Recombinant
I have no idea what that word means
Might know by the end of the semester.
Yay biology! /sarcasm
Anyway, this should be the last thing set in the
Fiye is Alive AU. I felt bad leaving Corinth in
such a state. He's one of my favorites, you know.
==-==-==
The overly long address scrawled messily along the upper corner of the envelope was completely unfamiliar to Cyrano. He didn't recognize the writing either. But the names, he knew.
It had been sitting untouched on his desk for nearly a month, because corresponding with anyone from the explosion was almost guaranteed to end badly. But he couldn't bring himself to set it on fire like he ought to have by now.
With the sun setting behind him, bathing his home office in shades of wine and gold, he supposed that if he wasn't going to throw it out, he needed to know what it said.
Inside, there was not, as he'd expected, six sheets of copier paper. No, just one very heavy piece of card stock, expensive stuff with a linen texture and shimmering, embossed calligraphy in a silvery pink. There was a pale watermark in the silhouette of a tree covered by countless birds. It was unbearably feminine, and it brought a smile to the man's face.
Dear Cyrano,
Kalte Vergess and Fiye Scura are proud to announce the arrival of their daughter, Centenaria Cyrena Vergess into the world, and would be pleased to extend an invitation to her baptism.
Thirty First of May
Four o'Clock PM
Southwest Corner of
SouthChurch Park.
There was an address, full of strings of numbers and locations that he vaguely understood to be English in nature. Foreign addresses were offputting. There was also the name of a hotel, or possibly a bed and breakfast. The announcement ended by beseeching him to RSVP by the tenth of April.
Of course, it was only the last of March, and there was plenty of time, if he wanted to wrap himself up in all that. But it seemed like a terrible idea. Nothing good had ever come of getting involved with Eternity Projects, and even if he'd had a passing interest in attending a baptism, which he didn't, it all seemed wrong somehow. Not just because it seemed absolutely bizarre that Kalte or Fiye would have found religion in the last six years, but also because the last he'd heard, they were living in Belgium somewhere, soaking up the internationality of being so close to the capital of the EU, or whatever it was that hung around in that oddball little country. The return address on the envelope supported that particular conclusion.
He'd been to England of course. He'd followed Everlast Willow's group on tour all across the world, preventing crises mostly, and had spent a few days in London only two months ago. And that had been plenty.
It was ridiculous, of course, to avoid an entire country for the sake of not being in the same geo-political area as his ex, but if there was one thing Cyrano was good at- aside from bailing his lead singers out of jail- it was being melodramatic and reactionary.
A quick visit to Google maps informed him duly that Southchurch Park was a small, coastal park in the southeast. The very fact that he was looking it up at all troubled him deeply.
He was considering going. And that meant he would be going. It was a terrible idea. But, it would be undeniably nice to meet up with people who knew him, knew his past and his abilities and his secrets. People he could trust.
He groaned, and made a small grunt when his forehead knocked heavily against the wood of his desk. Trust? Just because Kalte had rescued him didn't mean he could trust her, and Fiye had been part of the freakish cult that had done this to him in the first place. A few months of blissfully relieved pseudo-friendship after the explosion, followed by five years of absolute isolation, was hardly a sound foundation for trust.
His phone had an international plan. The call was practically free.
==-==-==
"I don't think this is a good idea."
"Look, what would you do... No, that's not right. What would I do, if I broke up with you and you disappeared into the ether?"
"I'd prefer not to think about it. That much murder makes me a bit queasy."
"Ba ba naba."
"Exactly. I'd go utterly mad and everything would turn miserable. You know it, I know it. Hell, even Cen knows it, and she's not even three months old yet."
"I'm serious, Kalte. You can't possibly expect this to end in any way that isn't extremely loud and bloody."
"I can and I will, thank you very much."
==-==-==
He was wearing a suit, which was hardly unusual all things considered. But that didn't change the fact that he was uncomfortable. It probably had very little to do with the suit.
There was a breeze on the street, and he was grateful in a bemused way for the extra layer that the jacket gave him. Whatever psychotic god had decided that fifty degrees- elven degrees?- was a perfectly reasonable temperature for the last week of May was absolutely the vengeful kind. No love.
He missed sunshine and beaches that were covered in actual sand instead of little pebbles. He missed the asthmatic scent of cars everywhere, and the delicious, bone-warming sun blasting down at a wonderfully soothingly warm eighty. He could be experiencing all of that, right at this moment. But no. He had agreed to come to this miserable, repressed little country three days early because Fiye had affected some sort of damsel in distress voice and begged him.
Cyrano suppressed a growl. The whole point in not being interested in women- aside from the whole men thing- was to be less easily seduced by their wiles. And here he was, running to rescue her from some unspecified evil.
Evil was apparently quartered at the McDonald's a few blocks from his hotel.
Shit hamburgers were ungodly expensive around here. Oh, it all sounded like the same prices, but after conversion, everything was half as much again. He'd learned that after being dragged around town by Kalte on the first night, who had behaved in exactly the way a responsible new mother does not: with drinks, dancing and general madness.
It was easy enough to spot hair the color of a strawberry milkshake in the vinyl-covered restaurant. Fiye wasn't eating, but Cen appeared to be attempting to suck the soul out of a mashed thing that had probably once been a french fry. Or a chip. Or whatever. Stupid foreign vocabulary. He practically needed a handbook. Whatever Cyrano had picked up during his six month stint in the country at age fourteen had been wiped from his mind.
"You know, you really shouldn't feed this kind of stuff to babies. Or... human beings of any measure." He said by way of greeting. Fiye laughed, head tilted to one side. He resisted the urge to grab at her exceedingly long hair. It was limp and straight and dead looking, a perfectly sensible haircut that could be self-trimmed in a mirror every few months. It didn't mesh well with her unnatural hair color at all.
