#but i have SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT HUMANKAIJU RODORAH.......

[fauvester]

thanks to @soundwavereporting for encouraging me to Write my Humankaiju Rodorah Truth

Rodan swam into the waking world way past when he usually got up for work. He had a moment of panic, thinking his alarm didn’t go off, but then he remembered – weekend, Saturday morning. He’d been out Friday night, a one-man celebration of finally getting his grades from his Master’s program back, finally.

Tasted sour. His mouth. Gross. He swallowed thickly and cracked his eyes open.

His studio was bleary and bright. Someone must have opened the shades; he had a new basement apartment and liked to keep them closed to deter anyone from looking in.  Hey, he’d gone home from MI with someone, hadn’t he?

Oh, yeah. That explained it. He rubbed his eyes vigorously and squinted, looking up. The other side of his bed was empty, but from behind the hastily erected folding screen that separated it from the living area he could hear someone moving around.

Last night – he’d gotten the email after almost six months of negotiating with the Dean’s office while he was still at work, checking his phone waiting on his COSY to autoresolve (old-ass software they were using. No manches.) He’d actually jumped up and whooped in excitement, which would have been embarrassing if anyone besides Ques was there.

He’d texted Goji and Mothra to see if they wanted to go get something to eat in celebration, but the latter said she had plans and the former rarely had her phone on her and didn’t respond. Anguirus was visiting family, and Rodan wouldn’t stoop to hanging out with Baragon if he was the last guy on Earth.  So he clocked out and went down the street to Monster Island Bar alone.

His lab building was only a couple miles from the center of Monsuta, on the other side of it from the beach. He could get everywhere on foot or on his motorbike.

So with an extra spring in his step he’d locked his bike underneath the streetlamp outside the bar and headed in for a drink.  He hadn’t had a chance to go out since the incident with his old apartment; between the thrill and razor’s edge of fear watching the old place burn to the slow and excruciating process of getting arrested, thrown in a holding cell for a weekend and then told that he was getting let off, he’d been sort of on edge for the past few weeks.

“Relax, ‘dan,” Goji said when she picked him up from the Correctional Facility, clapping a broad hand on his shoulder. “You got off this time when you could’ve been in jail for the rest of your life. People like us don’t get chances like this. Enjoy it.”

He couldn’t, though.  He was still taut as a live wire. How did he slip through the cracks?  He’d had a lapse of judgment. The place he’d lived for years was being sold out from under him to some foreign developers who’d rip it up and turn it into luxury condos and price Monsutans out of it with impunity, and damn it, Rodan wasn’t going to let that happen.

Having access to the chemical components of any commonly used explosive substance was definitely a job bonus at his lab. Not like Ques cared enough to keep inventory of anything.  She was too busy being bitter and feeling sorry for herself.

So his old place had burned – exploded, actually – and Rodan was caught, of course, because who else, and then someone had decided to let him go.

He knew how things worked around here. Someone did him a favor, and now something was expected of him.  He owed someone a debt, someone powerful, and he didn’t like not knowing who it was, or what they might conceivably ask of him.

It just made him jumpy.

So anyways – he’d decided to go out that Friday to loosen up after a very confusing and challenging couple of weeks, throw down a few beers.

He’d got himself the cheapest bottle MI carried, his usual, and nursed it in the middle of the bar as the other patrons trickled in for their usual Friday libations. MI was what Mothra would call ‘homey’; there was pool, if you cared to challenge Battra; the tvs weren’t too loud that you couldn’t hear the 80s music channel; you could sit on the patio if you didn’t mind that the whole place was a wrought-iron tetanus ward waiting to be established.  When Rodan was alone he mostly liked to drink in silence and futz with the candles at the bar. His new basement apartment was an absolute dustpan and he wasn’t in any hurry to get back there.

The bartender’d tapped him on the shoulder and he’d spun around, thinking that he’d fucked something up, but she handed him a glass of something clear and beautifully garnished instead.

“From the guy at the end of the counter,” she said.  “It’s the best we have on shelf.”

He looked, not caring about subtlety. There was a guy at the end of the bar, ensconced in a corner and half in the shadow, leaning against the wall like a shadow himself. He had a phone in his hand, scrolling slowly, and he was looking over at Rodan with a practiced and incredibly precise casualness.  Damn, he was good looking. Not his usual type, given, but tall and sharp and sort of weird looking in the face but in a very Fancy Model way. In the warm electric lights Rodan saw his eyes glint.

And he was looking at Rodan.  With the slightest smile, an it’s-there-if-you-want-it-to-be smile, looking appraisingly, like he was evaluating Rodan and didn’t find him wanting.  He stopped scrolling, clicked off his phone, keeping their eyes locked, and cocked an eyebrow. Are you coming over?

Rodan took a sip.  Expensive tequila. So the guy didn’t just have good taste in clothes. The stranger watched him. Rodan licked his lips, tasting salt and mellow cool alcohol, and then brought the glass a half dozen seats over to sit next to the man who bought it for him.

Rodan, in the present, internally curled up and kicked his feet with glee at the memory. He’d picked up plenty of people at bars back in the day, but he was rusty in that department now. Besides, he was used to being the initiator in those relationships. It felt nice to be attended to, and the guy – Kevin, was it? Kyle? – had attended to him in every conceivable way that evening, and then later that night.

