Cassian,” Jyn shrugs. “I’m sure it’s not the first time you’ve had this.”

“Not like that, though, this is unique. How did you do it?”

Most of all he wants to know what prompted her to fix this at six in the morning. But even if he had the nerve to ask, she likely wouldn’t answer. So, asking for her recipe was as close as he was willing to go.

“I made the slices my own way. More often than not people use eggs where I used milk. Once the slices suck up all the milk, getting slightly spongy again, I put them in a salt-buttered pan. Easy, not haute cuisine.”

Easy perhaps, but her wistful tone speaks of something more. He knows preparing food can reveal a lot about a person — hell, that was the reason he got enrolled in all this cooking stuff in the first place… — and… well, he remembers their stunt at the Lahmu Restaurant in London. Clearly her relationship to food is… personal.

God, why Kay isn’t here to smack the corniness out of his head?! He almost feels like using a pan on his own skull if that could just stop his brain from overanalyzing a mere breakfast plate.

He doesn’t even have time for this, with the shooting schedule they have to maintain. After all, he might envy other people’s low functioning brains, they are saved much trouble.  

Draven announces their Parisian Interlude is over and satisfactory — praise the Lord for that — but he still has a surprise in store...

“A… bus?”

“Yes,” Draven confirms, ”we should be grateful, it’s fully furbished too, functional, and a bit cheaper.”

“Whatever spares us a flight,” Dameron says in relief.

“You don’t like flying?” Jyn asks, surprised.

“If I have to take hop on a plane, I will. It’s way quicker, after all. But yeah, if I have to choose, road’s better. Plus, we can build team spirit or whatever. It’d be like a school trip.”

“Oh yeah,” Luke cheers, absurdly enticed with the idea, “I’m sure our followers would dig that kind of thing, you know?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Jyn shrugs, “I never went on school trips, or I was so young I don’t remember. It’s weird.”

“It’ll be a new experience for you then,” Cassian encourages.

“I guess, but why do you care so much?”

(Good question.)

“We’re all in the same train wreck, we gotta stick together.”

(What was that nonsense... for sure if Kay ever heard him talk like that, he would deck him so hard his face wouldn’t be filmed for weeks!)

They take the A1 highway up North, chatting, napping, playing on phones... and yes, to Draven’s utter dismay, there are stupid songs involved at some point. Dameron started, Cassian picked up, and soon everyone was at least humming along. Perhaps because the driver couldn’t take it anymore, they stop in a rest area about midway until they reach Lille, the northern city that ends the French episode. As if the crew’s sugary consumption weren’t already high, they picked sweets again, albeit regional:

Two metal boxes, one with some minty ones called the Bêtises de Cambrai and the other containing toffee-like Babeluttes du Nord, to have a foretaste of their next local cuisine.

If they’re still alive to document it because Cassian swears he’s gonna die of hyperglycemia before they reach Amsterdam!

They have just one day left to shoot in France when they arrive in Lille two hours later, but they make it work. The city, nicknamed “the capital of Flanders” is picturesque in a different way than Paris, of course, but just as pretty. Places with fountains, houses made of red bricks and old cobbled streets, it’s nice.

As they have little time to spare — yet again — the rushes get more hectic than in Paris. It’s much less representative after all.

The people there talk pretty funny, with words even Jyn has a hard time deciphering, but all are very accommodating and helpful. A few wave at the camera and suggest a dish to try. It’s much more easygoing and Cassian relaxes pretty soon.

Not wanting to spoil any Belgian discovery by choosing a dish similar to what can be offered further North, he decides to try « a Welsh ». Like its name implies, this is not originally a French recipe but it became one of the easiest specialty to eat in Lille:

It is a sandwich composed of bread soaked with beer, cheddar cheese and mustard, covered with a slice of ham, dipped into a cream of cheddar cheese, heated in the oven in a ramekin. Not the most elaborate of the establishment they picked’ but it works perfectly with their thematic for the French episode and their lack of time.

Indeed, La Chicorée (The Chicory) is a brasserie like the one in Paris. Except it’s actually an hundred-year-old brewery, not just for the fancy name, and it’s open pretty late, until 4:30 AM. They are told it’s renowned, too, and Cassian can believe that easily.

For dessert, because apparently the mad guys around him have an insane tolerance for sugary treats, or really want him to die on the job, they have some stuffed waffles with cassonade. This version is thin, thankfully, crunchy, though the garnish of vanilla and brown sugar is most likely rich.

“I hadn’t had those in ages,” Jyn says drowsily, waiting for the Lille-Amsterdam flight a while later. “I bought some for my best friend, but I’m not sure I’ll resist the temptation for long. I’ll have to send them to him.”

“Really? How come? It’s good, but it’s not like it’s so addicting,” Cassian asks, because he still feels curious — perhaps sleepy Jyn is more inclined to share anecdotes?

“Wrong, they are addicting. I loved them as a young girl. I’ve spent some time in France over the years, but none so much as northern France. We were British, after all, so crossing the Chanel was easy and Saw... I mean, I’d known an old lady, Louise, who did such waffles for me.”

Yep, oversharing, he thinks with a smile, and there she is talking about a Saw again. More like eluding but it’s more talk than he ever heard from her. The schedule must take its toll on her, same as anyone else.

"You’ve spent holidays in France then, growing up?"

"My guardian actually had a job in France for a time. He was stationed not so very far from here for about a year, before we moved again."

"So the wanderlust goes way back? It explains why you took on the travelling show."

"Maybe. Saw and I never stuck around for long anywhere, but I've been happy there, it brings good memories for once."

At her conflicted expression, he guesses such good memories are far in between. He recalls her enigmatic whisper from a few days ago and surmises she must have had a falling out with her guardian. Cassian doesn't pry further though when she doesn't elaborate, but he stores the information for later.  

He’s almost snoozing when Draven — no human has the right to be this operative at 3AM... — hands him his phone, mouthing Kay’s name:

“Hello, Kay?”

“Cassian, did I wake you?”

“No, but that was close. Not everyone can be focused on the show 24/7, like Draven, or you. I feel like I’m slowly losing my soul to the cause.”

“Forgive me if I don’t shed a tear. And you’re as dedicated as the rest of us, you’re just being unusually whiny.”

“Well, you’re not here yet to keep me in check so I can be as petty as I want. I’ll feel better after we leave the country and get some sleep.”

“I’ve seen the first French rushes, actually, to see if they could be easily edited with ours. I have to say it’s fairly entertaining to witness your culinary struggles, Cassian. Especially the snail fetching.”

“Thanks a lot, Kay,”

“I’m serious, honestly it should make the final cut.”

“Did your illness kill your brain cells? What part of the first try should be included? The moment the snail flew across the room or the framing on my butt as I had to get on my knees under the table to retrieve it?”

“Well, I’ll leave it for Draven to decide,” his soon-to-be former friend replies wryly. “But just so you know, it could bring in more female viewers.”

“You’re insane.”

“I’m realistic Cassian, you have a very nice bottom apparently and judging from the people’s enthusiastic reaction on social media, you’d better use it.”

“I... don’t even know what to say to that. Do you even hear yourself?”

“I’m referring to the show’s ratings, not your sex life Cassian Jerón Andor! You know what, we will speak later, once you’ve put your mind out of the gutter!”

“I love you too man,” Cassian smirks.

Only the dial answers him.

[robertcsarnai]

Végre sikerült feldolgoznom a jegyzeteimet és meg is osztom veletek

Az év első felét Miamiban és a környékén töltöttem és ezalatt az idő alatt elég sok rendezvényen és webináriumon vettem részt.

Ezeket a jegyzeteket most feldolgoztam, ez abból áll, hogy bemásoltam az Evernote-ba és különböző feladatokat adtam magamnak melyeket szépen Trelloban rögzítettem. Ugye használsz te is hasonló hatékonyság növelő applikációkat? 

Miközben írtam arra gondoltam, hogy megosztom veletek ezeket, mert ilyenkor mindig az jár a fejemben, ha egyetlen egy ember talál benne egyetlen gondolatot ami őt cselekvésre készteti akkor a világunk általa jobbá válik.

Olvassátok át, vegyesen van angolul és magyarul, nem tökéletes az angolom nem kérek helyesírási és egyéb kiigazításokat sem :) 

Jah és hálás lennék ha kommentbe megosztanád velem mit adott neked?

Köszönöm 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o8obL2JqzM

Fort Lauderdale Millionaire Mind Intensive 2018 jun 8-10

Légy a jelenben! - ha itt akarsz lenni legyél itt, ha ott akarsz lenni legyél ott, de ne légy két helyen

A sikernek ára van nem titka - van azért pár dolog amit érdemes tudni, ami segít felnyitni a szemed ami talán kirángat téged is abból a komfortzónából, amiben vagy és elindulsz a változás útján. Nincs két egyforma ember a te problémáid egyedül a tieid. egyfajtatörvényszerűséget fel lehet fedezni ha emberekkel foglalkozol.

The other people think about me is not of my business

The failure is part of the process

Ha nem érzed jól magad vagyis nem eteted a benned lévő gyereket ellened fordul és fellázad

Money Management System

10% FFA - Financial Freedom Account - aranytojást tojó tyúk - soha nem költöd el ezt a pénzt, nem ölöd le a tyúkot

10% LTSS - Longtherm Saving for Spending - vacation, luxus autó stb

10% EDUCATION

55% NEC - Necessity szükségletek amik kellenek

10% PLAY - Szórakozás

5% GIVE - Adakozás - aki ad többet kap vissza - adj pénzt, időt, bármit amit csak tudsz

A következetesség a fontos, hogy minden hónapban takarékoskodj, mint az összeg amit félre teszel

What is more important? To purchase this or my financial freedom?

Business= You solve problems for another people for profitHow can I help you? = You earn money

Never ever ever fucking quit!

We live in a world of quality

 Who are you? How confident are inyouself? 

Az emberek 95%-a sohasem lesz szabad

Fás példa

Fruits represent our results in the life

Ha jobb eredményeket szeretnél akkor fókuszálj a gyökerekre ne a gyümölcsre - Focus on roots not to the fruits

You can not fix money problem with the money, because never the money is the problem. 

The money = fruit The problem is with your roots. First the root and than the fruits.

Toughts --> Feeling, emotion + Act = Result Ahogyan gondolkodsz, ahogyan érzed magad és amiket csinálsz meghatározzák az eredményeidet

To learn and implement is a habit

We live life through of our beliefs. 

Be Master of Influence & Leadership - Everything is energy

Empathy and Connection - Credibility & Qualification (hitelesség és kvalifikáció)

How you can construct your image?

What makes you rock?

Life is much simplier if you have a lead

60% psychology + 20% energy + 20% attractiveness

                                            Robert Herjavec 

In this country doens't care what you did yesterday - close that book and start a new chapter

Be the best of one thing

Expert: somebody is want to pay for your opinion

Get some knowlwdge and become expert - Believe in yourself!

The world doesn't care of your pain

You have to believe that you can, to become successful - Desire vs Believe

When you got nothing its easy to risk everything

Measure your results - success has a timeline don't lie to yourself

The pain is often tzhe price of success

Every person responsability is to be financial free

                                       Gary Vaynerchuk 

nem gyárthatsz elég tartalmat és nem költhetsz eleget hirdetésre

Why you do what you do?

Your suck and your lost is your advantage

Attention is the key --> Inspire!

Get yourself educated

When you have attention you have everything

optimism, strategy

Nobody stopping you!

               Soha ne helyezd a pénzcsinálást az egészséged elé

Legyen terved! financial blueprint - Don't waste your time!

Nincs ennél jobb hely a világon hogy gazdaggá válj mint az USA

                                             Tony Robbins  

Az elméd a túlélésre van kalibrálva és nem arra hogy boldog légy

Energiát energiával tudunk csinálni

Your past isn't = Future

Emotions are the ultimate resource

Resourcefulness - találékonyság

Customer: Who is your ideal client?

Irresistible offre - értsd meg mit akar a vevő és adj ellenállhatatlan ajánlatot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcwhsGt-AG0

3 Decisions:

Mire fókuszálsz?

What does it mean?

What are you goning to do?

Emotions are created by emotions

What is the next level for you?

Make a decision and start anyway - Life is to short to suffer, Life is a Gift!

what is your favorite flavour of suffering?

What is your favorite flavour of suffering?  What triggers it?                               

azt csináld ami a naptáradban van akkor amikorra eltervezted

Hozz döntéseket

Use leverage (hatástöbbszörözők) - A kiemelkedően sikeres emberek nem fejeznek be mindent, ők a fontos dolgokat fejezik be. Csak azzal foglalkozz amivel hatástöbbszörözést érsz el!

We are all leading by example - Change your habbits, change your life

                            Why talk to one if you can talk to everybody?