It had been all he could do not to drag the woman down back down towards his hotel and force her into the barber shop he'd noticed. If she was going to be hosting an event, she needed at least try to look respectable.
His image management habits were beginning to drive him mad.
"Don't worry about her. This is her first chip, and I'm pretty sure she doesn't know what to do with it." The baby babbled, and then attempted to throw the moist, starchy glob at the newcomer. It stuck anticlimactically to her hand, which she apparently did not notice in the slightest.
"So, this is the girl, eh? The one you oh-so-subtly decided to name after me?" That particular revelation had thrown him off. He'd barely known these women outside of the context of torture and violence and trauma. But they apparently considered him a friend. Or at least an ally.
"Hey now, boy-o. You saved my life, remember? I'll name whatever I want after you." It was a joke, but rather than laughing, Cyrano raised an eyebrow. Still, he could feel the smile on his lips. "Besides, no one will really notice. They'll think it's a funny way of spelling Serena and drop it. So it hardly even counts."
They chatted amiably for a while, and Fiye gave him a wildly disapproving look when he started calling her daughter Tinny, but it was a pleasant experience overall. Eventually, though, the bright lighting and the blinding colors of the fast food joint began to give him a headache. He'd always avoided these places back home, they were generally disgusting. But, it was nice to have something so ridiculously american around. It made him feel like he wasn't... wasn't here. That sounded idiotic, even in his head, but he'd been doing well not thinking about Corinth so far, and he wasn't going to start back up again now.
"Do you think we can take this outside. This place kind of sucks, you know?" He'd asked, and Fiye had responded by bustling around a bit , settling Centenaria into a carrier that snapped into place on a collapsible, wheeled frame. Some sort of mix and match stroller.
He wondered, as she led the way out into the dingy gray afternoon, if he might be able to convince her to stop at that barber's after all. A stylish pixie cut would do the woman some good, and it might make her hair look less fake.
"Look, I have something to ask, and I don't think you're going to like it, Cyrano." Fiye said, her voice suddenly stern and serious. Whatever good rapport they'd built up seemed to have disappeared. The man merely nodded for her to continue. "Kalte's got this... this idea."
"And?"
Fiye sighed, and Cyrano recognized her stance. He'd seen it on his mother, often enough. Suddenly he was enraged, but he couldn't jump to conclusions, because Kalte wouldn't... would never... "What the did she do to you?" He forced out, jaw clenched.
He felt the tentative touch of a mind on his own, more reflexive and confused than anything, and he was so out of practice that his guard was more wet paper than burnished steel. Fiye gasped sharply at the images, the memories. "Nothing! Not like that! God damn it, why would you even... What the fucking hell?" She hissed, trying not to frighten the baby. Instantly the fight drained out of him. Fiye's mind was still pushing around in his own, and he knew with certainty through the link that she was telling the truth. "You've really had shit luck in your life, haven't you?"
"You shouldn't talk like that in front of her." He replied, suddenly exhausted by this entire day. This trip. This ridiculous life he was leading. He should have stayed home, where it was sunny and warm and far, far away from anything that had even the slightest chance of reminding him of Eternity or his parents.
"Look, she wants you to be Centenaria's godfather, okay? She wants you to take care of her when we're killed." The casual tone of her statement was overruled by the certainty. When, not if. Killed, not died. Every single thing about this trip seemed destined to make him relive his years in Eternity, or remind him of his childhood, or dredge up memories of Corinth.
It was impossible to handle.
But, he'd been performing impossible feats of stress management for years now. It was part of his job.
"Fine, fine. Whatever. Do I need to sign something?"
"No, you just... I wanted you to know, so that when it happens, its not a surprise. Okay?"
"Okay."
In her stroller, Centenaria babbled happily, distracted by something brightly colored in the distance.
==-==-==
The baptism was not what Cyrano had expected. First and foremost, it was hardly a religious affair, which was beyond absurd because that was the entire point of a baptism, wasn't it? It seemed more like some sort of... welcoming party, more than anything. Absinthe Atalp and his young wife had bussed over that morning- apparently they lived near her family in Wales- so that he could be the one to smear pond water, not even blessed, across his niece's forehead lightly.
He'd given a speech, and no doubt it had been eloquent and kind and down to earth in that warm way of his. Abby had always been the only person in Eternity who wasn't frightening at all. He was just so... kind. It was worrying to think about what might have happened to the man that would lead him to live for decades in what basically equated to a mad scientist's dungeon in the basement.
Not for the first time, Cyrano wondered what could possibly have possessed Kalte to name him the godfather when she had a perfectly sane, kindhearted, happily married 'brother' she could entrust her daughter to instead. He couldn't even begin to understand how Fiye had been talked into the arrangement.
He'd been uncomfortable, in the chilly open air milling about with friends of a friend. The only ones he knew were the ones he wished he didn't. The circumstances of his acquaintance with Jillian Moore, for example, were something he'd prefer to forget. And just watching Maria and Aamon standing off to one side made his skin crawl. They had never done anything to him, personally, but the way they were staring at Fiye declared for all to see that they wanted to peel her skin off and feed it to her while she bled to death.
More worrying than that, he was certain they actually could, if they wanted to.
How the hell had she even convinced them to show up? Let alone to not commit violent acts against every other guest?
He thought it must be related to their daughter. Akira had been missing for six years now, but both Fiye and Aamon seemed to determined to ignore the fact that she was undoubtedly dead. The bond of raising another little girl together was apparently strong enough to keep murderous tendencies at bay. Not to mention the pair of little girls hovering by Maria's side. It would be less than ideal for their parents to kill someone while they were present.
He'd been casually eying the small tray of sandwiches on a fold out table a few yards- meters?- away. He could probably have one without regretting later, when they went to whatever restaurant afterwards. Kalte was apparently paying, and Cyrano didn't want to spoil his appetite when he was going to have a prime opportunity to bankrupt someone.