He was Scandanavian, here for work, he hadn’t had a chance to visit the famous beach yet but he was looking forward to it, he liked his drinks on the rocks. He had shoulder-length blond hair but he wore it up; his lips were a little too wide for his aristocratic face but that made it interesting enough to look at.  He had long, slender fingers and he knew how to use them. He had a tattoo of a dragon on his hip. He spoke Spanish, among other languages, and liked classic metal too.

Rodan, in the present, rolled up to sit. No hangover, thankfully, just tired. He reached under the bed and grabbed an undershirt, pulling it on as he stood up and knocked at the screen.  It felt silly, but he didn’t want to intrude if Kevin was still there. God, he hadn’t had a one night stand in a while, this was excrutiating.

“Hey, are you still there?”

A moment. “Your shower doesn’t have a curtain, you know this, yes?”

“Oh, yeah. Haven’t had time to unpack it. Sorry.”

A chuckle. “No, I’m sorry for waking you up so early. My body tells me I’m a morning person, my head doesn’t agree, though.”  God, that accent!  On the other side of the divider, Rodan found Kevin in his little kitchenette. To his embarrassment, his houseguest was washing his dishes, dressed only in Rodan’s almost knee-length sweatpants and his mother’s laundry apron.

“Oh shit, don’t worry about that! I swore I washed them yesterday, you really don’t have to, dude.”

“Not at all, I made pancakes and thought I should clean up afterwards. As a thanks for letting me stay over!” Kevin smiled brightly at him. God, he should really make sure his name was Kevin.

He looked damn good in just Rodan’s sweats and apron.

“Pancakes?”

“And coffee. Your machine was making noises – I found a press, though.”

“Where? Did you take apart my entire kitchen?”

“Ech, I’ve been up for a while. I didn’t want to leave you without seeing you though.  I thought it would be rude.”

“Most people would’ve left a note and dipped. I’m used to it.”

“Well, if you didn’t want to see me, at least now you have pancakes, so it is a net-gain, yes?”

“I didn’t mean it like that!” Rodan assured him. “It’s nice, I mean. I’m glad you stayed. Just not used to decency, I guess. And thanks for the pancakes.”  Kevin dried his hands, finished, and Rodan pulled him against himself by the waistband of his pants. He barely came up to the man’s shoulders.

Rodan looked up and Kevin smiled down at him, then ducked down and gave him a quick, dry kiss that Rodan felt through his whole body like a little sparkly shockwave.  His body remembered last night.

Something on the other side of the room buzzed. Rodan smacked his own ass on instinct even though he wasn’t wearing pants with back pockets and Kevin pulled off his apron and scrambled around to the couch, where he’d left his coat the day before.

He fished his iphone out of his pocket and answered it in an unintelligible language. His tone started light and easy but went flat and businesslike as the conversation went on.  Rodan helped himself to some pancakes, deciding to eat them rolled up with his fingers and dipped in butter as he listened to the waterlike vowels and slurred consonants from the living room.

Kevin hung up, pursing his lips.  “That was my work partner.  I have a conference call in a little bit to prepare for, so I’m going to head out.”

“On a Saturday?”

“It’s still Friday over where those partners are.”

“Huh, wow. Your place is really global, isn’t it?”

“Yes, and growing bigger all the time.” He smiled beatifically and gestured to Rodan’s room.

“Yeah. What did you say you did again?” Rodan asked as Kevin pulled on his clothes.

The Scandanavian smiled at him, snapping his brilliant gold hair into a bun.  “Oh, it’s all very vague. Financial analytics, insurance. Some international shipping. Real estate.”

His tone was light and pleasant but something in the air between them felt suddenly strange and heavy. They looked at each other over the bar of Rodan’s kitchenette, the scientist and the stranger and the chemistry between them.

Kevin stood up, breaking the moment, and gently took Rodan around the waist. “I put my number on your bedside table,” he said.  “I will be here for a few weeks, perhaps; if you’d like to spend some time together, call me.  I’d love to.”

Rodan reached up and traced a thumb over his high cheekbones, the corner of his mouth. His washed-out-blue eyes followed, amused, and Rodan pulled him in for another deeper kiss.

“Okay, fine, I guess I can call you,” he said after they broke apart. “But you’ve set the bar pretty high this time.  I’m going to expect a continental breakfast.”

“Oh, no, next time we are staying with me, where there are shower curtains,” Kevin said, and kissed Rodan on the top of his mssed-up head.  “And I look forward to it.”

Later on, a few miles away, Sander calls his brother back.

“How long does it take to case a place so small?” Richard groans in Danish.

“I didn’t want to be rude,” San says, running his hand over his face where he swore he could still feel Rodan’s thumb. “Besides, he has just moved in, he doesn’t have any useful papers out.  I think Ni will have to find them online.”

“Mmh.” That was Niels, on the conference call.

“He’s an interesting one, though. I think he’ll be worth our time.”

“Ech, I don’t care about that, I just care about how much of a problem he’s going to be for us.”

“If the big construction worker won’t keep him in line, then I can keep him busy,” San responds.  “I think you’d like him. He’s fun.”

“Nobody fun lives in a ground floor apartment,” Ni again.

And then the line devolved into a discussion of the apartment complex on the street over from the one that Rodan had burnt down and San started the car again, heading back for their penthouse downtown.

He felt good about this city, this project.  The last few had left him cold. He wondered if he’d lost his spark for their game - it had felt scarily mechanical.  They’d been going through the motions, town after town, breaking down and rebuilding rotely while checking their watches. But this time…

He thought of the little firestarter, his bright dark eyes and his scarred hands, his quick confident tone and the quiet little noises he made.  Maybe he’d found his spark again.