Legyen könyved and a membership siteod

You know how to tell your story

Write your book, speak every week, build a list

Ajánlott Weboldalak: killercovers.com , helpareporter.com , pingler.com , nimbo.com ,

I am a value creator, I am an Influencer

What you delegate? Learn --> Do it --> Delegate

What is the vision of your company 3 years to now? Everybody knows the vision of the brand?

inshot applikáció

schedule to success or plan to failure

don't try to sell just educate

Legyenek több szintű bevételi forrásaid: internet, face to face, phone

Secrets:

Easier than you think - add meg a számod 4-5 embernek naponta

Sales is the only real way to make real money

Never disagree with the customer

Present the offer over and over

Objections are not objections

Ask them to buy

Legnagyobb hiba, ha nincs utánakövetés

Legyen értékesítési attitűdöd

Ne mondj nemet, mond hogy talán!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkQLQdBMmIw

Remélem találtál hasznos gondolatokat benne, ha igen kérlek írd meg és azt is mit adott neked Sok Sikert és Eredményes megvalósítást 

üdv  Robi

[pilferingapples]

La première de Le roi s'amuse,cont

more from Jehan Valter; this is further along , and the play and its reception are starting to go off the rails: 

Unfortunately, the spectators of the parterre and the amphitheater recommenced their jokes during the intermission; appealing to the tenants of the lodges and the balcony, already ill-disposed  to the author (Hugo).

Messrs. Arnault pere and his sons, Jouy, Jay, and Viennet, who had signed a passionate protest against the Romantics some time before, were particularly beset. We* sang on the air of Malborough:**

The academy is dead, Mironton tone your mirontaine, The academy is dead, Is dead and buried.

By the time the curtain was about to rise on the second act, a shower of small papers thrown from the third gallery fell unexpectedly onto the audience of the orchestra and the lower galleries. It was Jean Journet "the apostle" who thus announced to the world by printed flyers that a new religion had just been founded and that he was the founder.

Reading these little papers put the whole room in a good mood. We laughed again when the second act began. But the laughter stopped abruptly from the first few verses of the monologue of Triboulet.

This old man cursed me ...

And they changed into enthusiastic bravos from the scene where the unfortunate father said to his daughter:

Oh ! do not wake up a bitter thought.

The verse :

And what would you say if you saw me laughing?

shuddered the whole room. Friends and enemies of the author met in a single ovation. The end of the act went less well. People say- but nothing proves it and I like to doubt it- Samson (Clement Marot), dissatisfied with playing only one end of a role***, deliberately misplaced the band over Triboulet's eyes, and also deliberately forgot the following two explanatory verses:

You can scream high and walk with a heavy step. The blindfold that makes him blind and deaf.

So that it was not explained how Triboulet did not see that the ladder was applied against the wall of his house and how he did not hear the cries of his daughter. The audience of the lodges burst out laughing.

In addition, Blanche's abduction was as awkward as possible. Mademoiselle Anais was swept upside down with her legs in the air, and the second act ended amid laughter and whistling.

During the passage, Jehan Duseigneur**** ascended to the third gallery, where he had a lively explanation with Journet. Going down, he had to cross the home a group of Lesguillon, Charles Maurice Henri Beyle and a few others, all opponents of the author. The group was heavily eroding the room, that goes without saying.

"Down with the fools!" said the Romantic sculptor energetically.

Nobody answered him and he regained his place proudly.

 * This isn’t the first time Valter’s talked about the Romantics as “we” and given  his name , it’s likely he really was part of the crew. If so , this pamphlet on Le Roi s’amuse,started as a running article in Le Figaro,  is the only writing of his that seems to have survived--though of course it’s possible he has other columns buried in old newspaper articles and the like.At any rate, this is the whole evidence of him that I’ve found, so sadly I can’t give more info on him!  But there’s another Jehan for the Romantic Army ; maybe he was a footsoldier and not a lieutenant, but obviously the sense of camraderie stuck with him too.

**Obviously, filking the same song Petrus and his group were singing at the start of the play

*** I am really not sure what this means??

****Duseigneur!!  Besides being one of the main hosts of the Jeunes-France, he was the guy who did his hair up like a flame to symbolize THE FLAME OF GENIUS. A noticeable guy, a big success in his art, and well liked, but mostly without speaking lines in histories of the movement--this is fun to see!

Malheureusement, les spectateurs du parterre et de l'amphithéâtre recommencèrent leurs plaisanteries pendant l'entr'acte; interpellant les locataires des loges et du balcon, déjà mal disposés pour l'auteur.

MM. Arnaultpère et fils, Jouy, Jay et Viennet, qui avaient signé quelque temps auparavant une protestation passionnée contreles romantiques, étaient particulièrement pris à partie. On chantait sur l'air de Malborough :

L'académie est morte, Mironton ton ton mirontaine, L'académie est morte, Est morte et enterrée.

Au moment où le rideau allait se lever sur le second acte, une pluie de petits papiers lancés de la troisième galerie tomba à l'improviste sur le public de l'orchestre et des galeries inférieures. C'était Jean Journet « l'apôtre » qui annonçait ainsi au monde par prospectus imprimés qu'une religion nouvelle venait de se fonder et qu'il en était, lui, le fondateur.

La lecture de ces petits papiers mit la salle entière en belle humeur. On riait encore lorsque commença le deuxième acte. Mais les rires cessèrent brusquement dès les premiers vers du monologue de Triboulet.

Ce vieillard m'a maudit...

Et ils se changèrent en bravos enthousiastes à partir de la scène où le malheureux père dit à sa fille :

Oh ! ne réveille pas une pensée amère.

Le vers :

Et que dirais-tu donc si tu me voyais rire ?

fit frissonner toute la salle. Amis et ennemis de l'auteur se réunirent dans une même ovation. La fin de l'acte marcha moins bien. On prétend— mais rien ne le prouve et j'aime mieux en douter— que Samson (Clément Marot), mécontent de ne jouer qu'un bout de rôle, fit exprès de mal placer le bandeau sur les yeux de Triboulet, et fit également exprès d'oublier les deux vers explicatifs qui suivent :

Vous pouvez crier haut et marcher d'un pas lourd. Le bandeau que voilà le rend aveugle et sourd.

De sorte qu'on ne s'expliqua pas comment Triboulet ne voyait pas que Péchelle était appliquée contre le mur de sa maison et comment il n'entendait pas les cris de sa fille. Le public des loges éclata de rire.

En outre, l'enlèvement de Blanche se fit aussi maladroitement que possible. M" e Anaïs fut emportée la tête en bas et les jambes en l'air. Le deuxième acte finit au milieu des rires et des sifflets.

Pendant Tentr'acte, Jehan Duseigneur monta à la troisième galerie où il eut une vive explication avec Journet. En redescendant, il dut traverser au foyer un groupe composé de Lesguillon, de Charles Maurice, de Henri Beyle et de quelques autres, tous adversaires de l'auteur. Le groupe éreintait fortement la pièce, cela va sans dire.

— A bas les stupide! si cria énergiquement le sculpteur romantique.

Personne ne lui répondit et il regagna fièrement sa place.

[love-max1982-us]

However with an increasingly diversified global Rogue portfolio

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[in-the-bookish-dark]

Light of Day - Chapter 1 - RL

The morning was wet.  It wasn't humid or muggy. Just plain wet. Everything was wet. The rains had swept through town the night before at ten and two, but since then, no water had fallen. It just hung heavy in the air and gave every surface in the house a misting of earth sweat.

Miles padded through the house.  Derek, transient houseguest, was gone. Windows were open. Kids were down the street, already squealing.  They always played tag between the cars on either side of the block.  In the mornings, it was okay.  Then, when things got busy, lunchtime or after, they'd find a back yard to congregate in.  Fun was fun, but getting run over was not.  Ten or twelve years ago, he'd have been out there with them. Right now, he'd give his right hand, or part of it, to be out there playing in the new day.  New day or old day, just a different fucking day.

He went through the motions with the coffee.  Muscle memory, they called it.  He sat at the dinette and shook out a cigarette as the percolator started to rumble.  At the first drag, he wanted a shot of Jack, but he'd start with coffee.

When he came in the day before, the letter was buried between two magazines and grocery store flyers in the mailbox.  He'd done the physical a month ago. Clean bill. Son of a bitch.  He didn't have to read this letter to know what it said.  He did anyway. He needed to know his drop-dead date.

He mentioned it over dinner - Chelsea had come over and made spaghetti.  He drank most of the Riunite and two beers.  It was right at the end of the second beer. They cleaned the table. She had questions and a deer in the headlights look. He said he was tired. Then he ushered her out by picking a small fight and poking and prodding until the room and the house were too small for more than him. They'd talked about her moving in, but they still both liked to have some space.  He sat on his front porch and smoked two joints and drank the rest of the sixer.  He didn't care who smelled the bud that night.

Maybe he'd call her this morning, after he had some cleansing coffee. Maybe he's walk 'round to her place. When he poured his coffee, he went ahead and poured a shot. Why wait? He threw it back and poured another. Why wait? Time's burning. The Jack burned going down and he liked it.  He needed something burning inside at that moment.  Everything was burning, and he wanted to feel it inside like he felt it outside.

They did the draft lottery in December. His number came up in the first half hour. His birthday was July 9th, so his number was 1. Couldn't be much more in the crosshairs than that. Can't even pretend to hope. It burned going through his mind.  He didn't hear anything after the number showed on the tv, just helicopters.  Waves - no, fleets - of helicopters, slicing through the humidity of Vietnam.  What felt like their rotors pounding the air, though was his heart trying to escape his chest.  Chels was with him that night. She asked what was wrong.  He took a while before he said "Nothing."  It was a big nothing growing in the pit of his stomach. He remembered Polyphemus and Odysseus.  "Who is killing you, Polyphemus?"  "Nobody. Nobody is killing me." Then shut the fuck up, they probably said.  He did soon enough, and then he was silent for all ages.

Odysseus pretended to be mad in order to get out of war.  It didn't work.  They put a baby - his son - in front of the plow, in front of the plow he was turning the field with, dressed as a woman. If he was really mad, which they knew he wasn't, he'd have plowed on through Telemachus, on through his legacy. He stopped, though, then accepted his fate and went off to death and Troy.

Dressing as a woman, (was Odysseus actually the world's first cross-dresser?), wasn't going to get him anywhere.  It had been done.  Done to death. Canada?  It was 1000 miles up the Mississippi and then some.  A hell of a trek to a place where he knew nobody.  Did he know anyone in the movement ... surely someone ... but nobody came to mind.  He sympathized - sympathized like crazy, but music kept him busy.  Maybe Kyle or Kenny knew someone.  Practice was at two and their gig at nine.  Maybe they knew someone.  He'd see. And maybe he'd ask someone.  It seemed right but maybe it was someone else, like Achilles or someone. But that was back in Dec., even before the order for physicals came in.

His coffee cooled when he stared toward the window.  Not at the window or out of it, just roughly that general direction.  He padded back into the living room and grabbed some vinyl.  "In a Silent Way" by his namesake.  He sprayed and wiped and blew little flecks of lint off the disk before cueing it up.  Mademoiselle Mabry started up as he sat down.

There was a smear of vinyl cleaner on his fingertip and he flicked it off before reaching for another cigarette.

He looked and rubbed the tip, spreading the little bit of moisture that was left.  His finger.  His cousin Greg had found his own answer.  Two weeks before he was supposed to do his physical, he managed to get his index and middle finger yanked off at the second knuckle at the [steel mill.]  He was always careful, except the one time when he wasn't.  Without both fingers, there was a lot he couldn't do, including things like filling out forms, firing machine guns, throwing grenades, and whatever else fit the job description of a grunt in 'Nam.

He rubbed slowly around the finger tip, imagining its absence.  There he was at Cafe du Monde, dipping his beignets left-handed. Or he was claw-lifting them with his right.  Pool.  He could still handle his stick with those fingers gone.  Grip the stick tighter.  Maybe that angle would even be better. It could start a trend. Everyone would start lifting their fingers off the stick just so they could play like him.  Albums. Could he get them out of the sleeve with "the claw?" Could he cup Chel's face with his hands the way she likes with the claw?  Down at the rec center, could he play pickup b-ball with the claw? Where would his control go?  Two fingers isn't a lot when it comes to a basketball. Four fingers weren't that much to start with.  But he'd be playing ball at home, and not on some muddy clearing outside Saigon or wherever the hell they would send him. No b-ball deep in the jungle where Charlie is waiting around to shoot it - and you - out of the air in the middle of your jump shot. Two finger b-ball is always better than dead.

He picked up the spoon for his coffee.  Rolled it finger-to-finger with his left hand.  Dropped it six times. Didn't even try it with his right.  Couldn't imagine how. So maybe he's stop putting cream in his fucking coffee. If I can take a finger or two off, I can drink my damn coffee black. He went back to staring toward the window.  He drummed those two fingers on the table.  Might be his last chance, better take it.

Maybe two other fingers.  Left hand?  Nah. He'd be double screwed. Lamed up and still in 'Nam.  What do they care about your left hand if you're a rightie?  Ring and pinkie?  Still useless.

He called his mom, then he called his dad.  They both didn't know what to say. Literally. "I don't know what to say, it's ..." his mom said.  "I don't know what you want me to say ..." came from his father.

After he finished the calls, he sat on the couch.  Then he laid on the couch.  Then he methodically spooled his phone cord in one hand, until it was snug between wall and phone.  He tugged both ends, then he yanked the cord from the biscuit jack on the wall in one clean jerk.  His elbow nudged the casement window open and he flung the phone out into the yard, as far as he could.

At La Casa, forty-five minutes later, he was already on his third boilermaker.  Maybe he should pace himself. Maybe he didn't care because in less than three weeks, he was going downtown to the induction center.  He got another shot.  Still working on the second beer, but then he was already ahead of the game.  Whatever the game was.  A shadow came in through the Decatur side door, and walked up behind him.

"Hey, Miles,  what's the haps?" It had to be Carl, from the old band. The rasp and Irish Channel accent was unmistakable.  He and Chelsea grew up together.