That thought made him smile. Oh sure, he was an 'adult' now, what with the career and the godfatherhood, but that didn't mean he didn't enjoy pettiness just as much as ever. It would be nice to do something absurd and amusingly greedy, after the last week here, being stiff and stressed and angry.
Then, someone was brushing at the edges of his mind, and his smile widened. Fiye had been testing him, after that incident outside the McDonald's. It wouldn't do, she'd said, for him to get out of practice. His barriers were getting back up to strength, and he turned to throw her a cocky grin.
He nearly fell over when his foot missed the ground.
"Fuck." He'd muttered, too quietly for anyone to hear.
He'd almost had time to run, before the flood of god only knew what wiped the adrenaline out of him. He'd known the name of it once upon a time. Mono-something-idase. He shivered as the sudden plunge in his energy levels threatened to join forces with shock and tip him onto the ground.
Fiye! Fiye, goddamnit! Get over here and fix this! he screamed silently, hopefully deafening the woman's mind. But, of course, Fiye's blockades were much stronger and well practiced. He'd have to depend on someone actually noticing his current state of affairs, which was very much unlikely.
Actually, no. It was more or less impossible, and he groaned as his feet threatened to fly out from under him. but, he had an idea. He was lucky that he was too drained to affect his usual cocky smirk when he registered the look on Corinth's face. Frightened, worried, angry.
Guilty.
He could work with guilt. He swayed, just a little too far, just enough that suddenly the blonde man was by his side, hands around his waist.
This could be dangerous. Would probably do some kind of damage to his kidneys. It would be worth it. maybe he couldn't remember the formula to metabolise adrenaline away, but he would always remember how to make it. It was ingrained more deeply than anything else he could think of.
It took perhaps two seconds to do. The look on Corinth's face when the formerly weakened younger man grabbed his shoulders and dragged his head down was fantastic. Beautiful, wonderful.
It was only surpassed by the crackle of the man's nose making contact. And god, it hurt, it hurt his knee so badly he wanted to scream, but there wasn't time for that, because Corinth was on him with the cold fury he'd come to expect.
Something collided with his stomach, and suddenly he couldn't breath; his vision went fuzzy around the edges and the colors seemed to fade away; his shoulders burned where he'd crashed into a chair on his way down. It was a frighteningly familiar sensation, and his instincts came flooding back. Corinth's hesitation made it clear that he didn't know how to do this.
Cyrano was more than happy to show him, taking in a deep, frantic breath before launching his forehead into Corinth's unguarded neck. It gave way easily beneath him, but the other man had been far enough back that lethal force hadn't been possible. Still, Corinth was on the ground now, and Cyrano could hardly breath as he rolled, driving an elbow squarely into the center of the man's chest.
It had only taken a few seconds, he realized suddenly, because the others were only just beginning to recognize the scene. Somewhere far away, he heard a baby crying.
"You." Corinth grunted, and then Cyrano was back in the heat. He straddled the blond man, pinning his arms down with his legs, forgetting for a moment that sitting on someone's stomach left their knees free. He remembered just as soon as his ears started ringing. His back hurt, and he suddenly couldn't understand why.
Everything looked soft, and he could see people moving around him, but he couldn't hear them. Someone pulled him away, and Cyrano followed bonelessly.
==-==-==
"Go ahead."
"I told you so."
==-==-==
The concussion had condemned Cyrano to spending at least another week in this damned country, until some arbitrary doctor somewhere decided he was fit to fly. He'd tried, of course, to convince anyone who would listen that he was perfectly fine, but there was no winning.
Eventually, he'd given in and called the office. For the most part, the consensus was that he'd taken up the habits of his bands, and no one was surprised by it. After all, no one had that many tattoos and piercing without the occasional bar fight.
Meetings were rescheduled, and a temp was collared up from somewhere, and then, there was nothing to do but wait.
He couldn't even use his computer- his right clavicle had apparently snapped, at some point, and even moving his arm in its sling burned like a bitch.
Kalte had come by once, without Fiye or Tinny, apologizing profusely. He wanted to scream at her, wanted to hate her, because it was her own fault. There was no reason to invite Corinth, and even if had been, someone should have told him.
But he'd accepted her apology with badly staged grace, and she'd sworn to come back in a week to take him to the airport, but for the time being, she had business to attend to back home.
Since then, Absinthe and his wife- Alyssa- had come to visit, but no one else. The only one who even lived in the same country was the bastard who'd done this in the first place.
The days passed in painful monotony, and Cyrano tried his very best not to ask for painkillers too often. It wouldn't do to come home with a shiny new chemical dependence, rather than a fistful of foreign coins and postcards. Still, it was dull. So dull. Daytime television on this side of the world was even worse than it had been back home, and there was only so long that he could stand laughing at the actors for their funny accents.
Particularly when large percentages of his nursing staff had similar ones.
By the end of his stay, he had almost convinced himself that he could tell what part of the city any particular medic had grown up in by the little differences in pronunciations. It was nauseating.
He'd lost count of the days twice, but when he woke up on the eighth of June- date confirmed by the bland looking scroller on the bottom edge of the television screen- there was already someone bustling about in his room, a private one paid for by Kalte's deep pockets. Apparently it was less than a hotel- probably a lie. Still, he'd gotten to waste her money after all.
"Ah, Mister Guidanci," said the woman. Probably a new nurse. Her blue scrubs were covered in pictures of tiny sheep wearing all manner of ridiculous hats. "I was just tidying up. Your blond friend has come to take you to the airport. You'll just need to sign some papers, and we'll have you back to the states by this time tomorrow."
Her unflappable cheer made him want to punch someone all over again.