"Hey, Carl, where y'at?"

"So?"

He shrugged. 'So ' what??

"Talked to Chelsea."

"Jesus.  And?"

"What's goin' on, man?"

"I got mail yesterday."

"From?"

"Uncle Sam."

"Shit, man."

"Yeah. Order to report."

"When?"

"The 23rd."

"Whatcha gonna do?"

"Exactly."

"No, I mean, really, what are you gonna do?"

"Man, I don't fucking know."

Neither of them said anything.

Carl glanced at the setup.  He flagged the bartender and waved two fingers at their glasses and bottles.

"Thanks, man."

"Hey, least I can do."

"So, what's going on with Chelsea?"

"Nothing, man, I just wasn't in a mood.  If we started on it as soon as I got the letter, she'd freak, and then we'd go around and around, and I just wasn't going to deal with it then.  I don't have an answer; how the fuck am I supposed to give her an answer."

"Answer about what?"

"About ... how I felt, what I was going to do, what about us, shit like that.  I wasn't thinking. I was just falling down this long, dark hole, man.  I don't think I've still hit bottom.  When I was first on the draw, I knew my number was up - literally.  Then I got the physical exam letter a month ago, and I knew they didn't find shit that was going to save me.  I'm not an athlete, but I'm healthy."

'Well, listen, guy, Amy has a connection to Canada ~'

'Canada.' Heavy. Not interested. Dropping it on the floor.

'Hang on, buddy.'

Carl walked off. Miles sat there, rocking his empty shot glass back and forth. After a while or two or three, Carl came back.

'Uppers, man.'

'What?'

'Take a bunch of uppers the day before your physical, and then one the day of, and your blood pressure will be off the charts.  They won't take you for that. Maria ~' he shrugged back where he'd come from ' ~ she can hook you up good, compadre.'

Miles flicked the shot glass.  It slid across the bar and hung over the edge before dropping.  There was no crash, so it must've landed on something. 'Goddamit, Carl, I already took the fucking physical. How the hell does that help me?'

'Oh yeah, shit, man. I'm sorry.  Little high.  Good fucking buzz, actually. I forgot.'

Miles tried to rub away the tension in his skull, but it wasn't going anywhere.

'Anyway, man ' hey, let's get together before you have to go in.  Get totally wasted and strung out. My tab.  Least I can do.'  Carl slapped his shoulder, then wandered.  Somewhere.  Miles didn't see.

He finished his drink.  He finished the drink Carl left behind.  He waved for another shot and threw it back, then paid out.

Chelsea was waiting on the front step when he got to the house. She had a beer beside her, sweating on the concrete, and her cigarettes, untouched, as well.

He sat back to back with her. "Hey."

"Yeah?"

"We can talk. I just couldn't do it then."

She picked at a single thread sticking up from the knee of her jeans.  "Yeah, well ..."

"I'm sorry."

She nodded.  He put out his hand and she took it. She reached across her body for her beer and took a long draw.

"Want to go inside?"

He wanted one of her cigarettes.  He reached, but then stopped.  "Yeah, hey - how about I cook tonight?"

"In a bit."

She walked him into the shotgun house; walked him straight back to the bedroom.  She held him and he held her.  They didn't manage sex.  The alcohol and the draft board saw to that.  They did have spaghetti again, his way, with wine in the sauce and big chunks of meat.  Almost meatballs, but smaller and ragged, and no breading or seasoning.

She got up in the middle of the night and found him by himself in the living room.  He was passed out, a dry bottle of vodka next to him.  His index and middle fingers were folded down and taped together.  Layers and layers of masking tape.  She turned off the snowy tv and threw her grandma's quilt over him and went back to the bedroom.

When she got up the next morning, long after dawn, he'd been up for a while.  A corner of the quilt was soaking in the sink.  He was at the dinette.  "I, uh, threw up a little.  Cleaned it up, but some got on it.  I'll hang it out in a bit."

She nodded and took a cigarette from the pack on the table. His were stronger and they burned, but she didn't care just then.  She took his mug of coffee and pointed him to the cabinets.  The steam told her it was fresh.

He poured a new one for himself and sat across from her.  She remembered and looked at his hand.  No tape, but some redness from where it was yanked off.

"What were you doing with the tape?"

"Nothing.  I was just drunk and wanted to see what it would be like."

"Kinda odd."

He shrugged. "Drunk guys do odd fucking things, Chels."

"What do you th~"

"I don't fucking know."  He stood and walked to the sink. "Honestly, Chels - I don't know.  I'm not trying to be an asshole. I don't know what to say yet, don't know what to do."

She blew out smoke and fiddled with the lighter. "I'll finish up the quilt."

"Nah, I got it, babe.  Hey, let's get dressed and go down to the park.  We'll grab po-boys and watch the kids on the flying horses."

She nodded.  He squeezed the excess water out of the quilt corner, then smoothed it.  The screen door banged behind him, taking it out to the line.

They got out there on the streetcar just as the lunch wagon rolled in. Miles went over to get the po-boys. Chelsea found a Magnolia with a grassy patch underneath.  The breeze was soft but refreshing.  They couldn't see the carousel from there, but they could hear it when the wind shifted.  It was the most relaxing thing they'd done in days.  She gathered their sandwich trash.  He reached into the bag for two Hubig's pies.  Cherry and lemon.  She took lemon.  He finished the cherry in half the time she spent on hers, but it was all good.

By the flying horses, there was a Coke machine.  Coke for him and Tab for her.  He folded up the pull tabs and stuck them in the coin pocket of his jeans til they found a trash can.  They leaned on the rail around the carousel and watched the squealing kids.  Their cans sweated and dripped down. A little cluster of droplets formed under hers.  His drips were all over the place.

It really was the best afternoon. They had laughing kids in front of them, surrounded by wide greens, greens without snipers or tripwires or landmines or flamethrowers, and somehow, he managed not to think of them.  Southeast Asia was somewhere on the far side of Mars.

There was a bench nearby, close, but not right on the main paths.  She kissed him and he kissed back.  Her hand rested on his thigh; he glanced around, then slid one hand up her shirt to her bra-less tit.  His hand was still cold from the Coke can.  She jumped, but didn't complain.

Back at the house, they again went straight back to the bedroom.  Windows were open, but windows didn't matter.  She laid him back and straddled him, riding him face-to-face.  His wood was weak, but it firmed up inside her.  She rocked until his hardness filled her, then leaned down and let him thrust.  She had little bruises on her thighs the next morning, but it didn't matter.  They rode together, and her tits dragged back and forth over his chest.  She panicked a little when he came - they hadn't stopped for a rubber - but she was too close herself to think too hard.  She douched after, though, as he laid, catching his breath.  Don't take too much of a risk.  Nine months on, he was going to be in the jungles or worse.  They hadn't talked marriage before, and she wasn't going to talk it now.  She also wasn't going to be a single mother.  If the douche didn't take care of things, there were other ways.

They skipped dinner and had popcorn and beer in bed.  The little tv set wavered and wobbled, but they saw most of the Saturday night line-up.

Around 2am, storms woke them.  He rolled her over, again without preamble, and glided deep into her.  She was wet from his cum and wet from the douche.  Lightning snapped around them. Thunder shook the windows.  Winds slapped the blinds back and forth.  All the rage outside was inside, too.  This was a fuck.  His cock pounded in; her ankles met behind his ass.  He reached a hand behind her neck and pulled her up to him.  Every thrust, he grunted; every thrust, she gasped.  The angle worked for her, and she came and came.  Hard orgasms from far inside, like they'd been waiting for a dark summoning.  They liked it a little rough sometimes, and they'd cum with fireworks and cannons.  She came hard like that.  Angry orgasms.  She fucked back against him as hard as he fucked down into her.  She would hold him there and fight to keep him home inside of her.  He fucked like he never planned to leave, or planned never to leave.  She couldn't cum anymore. She just shuddered around and under him.  She keened and clutched and scratched.  Her nails sank in and Miles himself went over the edge.  The last thrust, he didn't want to stop there.  He wanted his whole fucking body inside her cunt, swallowed up by her.  He squirmed, like that would help, but in twenty seconds, it was all over.  His cock was still hard, but it was the only muscle with any strength.  He sagged down on her, and they both wept, then faded out.

He woke and he was face down, naked, and alone.  His cock was slimy and sticky, but alone.  She was in the bathroom, running water for minutes on end, then going into the kitchen.  She came back and shut the door again.  The water came back on.  He drifted in and out, but noticed when the water cut off again.  The light under the door flickered like she was walking back and forth. He drifted in and out more.  By the time he got his head around checking on her, she snapped the light off and came out.  Chels sat on the bed and ran her fingers through his damp hair, then walked out.  His first thought was she was walking home at 4am.  He was about to roust himself to stop her.  He heard the chain on the door and the couch creak, and knew she wasn't going anywhere.

In the morning, he made coffee. He poured mugs for both and set hers on the coffee table.  Close enough to reach from the couch, but not so close she'd knock it over.  He drank his on the way to the corner for a paper.

He got the paper and kept walking, wondering about the night.  He'd cum in her twice without protection. Did it mean something more than convenience?  Chels was good about keeping condoms on hand for them.  His place, her place, her purse, just in case.  Didn't even bother last night.  She was always in charge of protection, the condom cop.  Just was.  Except last night.  He didn't know what it meant. Something? Nothing?

When he came in, the couch was empty.  She called from the kitchen "Hey!"

He went in and she was scrubbing down the countertop.  The stove shined as much as that old shitpile would shine.  This confused him more.  Was she nesting or working off tension?

"Hey, Chels."

"... hey."

This was fucking reading tea leaf time.  She only half-glanced at him.

He walked up behind her.  His hand landed on her shoulder. She kept scrubbing.  Not scrubbing harder. Not scrubbing any less. Not leaning back, and not trying to escape.  Just not engaging.  He stepped back and she slowed.  Two strands of hair had escaped her cleaning scarf, and she brushed them back.

"I've been thinking ... Miles ..."

"Yeah, Chels?"

" ... I don't know."

"About?"

" ... I don't even know that."

He touched her one more time on the shoulder. Light touch. Lighter even than before, and just for a second.  He walked toward the dinette, then changed his mind.  He yanked hard on the paper towel roll and eight or ten spooled off.  He ran them under the tap and smeared the water around the front of the fridge, avoiding anything that was taped or clipped to it. The wad of paper dripped water down the fridge to the floor.

She glanced over.  "Goddammit, Miles ..."

He froze.  Yeah. He couldn't - or wouldn't - clean for shit. Bad time to remind her.

He stepped back and they stood stock still for a moment.

She slapped her rag down on the counter.  "Here comes the shit storm" he thought.  One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four M~ ... and she hugged his side. She kissed his shoulder.  She said, "It's okay, babe. I got this. You go do something." She pointed outside, so he went outside.

He sat on the stump of the old Magnolia that had snapped apart six years ago when Betsy blew through.  He was surrounded by dandelions a foot high, and those nasty, milkweed kind of weeds even higher, so that's what he did.  Probably snapped off more than he yanked out of the soft soil, but it was something, maybe.

He fucked around, making a mess, for about half an hour. After that, he got shame, and he got serious.  Instead of throwing them around the yard, he stacked the weeds.  Instead of yanking, he dug with the fingers he while he had, and pulled them by the root.  Thirty more minutes and he was rolling a joint from the stash in the roof of the shed.  At least he'd done something, though.  He tapped on the kitchen window and she glanced over.  Ten seconds later, they were sharing the joint.  She was leaning in to him.  They were pulling down the beers she'd brought out and taking their time on the doob.  Their little time machine where everything stops. That Twilight Zone episode with the guy and the stop watch.  They had their own.

Their eyelids got heavy.  They rocked back and forth. He sang "Brown Eyed Girl" to her, or what he could remember.  They went to the bedroom and rocked against each other.  The condoms never left the drawer again, and the afternoon passed before either of them stirred.

He heated up leftover spaghetti in foil in the stove and she douched again.  Twice. Salt and vinegar, until it burned.  They sat on the stoop with paper plates and ate dried out spaghetti, with burn-brown ends, and watched kids ride by on their bikes in the twilight.

The next morning, he had to do something.  He didn't know what, but he couldn't sit still.  It could be the wrong thing, as long as it was something.  Between 5 and when he got up at 6, he rolled in and out of dreams.  Asians in black pajamas chasing him through the Garden District and into the Quarter.  The Greek sailors at the Acropolis bought him glasses of Ouzo, then tried to shove him into a tiger trap with big, sharpened bamboo stakes.  He took one through the thigh, but still managed to run down Dauphine to Bourbon, then around to the Old Absinthe House.  They poured a schooner of green liquid and told him he'd be fine - and that he'd be better off without any of his fingers, and when he looked down, his right arm was a stump ending just below his wrist.  He crossed the levee and jumped into the Mississippi.  When he came up, he was surrounded by screaming GI's in rat cages half-under the water.

He flung himself out of bed; every inch of him, pooled in sweat.  Chelsea didn't stir.  He wanted to scream her awake, but what good would that do?  He just needed someone to hear him.  The phone was still fucked, and laying in the yard.  He could go to [pirate place?].  They were always open to people they knew.  A drink would help. Two, three drinks would help. Maybe.  They were down to four joints, but he took one from the house stash and slipped out the front screen door.  He left the front door barely latched, so she wouldn't hear.

Jerry pegged him as soon as he walked in. "What the fuck, man?  Are you on acid?"