She produced a clipboard, apparently from the air, and he signed his name six times without so much as looking. He felt he could safely assume that no one in this hospital was going to try to convince him to hand over sixty percent of his luiquidable assets as a joke.
The nurse bustled away, presumably to file something, and as soon as she left, he laid back down. This had been the worst trip he'd ever taken, up to and including the fire in Kuala Lampur. He heard footsteps, but couldn't be bothered to sit up. Kalte deserved to feel whatever guilt she liked, and he'd do nothing to assuage it.
"D'you know, people in this country have some kind of phobia about articles? 'In hospital'. Who says that? I'm not in hospital. I'm in the hospital. Which would be your fault, may I remind."
Kalte said nothing. Cyrano stared hard at the popcorn ceiling. It was a dingy off white, and probably unsanitary. He could only hope the rooms where operations were undergone had nice, clean vinyl tiles- or better yet steel.
"That was less than I expected." It was absolutely not Kalte's over eager soprano.
Jerking up from the mattress again caused his shoulder to scream, but Cyrano quickly schooled his grimace into a glare. "What the hell do you want, exactly?"
The faded remnant of a bruise around Corinth's eye was really very satisfying. Not quite so much as the gauze covering his nose, though. The vivid discoloration around the edges of the pad meant, if nothing else, it had been a particularly brutal break.
"I want to apologize." Cyrano made a noise, but said nothing. He wondered idly if he could make his glare somehow cause Corinth to burst into flame. Of course, he could easily make the man's head burn from the inside out with a sudden megadose of serotonin, but he didn't want to kill Corinth. Well, not really.
The broken nose would have to do.
"You also broke my T5 rib. Bruised my lung nicely. If that helps." Cyrano managed not to scream, but it was impossibly annoying. Corinth hadn't even read his mind, oh no. The bastard had just known what he was thinking from the look on his face. He was not welcome, this intruder. Cyrano toyed with the idea of calling a doctor in- he had a button for just this sort of thing.
Instead he sighed. "It does not help."
Corinth settled into on of the molded plastic chairs against the wall, and they sat in an injured peace for a long time. After the passion involved in their first meeting, it seemed like too much effort to fight. Or even to speak.
Besides, Kalte would be here soon.
An hour passed in glorious silence, and Cyrano almost managed to become comfortable. Corinth's presence was unwelcome, but it was familiar. It was something known in a place that was unbearably not.
"Did they tell you I would be there?" Cyrano asked, finally.
"Do you think I would have come, if I'd known?"
"Did they just invite you because... I mean, I don't even know why they wanted me to come at all... Did they at least have a reason for inviting you? Because otherwise, I'm going to strangle that blonde bimbo. There is nothing acceptable about forcing us to be on the same continent just for shits and giggles."
No answer. But, now that they were on speaking terms, apparently, Cyrano couldn't stand the quiet.
"Well, I guess they wanted me here because a godfather needs to actually be present for things like this, but honestly. I think would have preferred to be surprised."
Still no answer. The redhead tore his gaze from the unsanitary ceiling, and noted with some concern that Corinth had gone very, very pale.
"Godfather? Is that so." He finally coughed out, when he realized he was being stared at.
"Indeed. I think they're convinced that Medusa is going to hunt them down."
"No, they're worried about Diss." Corinth replied off handedly. Like this was just some bit of common knowledge. "He's been stalking them. Sending threatening letters. It's not his style, but I think dealing with Akira and Kara-ni and a comatose wife and a completely mad mistress has done him in."
Cyrano tried not to sigh again. It was becoming a habit. He'd known from the start that coming here was a bad idea, and now he could feel himself slipping right back into the turmoil. He didn't deserve this.
"But really. They made you her godfather?"
"How can that possibly be more interesting than the fact that Diss is on the prowl?"
"I'm positive that you do not actually want to know."
Cyrano's eyes fell shut. He wasn't on opioids anymore, whatever the hell pills he'd been popping were stronger than aspirin, that much was certain. And this cryptic conversation would have been exhausting enough with anyone, let alone with Corinth.
"Just tell me. Because if you don't I'm pushing my little red button and sitting in peace until Kalte gets here."
"She isn't coming."
"I'm... not even surprised. If anyone ever thought it was a good idea for you to take me to the airport in this state, it would be her."
"Perhaps we should be leaving. Customs can be quite a mess, and it'll be at least ninety minutes to Heathrow from here."
Cyrano groaned, but swung his legs over the edge of the bed obediently. There was a wheelchair, left by the shepherdess of a nurse, but he ignored it on principle. Corinth at least had the decency to leave the room while he dressed.
The ride passed in still more silence. But, it wasn't as bad as Cyrano had expected. It was almost companionable.
"So, I guess you're friends or something? You know all that crap about Diss, and you got an invitation to the baptism. Maybe you're the reason they decided to have it in England?"
"Yes. I am. Myself and Abby. They decided it would be best if it was held somewhere near all her relatives."
Cyrano nodded, thinking nothing of it for a long time. "Relatives?"
"Yes."
"If you insist on being cryptic, I will break you nose again." He didn't yell it, but he was completely serious. He would happily risk a traffic accident. Comfortable silence or not, Corinth was the enemy here.
"I'm her father. Centenaria's father. That's why I'm surprised that you're the godfather. I would have assumed they would foist custody off onto me. It would seem I was mistaken."
Corinth wasn't mistaken, of course. Cyrano knew that as soon as the word 'godfather' had come out. "I'll kill her."
"I sincerely hope you mean Kalte. I don't think I can abide you killing my daughter."
"Oh fuck off."
The rest of the drive was quiet, save for the sounds of traffic and the growl of the engine.
==-==-==
Fiye had been found, face turned backwards, in a drainage ditch in the French countryside, six months later. Kalte's body was never discovered, but she had certainly disappeared without a trace.