Miles explained the past three days, jittering as he did so.  Jerry poured him a big glass of something brown.  "On the house, dude."

Miles fired up and they passed the doob back and forth until it was too small even for a roach clip.

"What are my options, man?"

"You could fake going nuts, man, but there's a price.  You could claim you were a fag, also a price.  You could run off to Canada~"

"No. Ain't going anywhere."  Funny, the option with the least price was the one he ruled out immediately.  But there was a price.  It was the fact that it didn't cost him anything.  He might not want to fight or die, but he didn't want to run, either.  He'd take the consequences, but the one consequence he couldn't take was nothing."

"Conscientious objector?" Jerry said it, then shook his head.

"Yeah. I'd still go.  I just wouldn't get to shoot back.  That's assuming I convinced them of my 'longstanding beliefs' of the past two days."

Jerry nodded. "You could kill somebody, man."

They held their breaths.  The words filtered down out of the air.  When they were on the floor, still and safe, they went on.

"I ever tell you about my cousin? Greg?"

"Pineda?  Down at the garage?"

"One and only.  He got his letter a year and a half ago."  He held up a hand, two fingers folded down.

"Shit. So that's what happened to them ...?"

Miles nodded.

"I actually thought it was an accident."

"Maybe it was on purpose, maybe not. He had fucking great timing, though. Day after he got his letter to report for physicals, bam!  He still had the stitches in when he reported.  Doc didn't even want to look under his bandages.  Checked a couple of boxes and told him to put his fucking pants back on and go home."

Jerry nodded.  A moment later, Miles' glass was full again.  He reached for his wallet.  Jerry waved for him to put it away, eyes out the window, squinting at the sun that wasn't there yet.  The next joint was Jerry's. Big fat blunt. Twice as big as the one Miles shared.  By 8am, Miles was toasted.  Jerry moved him to a booth and brought a bag of Fritos for him to munch on.  Around 1, he walked home.

The day was as wasted as he was.

Next day, he had to have a plan.  Getting fried was no plan.  The clock was running, and in another seventeen days, his ass would be on its way to wherever the fuck they do basic, and then he'd be hopping through the jungle with a target on his head.

Chelsea was off at work by the time he woke up at 7.  The bakery started at 4 and she would get in at 5, and run solid to 5 that afternoon.  He was off til tomorrow, and had promised to clean up more shit in the yard. That's what she said.  Banquet TV dinners on trays in the living room last night, which he fell asleep on.  Salisbury steak and potatoes spilled all over the floor.  "Can you at least do something with the yard tomorrow?"  She went to bed.  Around 2 he woke up enough to clean up his mess.  He crashed on the couch.

The big Bradford pear in the back, past the magnolia stump, near the sagging back fence, needed trimming.  The branches dragged toward the ground. When the wind blew, the pears skittered and thunked along the ground. Some were already falling off and rotting. Chelsea hated walking around back there.  They had lawn chairs for sitting in the shade. "I might as well have to walk through a maze of dog crap, though."  She hated it.  They ended up sitting at the stump, in the sun, most of the time.

He dug the bow saw out of the shed.  He stared at the tree, not sure where to start.  Cut off the heavy parts at the end, the part with all the pears?  That didn't seem right.  Maybe the ones that were way overloaded.  No, start back by the trunk, where the problem started.  He cut of a couple of middle size branches, long, but not too heavy.  That gave him confidence.  Next, he went for a branch half way out on a bigger one.  It had to have 50 pears of different sizes.  He held the baby branch and started sawing.  He was half way through when things twisted.  There was a little crack-crack and the whole branch rolled forward.  The saw blade was trapped. On the in-stroke, it jumped and grazed his thumb nail.

"Son of a bitch!"  He threw the saw down and jumped back.  The branch crackled more and sagged to the ground. It didn't break. Just hung.  He checked his thumb. There was a long gash, and a little glow of pink, turning to red, showing through. He picked up the saw and banged on the branch, hammering until the back of the bow was dented.

"Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch.  I coulda lost my thumb.  Son of a bitch."  Even as he said it, even as he was angry of the near miss, he was getting angry over the missed opportunity. A thumb was probably worth two fingers.  He should have taped his goddamn thumb down the other night.  What would that have been like?  What the fuck can you do without a thumb?  He picked the saw up again.  He swung it at the trunk like a hatchet. It bent in two and the blade popped out of its anchors and warbled across the yard.

Then he sat down in the grass and stared at the thumbnail. His eyes swept the thumb from the nail down to the joint and back up, again and again.  The saw was fucked, but ... maybe there was a way to salvage this without being obvious.  Maybe if he ... fuck. Wrong goddamn fucking thumb.  Shit. He almost lost a thumb and it would have been the wrong goddamn thumb. He was halfway through a plan to get it done anyway. It still would've been useless. He berated himself. "You cut off a thumb, you cut off the right one, fuckass.  Not the left.  The left won't get you off a fucking bowling team, much less off a plane to 'Nam." He picked up the saw blade and the bow.He flung them. They tumbled end over end as they swirled high in the air.  Two, maybe three houses away, he heard the clang.  Then a dog went crazy barking.  Someone's mutt must've got the piss scared out of him.  Good. Fuck him and fuck his owners.

He came in, washed the thumbnail in peroxide, then put on the smallest bandaid he could find.  It barely covered the nail, though the edges easily overlapped across his thumbprint.  On his way out, he thought about leaving a note for Chelsea, but he was in a mood for niceties for himself or for anyone else.

He took the streetcar back to the Quarter and drank all his cash away at La Casa.  His buddy Ivan walked him back to the house at 2am. Chelsea had come and gone long ago.  There was a plate of food in the sink, filled up with water. The peas and corn just floated in it. The meatloaf was soggy and gray by then, just a ring of oozed Ketchup . No note. No hello; no goodbye; no "kiss my ass."

It pissed him off. He hated it, but he knew he deserved it.

She didn't come by the next day and she didn't call. Not that she could, actually.  The phone and its cord was still sprawled across the lawn on the side of the house.  He laid on the couch most of the day, watching who knows what wobble across the screen.  There was Dialing for Dollars, random soap operas, a couple of news breaks with updates from 'Nam.  There were dozens of furniture store commercials.  Some guy named Crazy Larry who windmilled his arms as he talked and talked and talked.  He would've gotten his ass off the couch, but every time he seriously considered it, he decided he didn't give a tinker's fuck, so he settled back down, grabbed another warm beer out of the four six-packs in the crate on the floor, and relit the joint that kept going out on him.  Shadows came and shadows ran off to the east, and then abandoned him completely.

The door was open, a breeze blowing through the screen.  The only light in the house was the tv.  Saying something.  After the six o'clock news, [carol bernett] came on. He thought it was her, anyway.  People ran around in dumb-ass costumes.  Now and then the audience would laugh and applaud.  Now and then he would, too, though he was only vaguely aware of why.  A lot of it was probably no more than laughing because others were laughing.  He muttered to nobody but himself, "Dumb-ass ... yeah, laugh because they're laughing.  Why don't you get your ass on a fucking plane for Saigon just because everyone else is doing it? We'll see how fucking funny that turns out to be."

He closed his eyes and rolled that thought around in his head. Getting on a plane.  Getting off in whatever fucking base everybody lands in when they get sent to Vietnam.  Laughing and laughing about the horrible humor of it. Him. Vietnam. Wanting to survive.  Not just his body, but who he is.  Coming back intact.  How funny it is that he's thinking about avoiding 'Nam by becoming not intact. Maybe he'd mail his fingers Vietnam.   They'd be casualties.  They'd belong there, right?  He imagined.  Getting a box.  Packing it with excelsior.  Maybe straw.  Straw seemed more appropriate.  They could throw the whole goddamn thing into a field and let a water buffalo eat it.  Did he know anyone over there?  Someone he could send them to?  Someone who would do him a dark and disgusting favor?  "Hey, man, is it okay if I send you two of my fingers? Nah, it's just because I want you to throw them out somewhere.  Field, road, rice paddy, land mine, shove 'em up a VC ass for all I care.  Yeah, that's pretty much it. Huh? Yeah, I cut them off so I wouldn't have to go, so it only seemed fair that they go anyway. Right. Ok, my man, have a good day and come back safe. Love to your wife, if she hasn't left you."

That would go great. Oh yeah. He played it a couple of times in his head. Two or three or ten or more. Maybe not the whole thing, but the bones.  He savored it.  Wanted it right.  Do you say it pissed off or calm?  Do you say it all twisted up, or safely from behind the mask?  He mulled, wanting to come up with a version that didn't openly offend anyone, but would be clear.

He mulled, and when he opened his eyes, it was already morning.  Had he really mulled for six or eight hours?  From the light and shadows, it had to be easily 10am, which would mean that they whole night had passed as he moved each word, each thought, from one side to the others.

Chelsea came in at noon and he was still glazed, still red-eyed and in his own hash fog.  She came in and touched his forehead.  He stirred.  Another hour or so, and he'd have sat up on the couch.  He stayed down. She might be gone before he managed to prop himself up.  She walked through the house.  He could see into the kitchen, and a little way down the hall.  She touched things.  She ran her fingers across the back of her usual chair;  she looked out of the window she could count on seeing a bird's nest from.  Down the hall, she stopped and adjusted a picture of them riding the paddlewheel steamboat.  She swayed for a bit, like she could hear the calliope calling them aboard.  She walked on down to the bedroom.  He heard the bed squeak.  Minutes later, his eyes followed her up the hall. She disappeared in the other side of the kitchen, then came out again, and stood in the hall for a moment. She adjusted another picture.  Tapped the frame three times.  She glanced his direction.  He thought his hand went up in a wave.  He wasn't sure.  It probably didn't, though. After glancing his way, she picked her purse off the kitchen counter and walked back out the front door.

Two hours later, he was focused enough to realize he was hungry.  Thirty minutes later, he was sprawled over the kitchen table.  He had three of four hot dogs to go. A mountain of ruffles spread across the tabletop.  He scooped chips onto the hot dogs. He worked his way through them, barely propping himself up.

His pitcher full of iced tea was almost gone.  No glass, just the pitcher.  When everything on the table had been eaten or drunk, he leaned back.  Restless.  Now that he had energy and a slightly clearer head, he was restless.

He grabbed a hat from the table and headed back out to Finnegan's.  It was a cave in there, dark and wooded, and the a/c was powerful enough to store beef.  For locals, the dark and quiet were the biggest draws; for tourists, it was the cold.

Trish was tending bar.  He liked Trish.  She always had a smile for him.  She had on a loose tie-died halter top and a big fake sunflower in her hair.  She shimmied.  That was one of his favorite things about her, even better than the smile.  She looked over her wire rim, yellow lenses and said, "You look like shit."

She slid him a beer and he told her the whole story.  He wasn't trying to stare at her cleavage, but his head wasn't doing much of anything else.  It was heavy from four days of heavy drinking and smoking.  And he liked the view.

"Y'know, you have to be square with her, if you really care.  She just wants to know what's going on.  She's not expecting you to be Johnny Hero. She just wants you to be you.  That's what she signed up for."

He nodded and finished off his beer.

"Hey," she put her hand on his. It was warm, despite the icicles hanging off everything else.  "Y'all should come hang out with me and my old man tonight. My sister will be there. Rap, smoke some. It'll be good."

He went by Chelsea's.  He knocked and knocked, went from window to window. After ten minutes of no response, he saw her old lady neighbor out picking shit in her garden.  'Hey, Mrs., uhhh ~ have you seen Chels?  I mean, Miss Jackson?'  She wobbled up to one knee, grabbing air.  Her cane had fallen over.  He grabbed the cane and boosted her up.  The dirt on her hand was warm and soft.  The skin on her hand was cold and dry.  She dusted her hands, swaying a little without any anchor.  He thought about reaching over and taking her elbow or shoulder, but he was afraid.  His hand was still cold from touching her.  He imagined the cold spreading all the way down his arm to his chest.  Worse, he considered the possibility that he'd accidentally touch her breast.  He shuddered.  Just the thought chilled him.  'Uh ''

Her eyes snapped to him.  She took the cane and inspected it, as if he might have tampered with it. Only then did she put her weight on it. 'She's gone, cher. Didn't say where. I didn't ask, me.'

He looked back at Chelsea's house, like it had more clues. 'Did you notice anyone with her, ma'am?'

'They was ' hmm ' no, that was the other day.' She eyed him up and down. Her glasses slipped down her nose, following a drop of sweat that just hung at the tip. She smelled of Ben Gay and chewing tobacco. Maybe a little like his grandmother and her perfume, L'air du Temps.  'Might-a been you, young man.  That other day, I mean.  No, they wasn't anyone with her.'  She patted his arm and wobbled away.

She stopped at her back door, hand on the screen door.  'Do you know anything about water bugs?'  He shook his head.  'It's hot out here.'  She shook her head and disappeared through the door.  He picked up her basket, half full of something that looked like squash, and dropped it on her back door.  She was right. It was hot out there.  Hot out everywhere.

He went by Chelsea's mom's house.  Barbara didn't even open the screen door.  That was fine. He didn't need to go inside with her and her tits down around her knees. "She's not here. Ain't seen her since day before yesterday." He started to ask another question, but the words didn't make it through the screen before she shut the door.  "Damn bitch stinks of rum.'  He kicked the screen door.  It rattled in its frame.  It wasn't satisfying. What was the point in breaking something that was already broken?

She never liked him.  She always compared him to Chelsea's last boyfriend who was a football player.  Unfortunately, he was also a dirtbag who almost got her arrested by hiding three lids of pot in her purse. They'd been at some party in Algiers and the cops stopped them just this side of the Connection for speeding and not maintaining a lane.  Fortunately, the cops got another call before they got a good whiff of the pot they'd already smoked at the party, or the fifth of whiskey on his breath.  He laughed as they drove off, then fished the bag back out of her purse.  The next morning, after she'd sobered up, she dumped him.  Barbara didn't care, though.  She was always talking about how Roger could have gotten an NFL contract with the right woman supporting him.  Chelsea was supposed to be the right woman.  More to the point, Barbara was supposed to be the right mother-in-law.  That was her whole thing.

He stopped by Anna Marie's apartment.  No dice there, either.  At least Anna Marie liked him. sometimes, she even flirted just a bit, and just for fun, not with any intent to go further.  But she hadn't seen her best friend in over a week. Hadn't talked to her since yesterday.

That was it.  He knew she wasn't at work. The two people who always had an idea where she was, had no clue.  He wasn't going to try to track her down house-to-house among half a million people.

He stopped at a random place in the Irish channel and had two beers, killing time until he was about ready to go to Trish's place.  He checked the piece of paper he had scribbled the address on.

When he got there, a double shotgun out along Magazine, there must've already been about a hundred people there.  That was good.  He wanted a party.  He wanted to get outside of his head for a while, but he also wanted to get lost.  He worked his way past the two flimsy grills in the front yard. They were loaded down with enough hot dogs and burgers, they should have collapsed.  The beer had to be in the back yard.  He brushed past Trish's old man, but the dude didn't recognize him. The guy's eyes were red and watery.  Miles was a little surprised the man was even standing.  He made his way down a little sidewalk, between groups of couples who were making out against the fence.  There wasn't any fucking ' yet ' but there were lots of hands already in clothes.  At one of these parties, by the end of the night, you were either totally wasted, or if you were lucky, you were fucked and wasted.

That made him a little annoyed that Chelsea wasn't there, but he got over it quick.  No point in bitching and moaning about something you can't change. He was almost to the back side of the house when some crazy bitch with a hurricane glass spun around hard.  She and her girlfriend were dancing to 'Bang a Gong.'  There was a lot of slow swaying, but they were already on round heels.  He couldn't tell how much was them and how much was the shoes.  Either way, her hurricane came out of her hands and bounced off his chest.  He now had a very wet and sticky chest and whole right sleeve.   'Oh, goddamn, man.  Wheredju come from?  I soooooo sorry!'  She mopped with the hem of her dress, lifted up over her waist, until he grabbed her hands to stop her.

Her, he didn't know.  The woman with her, though, was Trish.  'Hey, luv.' She dragged it out, letting it float on the wind. She was higher than a kite. The wind was about the only thing carrying her or her words anywhere.  She tucked herself under his right arm.  Her elbow length, loose hair immediately stuck to his shirt.  That was a hell of a sticky hurricane. Probably not a mix, but then what New Orleans native would use a mix?

Trish grabbed his sticky hand and took him back. The other woman bobbed along behind in their wake. When they turned to stop at the back stoop, the woman kept going, through the waves of people.  Probably got stuck against the back fence, walking, walking, walking until she passed out.  Trish reached between her wobbly tits and pulled out a decent-sized doob. She looked around for someone she didn't recognize, someone who looked like a narc.  She must not have seen anyone.

They passed it back and forth for a while, let two others take a hit, and pretty soon it was gone.  He was pretty gone, too.  Good weed.  Better than he could usually afford.  One minute he was in the clear, then as the smoke cloud encircled them, he was drifting in a fog.  That woman had come back.  She was yapping at Trish about their dog. How big he was, and how fast he could eat her little chihuahua. To be fair, Trish listened for longer then he could pay attention. Out of the blue, though, she put her hand on the woman's lips. "Shhhhh... sh-sh-sh-sh." She wobbled a little and her hand dropped. That crazy bitch just picked up where she was. Whatever she was saying.  Trish took her face in both hands and said, "Shut the fuck up, Marissa. If you don't shut up, Miles here is going to take you inside and fuck your brains out.  Seriously."

Marissa's eyes floated over to Miles'. Bobbed some.  She was wasted.  She tried to smile, but her face just hung there.  Maybe it was supposed to be a bluff, because all of a sudden her face got serious.  She had enough muscle control for that, evidently. She shook her head side to side, and nearly toppled over on one swing.  She slid down the rail and landed hard on the stair.

Trish smirked at him.  "All it took was making her take a breath, and she blew herself over."

She leaned in.  "Hey, what I said there ..."  He thought she was going to apologized. He was wrong.  "Clearly, Marissa isn't up for it, but ..." She slid her hand down to his waist and hooked her fingers under his belt, an arrow straight toward his dick.  "I'm not doing anything right now."  Her lips reached up and drew his down.  They were good lips.  Soft and moist, and she knew how to use them.  Miles immediately started getting hard.  The moment his dick realized how good her lips were, it was talking loud to him, begging to let her use them on him.

She stood slowly.  His lips followed, and the rest of the body with them. When she turned and latched her hand around his belt buckle, he gave no resistance.  Up the steps and straight through the kitchen into her bedroom.  Their bedroom.  She spun him backward and he flopped on the bed, right between a pile of laundry and a damp beach towel.  She poured herself on top of Miles' torso. He could feel the heat and moisture of her pussy grinding into his thigh.  She was driving - grinding herself against his thigh, Frenching him, with a fist full of his hair. With her other hand, she was undoing his belt.  She unzipped and fished his cock out, pumping it right from the start.  Definitely better than Chelsea - better with her hand, better with her mouth, and over the top with passion.  He convinced himself easily. Clearly, wasn't at fault.  How was he supposed to resist someone better than Chels on every level?  he scooped one hand into her top.  Her tits were the perfect size.  Her nipple was already erect, poking itself into his palm. She moaned when he squeezed, so he squeezed harder. He kneaded her tit and thrust his tongue almost to her throat.  He took a fist full of her hair with his other hand, tightened and twisted.  She moaned louder and clamped her legs around his thigh.  When she shuddered, he tightened his fist in her hair.  She shuddered again in a way that announced loudly that she was coming.  Little hip thrusts that tapped out on his thigh said she was losing control for a moment. She just laid there, panting for a moment.  She'd stopped stroking him while she came. She picked up stroking and slid herself down Miles' body.  Again, something she must have done thousands of times until she had the move down perfectly.

She slid down and with no adjustments to her glide path, took his dick into her mouth. Definitely well-practiced.  He held her hair as she bobbed up and down. She made slurpy sounds and yummy sounds, and stroked the exposed part of his cock with her hand. Every now and then, she'd look right up into his eyes.  When she did, she would flutter her tongue on the underside.  He'd read about that somewhere, but couldn't remember where.  Playboy, some paperback ... didn't remember.  He said "I'm gonna cum" and she didn't even slow down. More than that, she moved her hand away and tried again and again to take him all the way.  She would gag and then pop back up, then try again. The very last stroke, the head popped into her throat, and that's all it took. Boom. He went off like a fire hose.  He must have pumped ten shots right into her throat.  She bobbed up after the first two, then forced herself back down for the rest. He didn't have to do anything. He couldn't remember ever cumming that much or that hard with Chels.  Granted, he wasn't exactly in the habit of taking notes while he fucked.   She licked him clean after he finished, fished two pubes off her tongue and cheek, then slid back up and under his right arm. They laid there. She played with his chest hair. He squeezed her tit and rolled her nipple between thumb and finger.

"Jesus fuck, Ch~Trish ... Marcus is a very lucky son of a bitch."

She laughed, "Miles, I haven't been with Marcus in ... what, four months, I think.  My old man's name is Reince."

"Rench?"

"Reince. Like ... rents."

"Ok, he's the lucky bastard then.  Where did you learn that tongue thing?"

"On the underside? The flutter?" Miles nodded.  "I read it in an old dirty paperback my folks had.  Sounded like fun."

"Hell fucking yeah, it's fun."

"Been using it since I was fourteen, no complaints so far. Hey ... umm ... so how does Chelsea feel about girls - or couples?"

"When she was in college, she fooled around a little bit with her dorm mate." He could've said more, but didn't.  He wanted to hear what was behind the question.

"Hmm, so, she might be interested in a threesome? Or some girl-on-girl? Swapping? An orgy?"

"Damn. That's like a hard sell."

"No, I'm just wondering.  I haven't said anything to Reince.  Just curious.  I don't know her well, but Chels seems fun.  You're definitely fun, and y'know, Reince and me, we like fun people."

Suddenly, he felt miles from Chelsea.  Were they broken up officially? Hard to say. Certainly felt like it.

"Y'know, lemme feel her out, see if she might be cool with it.  Ya never know, right?"

Her answer was to french him.  That must've been an "Ok." She patted his chest and said, let's get back out there.  She left her pants behind, and they walked out of there with her in just her long peasant top, no pants, no panties, no bra.  He could dig that - dig that very well.

He tried to think about Chels, but couldn't seem to get his head to go there, aside from vague visions of two women fighting over his cock.

When they were back outside in the crowd, by the beer keg, it was back to reality.  The pot hadn't lasted near long enough.  Here he was at a party where he knew only two people. He was three weeks from induction. He'd just fucked this chick and might or might not be cheating on the girlfriend he might or might not still have.  He had about thirty minutes of escape, then it was back in the box. That made him think of Cool Hand Luke. "Man, what we have here is failure to communicate." He said it out loud before he even realized.

Trish turned around.  He hadn't even noticed until she did so, that she'd leaned across the keg to French kiss some beardy freak in a Grateful Dead t-shirt.

She said, "Huh?" and slipped her tongue in his mouth. He tried to figure out if he tasted only her, or that other dude, or even lingering traces of his cum. Next, she reached inside his pants deep enough to cup his balls. "I think we communicated pretty well."

"Huh? Yeah, no, babe.  I was thinking of something else."

She laughed at him and shook her head. She didn't get it, and she couldn't care less. Her fingers dipped into her cleavage and she pulled out another joint.  He thought, holy Christ, where'd that come from.  It hadn't been between her tits when they were screwing, that's for sure.  Somewhere between the bedroom and the keg, it had just magically gotten deposited in her top.

He frowned down at nowhere, for no particular reason than his own moodiness.  In seconds, she leaned in for another kiss.  When he opened his mouth for her tongue, she breathed smoke into his mouth and down into his lungs.  Knowing that wouldn't quite do it, she then passed the doob to him.  He took a deep drag, then pulled her in and returned the favor.  She was ready, and breathed him in deep.  Thirty seconds earlier, he was down, and the war was racing toward him.  Suddenly, it was all very cool and copacetic again.  The war would wait.  He didn't care whether her old man was there, or if he was watching, or if he cared.  He doubted he would. If Trish was telling the truth, he was good with whatever she got them into.

Trish wandered off when the joint was done.  She pointed his way from across the back yard. The older couple she was talking to made their way to him.  They introduced themselves as Hank Something and Junebug.  They stood close and looked around.  Junebug had great tits. Big and full, but not enormous. Well-rounded and just the tiniest bit of sag. She didn't seem to mind him noticing. Maybe that was part of their game. Maybe they thought he was carrying weed and she thought a little jiggle and wiggle would get some free samples. Their cautious glances around, though, seemed excessive given the company. If they wanted weed, nobody within a hundred feet was going to narc them out.

"Listen, Trish says you might be in need of a favor."

Miles didn't respond, so Hank continued .  "She says you've got your back up against a date with induction, and you might could stand some help finding some options."

He couldn't remember words, but he did nod.  Sure could use options.  That's what the word was.

Hank was explaining - without excessive detail - that he might have some strings he could pull. A favor for a favor. A string here and there, a package delivered here and there. While he talked, Junebug dug a a little foil packet from his shirt pocket.  She took out a little yellow pill and washed it down with a mouthful of beer, then took a beat and popped a second yellow pill into her mouth. No beer this time, just a swallow.  She picked a third out and offered it to Hank.  He shook his head and reached up to stroke her cheek.  Junebug looked for a moment like she was going to offer him one. Maybe she decided he was too far gone to really profit from whatever the pill was.

Hank handed him a business card and said, "Come by or give me a call - but soon."  Miles held it close enough to read.  Hank walked off as he focused on the words.  Junebug trailed behind Hank, their hands connected by fingertips.  He could have sworn she dragged her hand across his crotch, lingering on the zipper.  As soon as it registered with him, both of them were gone.  He had to have imagined it.

Things faded just a moment later.  When he woke, he was seated on one of the stumps, leaning against a garbage bin, with a cat licking his pounding forehead.  The moon was low in the east, but there was just enough light in the yard to see half a dozen others also snoozing in random spots.  It must have been around three o'clock.  He could check his watch, but that would've been work.  Too early for such exertion.  When he opened his eyes again, the sun was just topping the roofs.  The humidity was starting to simmer.  He was warm and clammy, as much from the partying as from the humidity.

Time to go home.

He got up and stepped over and between the litter, the bottles and cans and paper plates soaked by food and the morning dew.  Up by the gate, there was a cowboy in a buckskin joe hat sprawled up against the fence. More like on his buckskin joe hat.  It was crumpled up under his head, a crude pillow.  It was either that or the half gallon of Jack Daniels a foot away, with a slow trickle out of its mouth.