Centenaria had been moved temporarily into Corinth's flat, until Cyrano could come and collect her.
Cyrano came, three weeks later.
He never managed to leave again.
Stupid country, with its gray skies and its frigid beaches and its unforgivable habit of making him stay far longer than he'd intended.
=
Hah! Not quite a happy ending,
But apparently things can't
Normalize for Corinth and Cyrano
Unless Fiye is dead and Kalte is missing.
I suppose I can't call this the Fiye is Alive AU anymore.
Might know by the end of the semester.
Yay biology! /sarcasm
Anyway, this should be the last thing set in the
Fiye is Alive AU. I felt bad leaving Corinth in
such a state. He's one of my favorites, you know.
==-==-==
The overly long address scrawled messily along the upper corner of the envelope was completely unfamiliar to Cyrano. He didn't recognize the writing either. But the names, he knew.
It had been sitting untouched on his desk for nearly a month, because corresponding with anyone from the explosion was almost guaranteed to end badly. But he couldn't bring himself to set it on fire like he ought to have by now.
With the sun setting behind him, bathing his home office in shades of wine and gold, he supposed that if he wasn't going to throw it out, he needed to know what it said.
Inside, there was not, as he'd expected, six sheets of copier paper. No, just one very heavy piece of card stock, expensive stuff with a linen texture and shimmering, embossed calligraphy in a silvery pink. There was a pale watermark in the silhouette of a tree covered by countless birds. It was unbearably feminine, and it brought a smile to the man's face.
Dear Cyrano,
Kalte Vergess and Fiye Scura are proud to announce the arrival of their daughter, Centenaria Cyrena Vergess into the world, and would be pleased to extend an invitation to her baptism.
Thirty First of May
Four o'Clock PM
Southwest Corner of
SouthChurch Park.
There was an address, full of strings of numbers and locations that he vaguely understood to be English in nature. Foreign addresses were offputting. There was also the name of a hotel, or possibly a bed and breakfast. The announcement ended by beseeching him to RSVP by the tenth of April.
Of course, it was only the last of March, and there was plenty of time, if he wanted to wrap himself up in all that. But it seemed like a terrible idea. Nothing good had ever come of getting involved with Eternity Projects, and even if he'd had a passing interest in attending a baptism, which he didn't, it all seemed wrong somehow. Not just because it seemed absolutely bizarre that Kalte or Fiye would have found religion in the last six years, but also because the last he'd heard, they were living in Belgium somewhere, soaking up the internationality of being so close to the capital of the EU, or whatever it was that hung around in that oddball little country. The return address on the envelope supported that particular conclusion.
He'd been to England of course. He'd followed Everlast Willow's group on tour all across the world, preventing crises mostly, and had spent a few days in London only two months ago. And that had been plenty.
It was ridiculous, of course, to avoid an entire country for the sake of not being in the same geo-political area as his ex, but if there was one thing Cyrano was good at- aside from bailing his lead singers out of jail- it was being melodramatic and reactionary.
A quick visit to Google maps informed him duly that Southchurch Park was a small, coastal park in the southeast. The very fact that he was looking it up at all troubled him deeply.
He was considering going. And that meant he would be going. It was a terrible idea. But, it would be undeniably nice to meet up with people who knew him, knew his past and his abilities and his secrets. People he could trust.
He groaned, and made a small grunt when his forehead knocked heavily against the wood of his desk. Trust? Just because Kalte had rescued him didn't mean he could trust her, and Fiye had been part of the freakish cult that had done this to him in the first place. A few months of blissfully relieved pseudo-friendship after the explosion, followed by five years of absolute isolation, was hardly a sound foundation for trust.
His phone had an international plan. The call was practically free.
==-==-==
"I don't think this is a good idea."
"Look, what would you do... No, that's not right. What would I do, if I broke up with you and you disappeared into the ether?"
"I'd prefer not to think about it. That much murder makes me a bit queasy."
"Ba ba naba."
"Exactly. I'd go utterly mad and everything would turn miserable. You know it, I know it. Hell, even Cen knows it, and she's not even three months old yet."
"I'm serious, Kalte. You can't possibly expect this to end in any way that isn't extremely loud and bloody."
"I can and I will, thank you very much."
==-==-==
He was wearing a suit, which was hardly unusual all things considered. But that didn't change the fact that he was uncomfortable. It probably had very little to do with the suit.
There was a breeze on the street, and he was grateful in a bemused way for the extra layer that the jacket gave him. Whatever psychotic god had decided that fifty degrees- elven degrees?- was a perfectly reasonable temperature for the last week of May was absolutely the vengeful kind. No love.
He missed sunshine and beaches that were covered in actual sand instead of little pebbles. He missed the asthmatic scent of cars everywhere, and the delicious, bone-warming sun blasting down at a wonderfully soothingly warm eighty. He could be experiencing all of that, right at this moment. But no. He had agreed to come to this miserable, repressed little country three days early because Fiye had affected some sort of damsel in distress voice and begged him.
Cyrano suppressed a growl. The whole point in not being interested in women- aside from the whole men thing- was to be less easily seduced by their wiles. And here he was, running to rescue her from some unspecified evil.
Evil was apparently quartered at the McDonald's a few blocks from his hotel.
Shit hamburgers were ungodly expensive around here. Oh, it all sounded like the same prices, but after conversion, everything was half as much again. He'd learned that after being dragged around town by Kalte on the first night, who had behaved in exactly the way a responsible new mother does not: with drinks, dancing and general madness.
It was easy enough to spot hair the color of a strawberry milkshake in the vinyl-covered restaurant. Fiye wasn't eating, but Cen appeared to be attempting to suck the soul out of a mashed thing that had probably once been a french fry. Or a chip. Or whatever. Stupid foreign vocabulary. He practically needed a handbook. Whatever Cyrano had picked up during his six month stint in the country at age fourteen had been wiped from his mind.