He was a mile down the road, two pair of sunglasses on his head.  They barely blocked the sun enough for him to wobble down the road, but barely was still enough.  He got home and laid down on the living room floor, wrapping his arm around a pillow from the couch, pinning it under his head.

Later, much later, but not nearly late enough, he woke enough to notice something different about the room.  He wasn't alone.  The room sounded different.  It was quiet, but the silence sounded angry, sullen, and sad.

"Chelsea ...?"

"Miles ... I see you've been ... having adventures."

"Listen, I ... I'm sorry I haven't gotten hold of you.  I tried this morning (no, that wasn't right) - I mean yesterday morning.  Your mom's, Anne Marie's, somebody else's ... " he couldn't remember who else, but surely there was."

He rolled to his side, facing her.  He found her face, her gaze pointed up and toward the window.  There wasn't a lot of warmth there.  He could understand that.

"Listen, Chels ..."

She stood up, towering over him.  "Miles, I'm going to give you some space, give you time to clear your head or purge your soul or whatever it is you're doing.  I want to talk, I want us to talk, but I can see that's not happening today."

She stepped over his legs, "I'm going to grab what laundry I have here and get out of your hair.  Please ... don't get up."

He felt like shit, but heard the sarcasm in her voice.  It was a warm, damp rag across the back of his neck, not soothing but unsettling, down in the pit of his  stomach.  He might have been able to get up, if he used up all his energy reserves, but it was a solid maybe.  More likely, he'd get five feet, fall over, and throw up.

He drifted away again as the living room wobbled into the dark.  He woke past dusk, another day in the toilet.  It was half past 9 when he made it as far as the kitchen.  He leaned against the refrigerator, then leaned inside, surrounding himself with the cool air.  He rubbed a big glass bottle of Coke on the side of his head.  He knew it was throbbing, but only realized then just how much it was pounding.  The left side was cool and nicely numb, the right side pulsing like a neutron star.

He sat at the table and dug at a carton of chocolate ice cream with the first spoon he found.  Spoon after spoon, without stopping or slowing. In time, by 10 or so, the cold had soaked its way into his upper body, blanketing the ache in his head.  He chased it with glass after glass of water, and when he was done, grabbed the Playboy from the end table by the sofa and worked his way to the bedroom.  He fell asleep with the open magazine covering his face and dreamt of escaping to Amsterdam with the Girls of Holland. It was a good dream, full of sex, alcohol, and pot, and spiced up with the repeated motif of nearly falling into one of the canals.  It seemed wherever he went without a handful of girls, he was in danger of falling into the water ways.  He never actually fell in, but came close plenty of times.

* Wednesday. 7am. His eyes opened and he was done sleeping.  Mind clear; eyes clear; even his goddamn sinuses were clear, and they never were.  He'd been in New Orleans since he was six and his family moved from Lake Charles.  He couldn't remember going more than a week at an stretch without antihistamine or decongestant. Given how much alcohol and pot he'd consumed in the past several days, he couldn't believe how alert and sober he was.  Had the last week even taken place?

Wednesday was Chelsea's day off.  She usually slept in until ten or so, then went off for lunch with friends.  He wanted to see her.  He felt like shit for how he'd been acting.  Childish, self-absorbed.  Chels was always talking about some sex therapist and her opinions.  Not just sex but relationships, too.  Being self absorbed and selfish were right up there at the top of the danger sign list.  Things were going to sort themselves out, though.  They always did.  With him and Chels, anyway, they always worked out in the end.  He'd talk to her and they'd get things trued up.

He'd go see that guy who gave him the card.  He'd do what he needed to, make whatever deal.  He'd stay here.  He'd stay with Chelsea.  They'd get married. Maybe. Or, she'd move in. They'd talk about it.

Suddenly, he wasn't as sober any more.  He sat up and put his head between his knees - or as close as it would go.  His eyes watered. His throat was dry and tight.

Start with the coffee, a couple of mugs, and think out the situation.  Find Hank's business card and stop by to see him. Or call or whatever.  Get things rolling.  While he was waiting for the coffee to perk, he got the phone from the yard and crudely reattached it to the biscuit jack.  When he was done, he tried it.  There was a little static, but it worked.

The coffee got him going.  He was out the door as soon as the second mug was done, business card in hand. Hank's office was on the edge of the quarter, down by the French Market.  First there, then to Chelsea's. He'd talk her down like he always did, she'd be happy again, and then to celebrate they'd have lunch at Galatoire's. Or Antoine's, if was later. Maybe just hang out at the Famous Door and have some drinks and list to music. At any rate, it would be a whole new start for them. G's was always the perfect place to start something new. Oh, right. Antoine's. Or the Famous Door.  Things were tight at the moment, yeah, maybe they'd just go to the Door.  Or she might want to stay in and cook.  He could go out and get them a fifth of Jack.  Anyway, new beginning, that was the thing to focus on.

He started the car, set the radio to WWOZ, and was starting to pull out, when a guy with a beard and a bald head popped up from around the front of the car parked at the neighbor's.  He looked familiar, but he couldn't place him.  Someone recent.  Whoever he was, he wasn't happy.  Very not happy, actually, and probably high as a fucking kite.  He lurched side to side as he walked.  He came around to the window and reached to pound on it, but the glass was down, so he just flailed a couple of times.  Very high not to figure it out on the first try.

"Hey, fucker. Shit, man. Hey, are you Miles?"

"Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm Trish's old man."

"What's your problem, man?"

"You son of a bitch, you knocked her up!"

"What the hell, man? You have no way of knowing ..."

"... fuck, man, I got no sperm. No swimmers, you hear what I'm saying?  Aint no baby comin' out of this cock, hombre."

"Oh, shit, man ... I ... wait ... I know y'all's score.  Y'all swing all over town, you might as well have vines hanging from the trees.  Are you trying to tell me ~" he paused as he popped the door ajar, and the guy jumped back like he was being attacked. "Calm down, dude, I'm just getting out to talk about this." The car lurched forward - he hadn't remembered to take it out of drive. He shifted gears, slapping the knob into place, and snapped the key off.

"Calm down and back away a little - " he leaned against the front fender - "... you're telling me that there's no way anyone else can have knocked that bitch up?"

The guy, whatever his name was looked bewildered, and staggered back again. His red face screamed back, "I know what you're trying to do, you son of a bitch, and it ain't gonna work. You have a responsibility and you are going to fucking pay.  The last motherfucker did, and the other guy before, and the same fucking shit is going to happen to you.  We ain't having no baby, so you know what that means. You're going to cough up $200 for an abortion and we'll get this shit taken care of before it gets too far."  As his speech played out, he slowly walked toward Miles, his head tilted, jabbing with a finger, until the finger was actually jabbing into Miles' chest.

"Don't do that man. Gimme space. I'm asking you."  His ears were pounding. It was like he was under water, no under six feet of red jello. Everything was dark and tinted and sluggish, like that time his uncle Fidelio had come after him.

The finger kept jabbing. He didn't see anything but the finger making brief ripples across his shirt. He couldn't see as far as the end of the arm. Everything was dark and red and starting to slant to the left.

His own hand moved across his chest.  It locked on the man's finger and twisted, which brought his body to just the right angle to take Miles' knee in the groin. Twice, and then again for good measure.  Something cracked. It had to be the guy's finger. Or fingers.

Reds turned to greys, and the pounding in his ears was replaced with the ocean.  His stomach wanted to vomit, but his throat told it to shut up.  [Frank] or whoever the hell he was, laid on the verge next to the sidewalk.  One hand was cupping his balls. The other was waving in the air like a flag, trying to keep that pain as far from the other as possible.

It was time to go.  He had to go and meet ... that guy... the card... from the party. With the hot wife.  Jesus, what was his name?  He couldn't concentrate.  Then there was Chels. He wanted to talk to her about something.  It would come back. That guy was still screaming and cursing. He wasn't going to figure out a goddamn thing with all that racket.

Time to go. Go see that guy with the card. He turned back to the door. As he was stepping around it, he slapped the guy's hand out of the air, "Shut the goddamn fuck up! Do you fucking thin you're the only fucking goddamn fucker who has any goddamn fucking problems!?" The other guy might've been loud, but people in Algiers probably heard that.

The guy choked on his curses and choked on the flashing surge of pain.  Once Miles was in the car and pulling out of his space, he was just a memory buried inside the massive flaming cottony headache he now had.

Despite his hurry to get moving, when he got to Hank's office, he sat outside for a good thirty minutes.  The car would warm up; he would start it up and run the A/C for a few minutes, blowing ice cold in his face. It was a losing game. He'd start to drip sweat, then blast himself with iced air. In moments, the sweat would chill and he would shiver.

At ten thirty, he decided it was time.  He'd get out of the car and either go in to Hank's office, or walk down Decatur and grab a beer.  At least he was doing something.

He walked past Hank's door, and was a good ten feet further down the sidewalk when he pivoted.  That's how he worked, stress, stress, stress about something, then the moment he decided not to do it, he was relaxed and could carry through with it.

The receptionist was an older women, slight and slender and easily in her sixties, but kind of steely. She was probably a good screen for Hank, and had a look in her eye that said she probably played for the Packers. "I'm here to see Hank. Mr. ..." he had to dig the card out of his pocket to get the last name. "... Sinclair."  He turned the business card to her - Mrs. Prideaux, her desk sign said - and handed it to her like a movie ticket.  The eyebrow that arched when he stumbled over the last name, came back down.  It knotted with the other for a second, then they both went back to neutral.

"And your name, Mister ... ?"

"Miles. Mikes Parker"

She didn't seen to regard the name well. Maybe she wasn't the jazz fan that his mother was.  She asked "And he will know what this in regard to?" Her tone was solicitous but skeptical.

"This is regarding ... " not exactly a job "... an opportunity. I ran into him and Junebug recently and he suggested, requested, that I come see him at my earliest convenience." He could tell she didn't like the reference to Junebug.  That was a mistake. The rest of it seemed to ease her annoyance just enough to maybe open the door.

She set the card down and centered it on her blotter.  She sighed. Then she reached for her phone and punched the intercom button.

"Mr. Sinclair, I have a Miles Parker out here with one of your business cards.  He'd like a few minutes of your time."  She threw her glance up and down him as she said it.

"Miles ... oh, yes ... from the other day.  Would you buzz him back through, Miz Emma."

She punched the intercom off, then pressed a button on the side of her desk.  A buzz told him that something was unlocked for the next couple of seconds, and he'd best be moving.  He reached for his card, but she'd spirited it away in the half-second he'd looked off.

He didn't even have to turn the knob on the door. All it took was a push and it swung wide. Medium sized office. Nice, hundred year old desk that took up half the room. Must've been goddam oak and probably weighed two hundred pounds.  He couldn't imagine how it came through the door, but it did. The rest of the office, eh. Crappy, warped wood paneling. A window behind the desk, no blinds, curtains, nothing.

He looked up, over the rim of his glasses, and said "Miles."  He looked back down and slid something into a grey folder and tossed it to the corner of his desk. He pointed at one of the $20 armchairs.

Miles took the offer.  Neither spoke.  He grabbed a pen from his desk and crossed his legs, turning sideways a quarter.  "So, how's the weather out there?"

Miles stumbled through a confused explanation of current meteorological phenomena, then fell silent again.  Sinclair nodded.

"So, anyway. I'm glad you stopped by.  We've got some things going on you might be able to help with." He glanced at the door. Miles pushed it shut.

Sinclair reached for another folder buried underneath three other folders.  This one had the words "Parker, Miles" on the tab.  It wasn't empty, or anywhere close  He glanced through it.  One, two, three sheets, then skipped down to pages that were paperclipped together. He glanced at the top sheet, then closed the folder. "You've got a little bit of a record, my friend."

"I, uhh ... yeah ... like what are you talking about?"

"DWI, public intoxication, a gram of weed, trespassing ..." he glanced into the folder.  "... one hot check? Just one? Nothing big, just a lot of fucking around, really."

Miles nodded and relaxed a little.  It was all good.

Sinclair tossed the folder on top of the gray one.

He smiled and tapped the desk like he was trying to remember a funny story.  Miles smiled, waiting for it.

"Anyway - tell me about the Mexican jail."

Fuck. The goddamn Mexican jail. It wasn't on his NOPD rap sheet. He knew that. What the hell?

"You've been watching me for a while ...?"

"Aw, nah, Miles. I had this stuff sent in this morning just in case you showed up straight off."

"But you invited me in ... for ... because you could tell ..."

"Hey, buddy, you're at a yard party being thrown by someone who has his finger on half the pot and heroin coming across the border or across the Gulf up to Orleans Parish. You disappear for thirty minutes to fuck the guy's wife, do some dope, then vanish."  He shrugged. "So, that generates some interest. You're not a big player. Sorry, no disrespect, but you just don't have that elan. On the one hand, sure, we've got a certain leverage we can use on you - it's what we do, the stick, but at the same, you've got enough scruples that ... you're not going to go rogue.  For that, at the end of the day, we’ll be happy to throw you some carrots."

Miles just sat there. It was an insult and a compliment. It was also precursor to a threat. He was brought in to be worked.  Not only that, just by looking at him that night, the guy, whoever he was, could tell that he was ripe for working.

Sinclair handed him a folder. He read through it and handed it back. By the time it left his hand, though, he’d forgotten everything it said.  He was a little distracted.

Sinclair walked him through it, as though he’d never glanced at the folder, which was just as well, since as far as he could tell, he hadn’t.  There was a guy, mob connected, maybe even a made man, that they were wanting to get a finger on.  He was the main drug conduit as well as the buddy of several prominent, established businessmen and a couple of up-and-coming politicians in Orleans Parish.  Plan A was to hook him. Plan B was to hook him and implicate his important patrons.

There was an interruption when some skinny guy in a narrow-tie suit and a lot of Brylcreme came in and whispered into Sinclair’s ear.  They both looked at him and then Sinclair looked at his watch and back at him. There was a smirk that blossomed, then he waved tie-boy off.  When the door was closed, he just smiled and said “You sure don’t lack for drama, do you?” before resuming.  Had news of his little event with Trish’s old man already trickled in to him?  It was at most an hour, hour and a half ago.

Sinclair could manage to get him on a bartending gig at one of Gianolo’s regular haunts, the Napoleon House, and boost an introduction, but it was Miles’ job to work his way in further.  He could take all the time he wanted, as long as it didn’t take more than two weeks, after which they expected him to be ass-deep in Gianolo’s pocket.  They’d feed him information to help him become an asset, but it was still up to him to sell it in a way that it wasn’t obvious to Gianolo and his crowd.

There was more, but he’d get that when he came back in two days for his briefing session with the ops guys.  Until then, it was his job to keep his nose clean and his mouth shut.

There was still a tight fog wrapping around his body when Sinclair got up, grabbed his shoulder, lifted him, and walked him to the door as if it had been his decision to leave at that moment.  “Remember, Thursday at 1pm. You won’t make us come looking for you, would you?”

Miles tried to shake his head reassuringly, but it didn’t much care to move. Sinclair was probably past being reassured by anything anyone else said, anyway. Instead, he made a little wave with his left hand, said “Later,” and clipped the door frame as he passed through.  At least he didn’t drop the sealed envelope Sinclair had given him.  Just more embarrassment under the bridge.

He didn't open the envelope until he was someplace safe.  The chair at Lafitte's, however, wasn't even warming when he ripped the end off.  He expected a new identity. Some cool spy shit like that, maybe a passport in case things went tits up, like the british spies in the books say. Nothing like that. He had to stay Miles Parker. He just got some backstory written for him, filling in gaps here and there. Made sense, he guessed. Not like it was happening in a town where nobody would know him.  Just sweetened his history a little.

The plan was to go next to Chelsea's, but one drink became six drinks at Lafitte's, and by the time he got back to his car on Esplanade, he smoked a joint and took a little nap.  It was good shit.  The dreams he had were all about fucking big tit redheads over and over, and having them fight over his cock - and some weed.  When he finally woke up, the sun was hanging over the business district.  He didn't feel like doing much more that day, so he got on St. Claude and headed home.  She was probably still pissed anyway.  Give her more time to cool down.  He'd go fetch her the next day and bring her back to the house for burgers and beer and they'd split a joint and fuck, and everything would be back to normal again, and they'd be fine.  Besides, if Sinclair could really get him off the hook for Vietnam, he didn't have a big fucking deadline hanging over him. He had all the time in the world to square things with Chels.

When he got back to his house, he laid on the living room floor, smoked his last joint, and drifted off to sleep until six the next morning.

He had eggs and boudain for breakfast, and then realizing he hadn't eaten since breakfast the previous day, ate twice as much.  He flipped through the envelope Sinclair had given him, doodling in the margins as he moved front to back.  Devils and large breasted women mostly. His default doodle.  Blocks of squiggly lines in random spots.

He went out and talked to his mechanic.  He'd had two tours in 'Nam and came back with a shattered knee and pelvis from a mine.  Why, exactly, he was consulting him, he didn't know.  He liked the guy. He trusted the guy's instincts. He also bought half his dope from the guy.  He danced around the idea of working for the feds.  Didn't ask him outright, but told him a story about a guy he'd known who'd gotten pressured into working as a mole.  The guy winced and drank his beers twice as fast, and got red-faced as Miles unwound the story, but he was more angry at the government for using people than he was at Miles' "friend" for taking the deal and giving in to being used.  Miles felt better when he left the garage.  Yes, he was high, but there was also a certain weight off his shoulders.

He went back to the house, found a note from Chels on the door, asking where he was. Actually, what it said was "Where the hell are you hiding? C" He got a glass of water from the sink,  sat down at the table to call her, and didn't wake up until midnight.

When he called her at 12:30, her mother answered ... the phone cut in and out, due to his crappy repair job, but he managed to hear her say, very clearly, "I'm sure she's not in for you, but I will take a peek."  She came back in twenty seconds. "She's dead asleep.  Maybe you'll have better luck tomorrow."  The click and dial tone made it clear that she was done talking.

He phoned in sick the next morning.  He got up at 6 and worked his throat up unto a gravelly rasp just to make it more interesting.  He needed to get back on the crew, 'Nam or no 'Nam, but he also realized he needed to stop stalling with Chelsea.  He didn't bother calling. He just went over and camped out on her front stoop. He  had no way, short of knocking and waking someone up, of finding out whether they were up yet, so he did the next most logical thing.  They always, both Chels and her mom, always came out to the front porch for a cigarette first thing.  They'd drag themselves out of bed, grab a mug of coffee and a pack of Winstons, then sit out on the glider and rock until they were awake or the coffee was out, whichever came last.  He'd wait.  If nobody showed up in 30 min, he'd assume they'd already been up and had their morning porch smoke.  Otherwise, it was just a matter of time.

He only had to wait ten minutes.  The knob on the front door rattle, then quit, then rattled again for longer.  It turned and the door gaped several inches, then came to an abrupt and thudding halt. It closed again so someone could remove the chain, then swung full open on its creaky hinges.  A housecoat backed through.  The cigarette hand reached for the screen door frame, just in case there was a gust. What he expected in the drink hand was a mug of coffee.  What was actually there was a Coors fat boy.  He looked at it, then up at the face of the woman holding everything. It wasn't Chelsea, but her mother, Berniece.  She gave a start when he came into view.  She looked in his eyes, then down at the beer, then back up at him.  She said "Aww, hell ..." and set the beer on the railing and went back inside.  It was ten seconds before the door slammed.  She must'v'e done it as an afterthought.

Two minutes later, Chelsea peeked through the curtain, then came out to join him on the porch, holding a pack of Winstons and an oversized coffee mug.  They were several minutes into saying hello, slowly and cautiously, the way sumo wrestlers squared off with each other, Berniece came out in due time to retrieve her beer, pausing long enough to eyeball him and make a sniffing sound.  Eventually, they both came to agree that he'd been an ass the past several days.  He admitted to her everything a reasonably cautious male would admit to. Indiscretions that had come uncovered, admit everything. Where questionable, ask questions. Where fishing, feign laughable innocence.  All she knew was that he was getting high as fuck and avoiding anything and everything, completely bailing out on her and the whole Vietnam thing.  That was close enough to reality for him to own sincerely, without excuses.  She didn't mention any rumors of anything else and he didn't ask.

Two hours later, all was good, or good enough for now, her mom had gone off to work, they'd gone back to Chels' room for a make-up fuck, and then she shooed him out so she could start the restaurant set up for lunch opening.

[sowk-fic-archive]

SOWK ch.10/35

Summary:

Life goes on with frayed tensions and warnings...

Chapter 10 : dénivellation

The days rolled by, much as they had always done. A week after their argument, and with the knowledge that Matthew was indeed in the running to become a Unique, Dominic found himself sitting by the fireplace with a copy of Le Monde loose in his hands. His mother was crashing about in the kitchen, the sounds of pots and pans ringing throughout the house. The rational part of his mind gently reminded him that he should probably ask if she needed any help, while the obsessive part, the part stuck on the fickle entity known as revenge, staunchly reasoned that if he did ask, she would simply refuse his help anyway. Why waste his time and hers by asking in the first place?

He moved to sit with his back resting against the battered armchair that nobody had sat in since his father’s death. Opening the newspaper, he began to flip through the pages until he found Voix Watch. There was a picture of Matthew splayed across the page, though not on his own. He was with Adora.

She was the one problem, the one fault in his otherwise perfect plan. Adora Constantine. The little girl Matthew had grown up with, the girl that he professed to love. Dominic scoffed, his eyes focused on her smiling face as she and Matthew walked hand in hand.

Le Monde was reporting on their selection, of course. The newspaper had been doing so for three days now, when it had been officially recognized that they were in the running to be the next Uniques. It was beginning to wear on Dom. The newspaper had successfully reminded him that with the quick approval of Matthew as a Unique-in-waiting, he had less time to break the Voix’s admittedly iron resolve. Every time they spoke, it seemed, they deteriorated into a fight. Not that they’d spoken since the incident in Dominic’s office, a week ago. He had seen nothing of Matthew for the whole week, and his lack of appearance was beginning to make Dominic nervous.

“Dom, you look like there’s a little gnome inside your head, hitting your brain with a hammer. What’s up?”

Dominic blinked, shaking his head and looking up at Nancy, who was standing above him with her hands on her hips and a smile on her face. He stared at her for a moment or two. “Sod off, Nancy,” he said eventually.

“Well excuse me for being interested in my baby brother’s well-being!” Nancy said, apparently wounded. She sat down on the sofa, curling her legs up beside her and watching him with her head tilted to the side. “Seriously, Dom. You haven’t said a word in days. What are you thinking?”

Dominic gritted his teeth, wondering when it was that his sister got so infuriatingly nosy. “I said,” he snarled, “sod off. So just give me some space, and shut the hell up, okay?”

Nancy seemed to have understood that he didn’t want to spill his every emotion to her, for she lapsed into silence. Relaxing slightly, Dom flipped back to Voix Watch, scanning over the article. It was the same as every other pathetic, pointless, simpering article that had been in its place over the past three days. He didn’t know why they bothered to publish it. There wasn’t a person under the sun, either Voix or glouglou, that wasn’t aware of Matthew Bellamy and his glorious existence.

“Dom?”

Nancy was trying to talk to him again. With a deep breath, he turned towards his sister and swallowed down the urge to throw something at her. “What?” he snapped.

“Dom, what’s wrong with you?” Nancy’s voice was small, as if she was hiding away from him. The fact that she was desperately trying not to look at him wasn’t exactly comforting, either. “Ever since Dad... since he...” she shook her head, standing up and moving to sit in the chair that he was leaning against. “Dom, you’re not yourself, and it’s scaring me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Dominic didn’t reply, staring fixedly at his fingers for as long as he could manage. “You’re sitting in Dad’s chair,” he said eventually, his voice numb.

“Oh, because that’s the most important thing right now,” Nancy said bitterly. “It’s a chair, Dom. I know you miss him, but there’s no need to build him a shrine. I miss him too. The only man I have in my life right now is you, and you won’t even look at me without spitting fire.” Her voice softened, a hand touching his shoulder. “Just... if there’s anything you want to tell me, Nicky, just tell me. I’m your sister.”

Dom pulled his legs up to his chest, resting his chin on his knees. He could tell her. He could tell her everything. About Agostino Bellamy, and his father’s murder, and his plan. He could tell her about what he was doing to Matthew, and he could tell her about the things he planned to do in the future. He could tell her all of this. It would be such a weight off his chest, not to have it all to himself. Just to let somebody else in, somebody he trusted completely and without a shadow of a doubt...

He turned to his sister, looking at her expectant smile, and shook his head. “I don’t have anything to tell you, Nancy. Go away.”

And she did.

Matthew didn’t bother knocking when he entered Dominic’s office, four days before his audition. He found the glouglou with his back to him, looking at the piano with his head cocked to the side. Glancing around, the Voix found there to be many more sheets of paper than his last visit, and the bin was overflowing with crumpled paper balls.

“Hello,” Matthew said somewhat curtly, Dominic visibly jumping and turning around.

“Christ,” Dominic said, clutching a hand to his chest. The other was holding a few sheets of paper. “You could’ve knocked, at least,” he snapped, looking Matthew up and down. The Voix was wearing skinny white jeans and a tight fitting white t-shirt with black braces. Dominic gulped.

“I don’t have to, it’s my house,” Matthew said, as if someone had asked him what colour the sky was. “Now, do you have my song for me?”

“Yes,” Dominic immediately said, a grin breaking out on his face. Matthew could tell without even asking that he was proud of the song, and for that fact alone he respected Dominic in that moment. Beckoning him over to the piano with a hand gesture, Dominic pushed a bundle of papers out of the way to sit on the stool.

“Here, the lyrics,” he said, stuffing two sheets of paper into the pale, outstretched hand. “Do you want me to talk you through them?” Dominic asked, his hands automatically running up and down the keys in two octaves as he looked over his shoulder up at Matthew.

“I...” Matthew couldn’t find the right words to say. It all fitted; every single lyric made sense, yet the song wasn’t outwardly simple. The bridge and chorus repeated, but Matthew knew that it was for meaning, for performance. Mouth opening and closing, he couldn’t quite find the right words; his throat felt tight and his fingers flexed. “It’s perfect.”

He looked up in time to see Dominic turn back to the piano, his cheeks stained rouge. “I’ll play the melody, mouthing along so you get the idea,” he instructed, the art of teaching a Voix how to sing a certain melody quite a difficult one to master. Now, Dominic was running solely on his instincts and his fuzzying memories of his father’s technique.

“Okay,” Matthew said, plopping down without warning next to Dominic on the piano stool. The glouglou shuffled about his papers resting against the piano, both music and lyrics ready to meet for the first time.