"You know, you really shouldn't feed this kind of stuff to babies. Or... human beings of any measure." He said by way of greeting. Fiye laughed, head tilted to one side. He resisted the urge to grab at her exceedingly long hair. It was limp and straight and dead looking, a perfectly sensible haircut that could be self-trimmed in a mirror every few months. It didn't mesh well with her unnatural hair color at all.
It had been all he could do not to drag the woman down back down towards his hotel and force her into the barber shop he'd noticed. If she was going to be hosting an event, she needed at least try to look respectable.
His image management habits were beginning to drive him mad.
"Don't worry about her. This is her first chip, and I'm pretty sure she doesn't know what to do with it." The baby babbled, and then attempted to throw the moist, starchy glob at the newcomer. It stuck anticlimactically to her hand, which she apparently did not notice in the slightest.
"So, this is the girl, eh? The one you oh-so-subtly decided to name after me?" That particular revelation had thrown him off. He'd barely known these women outside of the context of torture and violence and trauma. But they apparently considered him a friend. Or at least an ally.
"Hey now, boy-o. You saved my life, remember? I'll name whatever I want after you." It was a joke, but rather than laughing, Cyrano raised an eyebrow. Still, he could feel the smile on his lips. "Besides, no one will really notice. They'll think it's a funny way of spelling Serena and drop it. So it hardly even counts."
They chatted amiably for a while, and Fiye gave him a wildly disapproving look when he started calling her daughter Tinny, but it was a pleasant experience overall. Eventually, though, the bright lighting and the blinding colors of the fast food joint began to give him a headache. He'd always avoided these places back home, they were generally disgusting. But, it was nice to have something so ridiculously american around. It made him feel like he wasn't... wasn't here. That sounded idiotic, even in his head, but he'd been doing well not thinking about Corinth so far, and he wasn't going to start back up again now.
"Do you think we can take this outside. This place kind of sucks, you know?" He'd asked, and Fiye had responded by bustling around a bit , settling Centenaria into a carrier that snapped into place on a collapsible, wheeled frame. Some sort of mix and match stroller.
He wondered, as she led the way out into the dingy gray afternoon, if he might be able to convince her to stop at that barber's after all. A stylish pixie cut would do the woman some good, and it might make her hair look less fake.
"Look, I have something to ask, and I don't think you're going to like it, Cyrano." Fiye said, her voice suddenly stern and serious. Whatever good rapport they'd built up seemed to have disappeared. The man merely nodded for her to continue. "Kalte's got this... this idea."
"And?"
Fiye sighed, and Cyrano recognized her stance. He'd seen it on his mother, often enough. Suddenly he was enraged, but he couldn't jump to conclusions, because Kalte wouldn't... would never... "What the did she do to you?" He forced out, jaw clenched.
He felt the tentative touch of a mind on his own, more reflexive and confused than anything, and he was so out of practice that his guard was more wet paper than burnished steel. Fiye gasped sharply at the images, the memories. "Nothing! Not like that! God damn it, why would you even... What the fucking hell?" She hissed, trying not to frighten the baby. Instantly the fight drained out of him. Fiye's mind was still pushing around in his own, and he knew with certainty through the link that she was telling the truth. "You've really had shit luck in your life, haven't you?"
"You shouldn't talk like that in front of her." He replied, suddenly exhausted by this entire day. This trip. This ridiculous life he was leading. He should have stayed home, where it was sunny and warm and far, far away from anything that had even the slightest chance of reminding him of Eternity or his parents.
"Look, she wants you to be Centenaria's godfather, okay? She wants you to take care of her when we're killed." The casual tone of her statement was overruled by the certainty. When, not if. Killed, not died. Every single thing about this trip seemed destined to make him relive his years in Eternity, or remind him of his childhood, or dredge up memories of Corinth.
It was impossible to handle.
But, he'd been performing impossible feats of stress management for years now. It was part of his job.
"Fine, fine. Whatever. Do I need to sign something?"
"No, you just... I wanted you to know, so that when it happens, its not a surprise. Okay?"
"Okay."
In her stroller, Centenaria babbled happily, distracted by something brightly colored in the distance.
==-==-==
The baptism was not what Cyrano had expected. First and foremost, it was hardly a religious affair, which was beyond absurd because that was the entire point of a baptism, wasn't it? It seemed more like some sort of... welcoming party, more than anything. Absinthe Atalp and his young wife had bussed over that morning- apparently they lived near her family in Wales- so that he could be the one to smear pond water, not even blessed, across his niece's forehead lightly.
He'd given a speech, and no doubt it had been eloquent and kind and down to earth in that warm way of his. Abby had always been the only person in Eternity who wasn't frightening at all. He was just so... kind. It was worrying to think about what might have happened to the man that would lead him to live for decades in what basically equated to a mad scientist's dungeon in the basement.
Not for the first time, Cyrano wondered what could possibly have possessed Kalte to name him the godfather when she had a perfectly sane, kindhearted, happily married 'brother' she could entrust her daughter to instead. He couldn't even begin to understand how Fiye had been talked into the arrangement.
He'd been uncomfortable, in the chilly open air milling about with friends of a friend. The only ones he knew were the ones he wished he didn't. The circumstances of his acquaintance with Jillian Moore, for example, were something he'd prefer to forget. And just watching Maria and Aamon standing off to one side made his skin crawl. They had never done anything to him, personally, but the way they were staring at Fiye declared for all to see that they wanted to peel her skin off and feed it to her while she bled to death.
More worrying than that, he was certain they actually could, if they wanted to.
How the hell had she even convinced them to show up? Let alone to not commit violent acts against every other guest?
He thought it must be related to their daughter. Akira had been missing for six years now, but both Fiye and Aamon seemed to determined to ignore the fact that she was undoubtedly dead. The bond of raising another little girl together was apparently strong enough to keep murderous tendencies at bay. Not to mention the pair of little girls hovering by Maria's side. It would be less than ideal for their parents to kill someone while they were present.
He'd been casually eying the small tray of sandwiches on a fold out table a few yards- meters?- away. He could probably have one without regretting later, when they went to whatever restaurant afterwards. Kalte was apparently paying, and Cyrano didn't want to spoil his appetite when he was going to have a prime opportunity to bankrupt someone.
That thought made him smile. Oh sure, he was an 'adult' now, what with the career and the godfatherhood, but that didn't mean he didn't enjoy pettiness just as much as ever. It would be nice to do something absurd and amusingly greedy, after the last week here, being stiff and stressed and angry.
Then, someone was brushing at the edges of his mind, and his smile widened. Fiye had been testing him, after that incident outside the McDonald's. It wouldn't do, she'd said, for him to get out of practice. His barriers were getting back up to strength, and he turned to throw her a cocky grin.
He nearly fell over when his foot missed the ground.
"Fuck." He'd muttered, too quietly for anyone to hear.
He'd almost had time to run, before the flood of god only knew what wiped the adrenaline out of him. He'd known the name of it once upon a time. Mono-something-idase. He shivered as the sudden plunge in his energy levels threatened to join forces with shock and tip him onto the ground.
Fiye! Fiye, goddamnit! Get over here and fix this! he screamed silently, hopefully deafening the woman's mind. But, of course, Fiye's blockades were much stronger and well practiced. He'd have to depend on someone actually noticing his current state of affairs, which was very much unlikely.
Actually, no. It was more or less impossible, and he groaned as his feet threatened to fly out from under him. but, he had an idea. He was lucky that he was too drained to affect his usual cocky smirk when he registered the look on Corinth's face. Frightened, worried, angry.
Guilty.
He could work with guilt. He swayed, just a little too far, just enough that suddenly the blonde man was by his side, hands around his waist.
This could be dangerous. Would probably do some kind of damage to his kidneys. It would be worth it. maybe he couldn't remember the formula to metabolise adrenaline away, but he would always remember how to make it. It was ingrained more deeply than anything else he could think of.
It took perhaps two seconds to do. The look on Corinth's face when the formerly weakened younger man grabbed his shoulders and dragged his head down was fantastic. Beautiful, wonderful.
It was only surpassed by the crackle of the man's nose making contact. And god, it hurt, it hurt his knee so badly he wanted to scream, but there wasn't time for that, because Corinth was on him with the cold fury he'd come to expect.
Something collided with his stomach, and suddenly he couldn't breath; his vision went fuzzy around the edges and the colors seemed to fade away; his shoulders burned where he'd crashed into a chair on his way down. It was a frighteningly familiar sensation, and his instincts came flooding back. Corinth's hesitation made it clear that he didn't know how to do this.
Cyrano was more than happy to show him, taking in a deep, frantic breath before launching his forehead into Corinth's unguarded neck. It gave way easily beneath him, but the other man had been far enough back that lethal force hadn't been possible. Still, Corinth was on the ground now, and Cyrano could hardly breath as he rolled, driving an elbow squarely into the center of the man's chest.
It had only taken a few seconds, he realized suddenly, because the others were only just beginning to recognize the scene. Somewhere far away, he heard a baby crying.
"You." Corinth grunted, and then Cyrano was back in the heat. He straddled the blond man, pinning his arms down with his legs, forgetting for a moment that sitting on someone's stomach left their knees free. He remembered just as soon as his ears started ringing. His back hurt, and he suddenly couldn't understand why.
Everything looked soft, and he could see people moving around him, but he couldn't hear them. Someone pulled him away, and Cyrano followed bonelessly.
==-==-==
"Go ahead."
"I told you so."
==-==-==
The concussion had condemned Cyrano to spending at least another week in this damned country, until some arbitrary doctor somewhere decided he was fit to fly. He'd tried, of course, to convince anyone who would listen that he was perfectly fine, but there was no winning.
Eventually, he'd given in and called the office. For the most part, the consensus was that he'd taken up the habits of his bands, and no one was surprised by it. After all, no one had that many tattoos and piercing without the occasional bar fight.
Meetings were rescheduled, and a temp was collared up from somewhere, and then, there was nothing to do but wait.
He couldn't even use his computer- his right clavicle had apparently snapped, at some point, and even moving his arm in its sling burned like a bitch.
Kalte had come by once, without Fiye or Tinny, apologizing profusely. He wanted to scream at her, wanted to hate her, because it was her own fault. There was no reason to invite Corinth, and even if had been, someone should have told him.
But he'd accepted her apology with badly staged grace, and she'd sworn to come back in a week to take him to the airport, but for the time being, she had business to attend to back home.
Since then, Absinthe and his wife- Alyssa- had come to visit, but no one else. The only one who even lived in the same country was the bastard who'd done this in the first place.
The days passed in painful monotony, and Cyrano tried his very best not to ask for painkillers too often. It wouldn't do to come home with a shiny new chemical dependence, rather than a fistful of foreign coins and postcards. Still, it was dull. So dull. Daytime television on this side of the world was even worse than it had been back home, and there was only so long that he could stand laughing at the actors for their funny accents.
Particularly when large percentages of his nursing staff had similar ones.
By the end of his stay, he had almost convinced himself that he could tell what part of the city any particular medic had grown up in by the little differences in pronunciations. It was nauseating.
He'd lost count of the days twice, but when he woke up on the eighth of June- date confirmed by the bland looking scroller on the bottom edge of the television screen- there was already someone bustling about in his room, a private one paid for by Kalte's deep pockets. Apparently it was less than a hotel- probably a lie. Still, he'd gotten to waste her money after all.