Dominic began to play, his fingers much more sure of themselves than the first time he had played for Matthew, to Matthew. His mouth formed the silent words as his right hand picked out the melody, forgoing some of the chords to allow Matthew to pick up the tune. By the second bridge, Matthew was quietly singing along at his side, nodding and making faces at himself if Dominic’s fingers didn’t quite work in time with his mouth.

By the time that the final chords rang out and hung in the air between them, Matthew was smiling. “I love it,” he simply said, a small smile tilting the corners of his thin lips upwards. Dominic nodded in respect, hands unable to remain still in such close proximity to the man who was, ultimately, his victim.

“Do you want to run through it again?”

Matthew nodded. As the sun began to set in the sky, they practiced the song over and over, Matthew finally feeling like he was connecting to the song more, after Dominic suggested during a bolt of courage that the Voix picture he was singing to a certain someone. He didn’t dare ask who.

“There’s still something not quite right,” Dominic said as he stretched his aching fingers. When Matthew decided they could stop, they would stop. It wasn’t his place to ask.

“Did you actually have my voice in mind when you wrote this?” Matthew snapped, his nice attitude from the afternoon slipping away with the going down of the sun.

“Yeah...” the glouglou said distractedly, looking out of the window at the orange sky. “Your voice is almost too perfect, though,” he said, looking up at Matthew’s face and expecting a smug smile. Instead, he looked almost upset, staring down at his feet. A true perfectionist. “It needs to be... more broken. More exasperated. You know, this could be the end of everything, he’s desperate to make it all okay.”

“What do you suggest?” Matthew said quietly.

Dominic didn’t answer straight away. Instead, he looked at Matthew and allowed a smirk to form on his lips, the Voix quirking his eyebrow at him. He stood up from the piano stool, moving to kneel on his desk to reach the high window. Cracking it open and watching the dust swirl and tango in the sunrays, he jumped back down onto the floor.

“My father sometimes had trouble relaxing,” Dominic said, beginning to search the drawers and rifling through the contents of each one. “So he’d keep a box of what I’m about to show you, somewhere...”

“Dom, what are you talking about?”

Dominic looked up. It was the first time Matthew had ever referred to him by name without saying it like it would burn his tongue. It also occurred to him that the luxury Fleck used to keep was unheard of in polite Voix circles.

“Aha!” Dom said, pulling out a box of cigarettes. “My father’s writing aid,” he said with a sad smile.

Matthew looked at him as if he had just pulled a rabbit out of a top hat, eyes on stalks. “What... what are those?”

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Dominic deftly opened the packet and pulled out a single cigarette. “Cigarettes,” he said. “No, they’re not illegal before you ask, Mr Goody-Two-Shoes, and they’re not going to damage your voice. My mother even told me that one time, in her youth, Joie smoked a whole carton of these before recording the vocals for what is still the best song of all time,” Dominic said with a nod, gesturing with the white stick towards Matthew. The Voix stood still, dumbfounded.

“You smoke them,” Dom continued. “Watch.”

Dom placed the filter in his mouth, fishing out a lighter from the back of the drawer and lighting the cigarette. Letting out a contented hum, he plucked the lit cigarette from between his lips and blew out a stream of smoke.

“Try it,” he said, placing the cigarette between Matthew’s index and middle fingers. Whilst Matthew glared at the offensive object in his hand, Dominic unearthed an ashtray from all the clutter in the drawer. “Go on, it won’t kill you. Well, not in that quantity anyway. And I don’t have any germs,” he said, when Matthew had not stopped glaring.

Sighing, the Voix put the unlit end between his lips and inhaled, instantly pulling it away from his mouth and coughing. Dominic allowed himself to roll his eyes this time as he stepped forward, wanting to help Matthew but his fear of the consequences only just won out. He stood up again, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth.

“Just... it’s really hard to explain,” Dom said, exasperated. “Try again, go on.”

Matthew huffed but did as he was told, bringing the cigarette to his lips once more. He inhaled, his eyes fluttering shut as he could feel the smoke curling inside him. Lips forming a perfect “o”, he blew the smoke and watched it fade into nothingness.

“And...?” Dominic asked, watching Matthew take another drag. It hurt his pride to admit it, but the sight of Matthew Bellamy being corrupted by his own devices was more erotic than he’d ever thought it would be. The way his eyelashes would brush upon his cheekbones, the way his cheeks would hollow as he sucked, the way his eyes sparkled just that little bit more...

“I like it,” Matthew admitted with a toothy grin. “Now, how many of these do I need to smoke before my voice sounds right?”

Dominic laughed, throwing his head back at the thought of Matthew’s voice not being right. After a full afternoon of working with the Voix, his voice was actually beginning to become appealing, appeasing...

“Just the one should do the trick, I can hear it on your voice already,” he said, licking his lips. Matthew shook his head imperceptibly, tapping the excess ash into the glass dish in Dominic’s palm and finishing off the cigarette. As he did so, he carefully regarded the glouglou, with all his tanned skin and wide grey eyes and unruly hair. The glouglou with the red cheeks, the wide irises and the slightest sheen of sweat where his t-shirt failed to cover all of his chest.

“There,” Matthew said, a definite husk to his voice as he dropped the extinguished butt of the cigarette into the ashtray. “Another round?”

Dom swallowed dryly, cursing at the more animal side of his mind that didn’t take another round to be a run-through of the song.

He didn’t want to fall for Matthew, at all. His plan was to make Matthew fall for him, and that only. As long as he could manipulate the other man’s feelings, his hatred for Agostino could simmer away quietly, and his grief for his late father would slowly fade away, knowing justice had been exacted. Now, as he listened to Matthew’s raspy, husky voice singing the song and the end of each line positively dripping with sex, Dominic found it very difficult to keep his feet on the pedals and resist the urge to cross his legs tightly.

“That... that was good,” Matthew panted. Dominic found it hard not to pant also, so he merely nodded and bit his lip. “I think we should leave it for tonight.”

“I agree,” Dom rushed to say, their eyes accidentally meeting and breaking away. “I mean, if I may, I need to go home and help my mother--”

“Yes, yes,” Matthew said distractedly. “Go on, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Dominic grabbed his messenger bag and almost bolted from the room, the air in the main part of the Bellamy mansion much cooler against his heated skin. It would’ve been too easy, then, to whisper just the tiniest thing to the Voix and watch him melt before his eyes, before crashing their lips together. “Too easy,” Dominic said to himself as he walked towards the worker’s entrance. The glouglou had to remind himself that Matthew was meant to come to him, and not the other way round.

He resurfaced from his thoughts just in time to hear a loud clunk. He stopped walking, bending down to pick up a sketchbook that had apparently been dropped to the floor. Standing up again, he turned to see a woman walking quickly along the corridor, evidently unaware that she had lost her book.

“Miss!” Dom called out, the sight of the woman’s long blonde hair a sign that he should be polite. “Miss, I think you dropped this.”

She turned on her heel, walking back towards him and giving him a grateful smile as she took the book from his hands. “Thank you,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d lost it.”

Dom forced a smile onto his face, despite the fact that he was standing face to face with Adora Constantine, the only woman who could completely ruin his plan for revenge.

“Thank you again,” she said, her voice practically dripping with the sweet smell of lavender and frolicking through the meadows. “Have a nice night.” And with that she turned away, walking briskly down the corridor again.

Dom waited until she had gone until he bent down to pick up the piece of paper that had fallen from her sketchbook. Flipping it over onto the side she had drawn on, his stomach flipped at the sight of a charcoal sketch of Matthew, signed in the corner with her flowing signature. Without thinking, he slipped it into his bag, before turning to leave for the night.

“Matthew? Can I come in?”

“Yes, Aleksandr.”

Aleksandr carefully pushed his bedroom door open, having being directed to one of the dozens by Calliope. After a rather vague and somewhat distressing call from his best friend, the older Voix had raced across their district in St Pierre to be with him.

Matthew had realized that he could really do with a friend right now. Not a mother or father or girlfriend, just someone who would listen and who could be sworn to secrecy. Someone who knew what to do in every situation. Someone like Aleksandr.

They had met at Matthew’s first rehearsal for Les Voix du Monde, when Matthew was only five and the youngest boy ever to join the famous choir. Aleksandr had only been with the choir for a few more months, but at the age of seven he had been happy to show Matthew around the grand buildings they rehearsed in. Best friends ever since, Aleksandr insisted that he’d always known Matthew would become an Unique, and still stuck by that opinion to this day.

Matthew was curled up on one side of his vast bed, the room dark and only lit by the moonlight coming through the window. The first thing Aleksandr did was to switch on the lamp on Matthew’s bedside table. “Matthew, what on earth is the matter?” he asked, sitting heavily at Matthew’s side and watching the Unique-to-be pull his head out of his arms.

“I need to swear you to secrecy,” he said in a deadly serious tone. Aleksandr rolled his eyes, smiling.

“Again? I swear, the first time you did that was--”

“--over stealing a cookie from my mother’s batch when I was five, Aleksandr, I know.” Matthew sat up, leaning his head heavily against his friend’s broad shoulder, like he always would when he was troubled. Matthew was a very touchy-feely person and craved physical contact, so he was glad that his mother, girlfriend and best friend were comfortable with it.

“It seems serious,” Aleksandr said in a cautious tone.

“It is,” Matthew said. “I need you to help me, but first I need you to promise you won’t tell Adora.” He gulped when his throat closed up upon uttering her name. “I know you’re cousins, but... you just can’t, Aleksandr. It would break her.”

“Matthew, I’m actually worried now. What’s happened? Have you argued?”

“No, I...” Gripping his hair tight, Matthew fell back onto his mattress, staring at the ceiling just as he had a week earlier, thinking of that glouglou... “I’m so confused.”

“About the Unique thing? Because you know I can’t help you there, mon ami. You’re better off asking--”

“It’s not about that.” Matthew’s tone made Aleksandr emit a small oh sound, the pair lapsing into silence and listening to a nearby owl hooting. The older Voix knew better than anyone else that Matthew would eventually tell, once given time. Seconds, minutes, hours passed before Matthew opened his mouth once more.

“Do you know the glouglou who died on my birthday?” Aleksandr nodded. “He was my principal songwriter, and his son has now taken over that job.”

Matthew paused, watching Aleksandr trying to work out how that has any relevance to his cousin.

“The night he died, it was my birthday party. Father and I visited Sector 3 to see the party there, and me and the glouglou were forced to dance.”

“Dancing? That’s... strange. I can’t remember the last time I danced.”

“It wasn’t just a dance, though. The glouglous take it really seriously, and this was some kind of special dance, almost something... sexual,” Matthew said, looking up at the ceiling and allowing it to be a canvas for his memories. “It was weird, I enjoyed it,” he admitted with a whisper.

“A glouglou... a male glouglou...” Aleksandr muttered, looking over his shoulder back at Matthew. Their eyes locked, and Matthew nodded a tiny amount. “Matthew, you shouldn’t have done that. You just need to forget it and--”

“No!” Matthew almost shouted, sitting back up in an instant. “No, you don’t understand. I can’t. I have an audition in four days and he’s my songwriter. We’re working together to rehearse, he has to be my accompanist--”

“You have the music and lyrics, right?” Matthew nodded at his friend’s question. “Well, then. Practice it with another glouglou, any damn cassé. I know what you’re like, Matthew. What you want, you get, but not this time.”

Matthew blinked, considering the idea. He didn’t have to spend so long with that wretched glouglou, after all. He could spend the next four days rehearsing with someone else, but he knew that he’d prefer to spend them in the cramped office with him. What’s more, he knew it from the bottom of his heart.

“The song’s so personal, too...” Matthew said, looking down at his hands.

“Matthew James Bellamy, look at me.” Aleksandr gripped Matthew by the shoulders and turned him so he couldn’t escape his stare. “I am telling you now: you go down that rabbit hole and you won’t come back out, Alice. You’ll never be the Unique you strive to be, and you’ll lose the best thing that’s ever happened to you. You’ve told Adora, right?” He didn’t wait for a response. “I’ll ring her now and see if she--”

“Don’t you dare,” Matthew growled, and in that instant he knew he had done wrong. Aleksandr’s outstretched arm stilled, fingers barely brushing the white casing of Matthew’s telephone.

“You haven’t told her.” It wasn’t a question; it was a statement.

“She doesn’t need to know. I told you, it’d break her.”

“She’s your girlfriend, Matthew. The woman you’re going to marry, have a child with, spend the rest of your life loving. You should be prepared to tell her anything. Secrets will rot your relationship.”

“I don’t care!” Matthew screamed, standing up from the bed. He paced over to the balcony, wondering for a split second if it would hurt to jump from a second floor window.

Aleksandr paused, blue eyes wide as he watched Matthew. His slim frame was shaking, but at the distance Matthew had put between them, he couldn’t tell if it was through anger or sobbing. “Calm down, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“How did you mean it then?” Matthew asked with venom in his voice. “You’ve never had a serious girlfriend, you’ll never be a Unique, how the fuck do you know anything?”

Aleksandr’s mouth popped open at Matthew’s use of a glouglou swear word, and at the verbal assault. He swallowed and tipped his chin up slightly, looking down his nose at his so-called friend. “You’ve changed, Matthew,” he said, as he stood up and began to walk towards the door. “An ugly monster has reared its head inside you, and I don’t want to be around to see if it takes you over or eats you alive.”

With that, Aleksandr was gone.