"Ah, Mister Guidanci," said the woman. Probably a new nurse. Her blue scrubs were covered in pictures of tiny sheep wearing all manner of ridiculous hats. "I was just tidying up. Your blond friend has come to take you to the airport. You'll just need to sign some papers, and we'll have you back to the states by this time tomorrow."
Her unflappable cheer made him want to punch someone all over again.
She produced a clipboard, apparently from the air, and he signed his name six times without so much as looking. He felt he could safely assume that no one in this hospital was going to try to convince him to hand over sixty percent of his luiquidable assets as a joke.
The nurse bustled away, presumably to file something, and as soon as she left, he laid back down. This had been the worst trip he'd ever taken, up to and including the fire in Kuala Lampur. He heard footsteps, but couldn't be bothered to sit up. Kalte deserved to feel whatever guilt she liked, and he'd do nothing to assuage it.
"D'you know, people in this country have some kind of phobia about articles? 'In hospital'. Who says that? I'm not in hospital. I'm in the hospital. Which would be your fault, may I remind."
Kalte said nothing. Cyrano stared hard at the popcorn ceiling. It was a dingy off white, and probably unsanitary. He could only hope the rooms where operations were undergone had nice, clean vinyl tiles- or better yet steel.
"That was less than I expected." It was absolutely not Kalte's over eager soprano.
Jerking up from the mattress again caused his shoulder to scream, but Cyrano quickly schooled his grimace into a glare. "What the hell do you want, exactly?"
The faded remnant of a bruise around Corinth's eye was really very satisfying. Not quite so much as the gauze covering his nose, though. The vivid discoloration around the edges of the pad meant, if nothing else, it had been a particularly brutal break.
"I want to apologize." Cyrano made a noise, but said nothing. He wondered idly if he could make his glare somehow cause Corinth to burst into flame. Of course, he could easily make the man's head burn from the inside out with a sudden megadose of serotonin, but he didn't want to kill Corinth. Well, not really.
The broken nose would have to do.
"You also broke my T5 rib. Bruised my lung nicely. If that helps." Cyrano managed not to scream, but it was impossibly annoying. Corinth hadn't even read his mind, oh no. The bastard had just known what he was thinking from the look on his face. He was not welcome, this intruder. Cyrano toyed with the idea of calling a doctor in- he had a button for just this sort of thing.
Instead he sighed. "It does not help."
Corinth settled into on of the molded plastic chairs against the wall, and they sat in an injured peace for a long time. After the passion involved in their first meeting, it seemed like too much effort to fight. Or even to speak.
Besides, Kalte would be here soon.
An hour passed in glorious silence, and Cyrano almost managed to become comfortable. Corinth's presence was unwelcome, but it was familiar. It was something known in a place that was unbearably not.
"Did they tell you I would be there?" Cyrano asked, finally.
"Do you think I would have come, if I'd known?"
"Did they just invite you because... I mean, I don't even know why they wanted me to come at all... Did they at least have a reason for inviting you? Because otherwise, I'm going to strangle that blonde bimbo. There is nothing acceptable about forcing us to be on the same continent just for shits and giggles."
No answer. But, now that they were on speaking terms, apparently, Cyrano couldn't stand the quiet.
"Well, I guess they wanted me here because a godfather needs to actually be present for things like this, but honestly. I think would have preferred to be surprised."
Still no answer. The redhead tore his gaze from the unsanitary ceiling, and noted with some concern that Corinth had gone very, very pale.
"Godfather? Is that so." He finally coughed out, when he realized he was being stared at.
"Indeed. I think they're convinced that Medusa is going to hunt them down."
"No, they're worried about Diss." Corinth replied off handedly. Like this was just some bit of common knowledge. "He's been stalking them. Sending threatening letters. It's not his style, but I think dealing with Akira and Kara-ni and a comatose wife and a completely mad mistress has done him in."
Cyrano tried not to sigh again. It was becoming a habit. He'd known from the start that coming here was a bad idea, and now he could feel himself slipping right back into the turmoil. He didn't deserve this.
"But really. They made you her godfather?"
"How can that possibly be more interesting than the fact that Diss is on the prowl?"
"I'm positive that you do not actually want to know."
Cyrano's eyes fell shut. He wasn't on opioids anymore, whatever the hell pills he'd been popping were stronger than aspirin, that much was certain. And this cryptic conversation would have been exhausting enough with anyone, let alone with Corinth.
"Just tell me. Because if you don't I'm pushing my little red button and sitting in peace until Kalte gets here."
"She isn't coming."
"I'm... not even surprised. If anyone ever thought it was a good idea for you to take me to the airport in this state, it would be her."
"Perhaps we should be leaving. Customs can be quite a mess, and it'll be at least ninety minutes to Heathrow from here."
Cyrano groaned, but swung his legs over the edge of the bed obediently. There was a wheelchair, left by the shepherdess of a nurse, but he ignored it on principle. Corinth at least had the decency to leave the room while he dressed.
The ride passed in still more silence. But, it wasn't as bad as Cyrano had expected. It was almost companionable.
"So, I guess you're friends or something? You know all that crap about Diss, and you got an invitation to the baptism. Maybe you're the reason they decided to have it in England?"
"Yes. I am. Myself and Abby. They decided it would be best if it was held somewhere near all her relatives."
Cyrano nodded, thinking nothing of it for a long time. "Relatives?"
"Yes."
"If you insist on being cryptic, I will break you nose again." He didn't yell it, but he was completely serious. He would happily risk a traffic accident. Comfortable silence or not, Corinth was the enemy here.
"I'm her father. Centenaria's father. That's why I'm surprised that you're the godfather. I would have assumed they would foist custody off onto me. It would seem I was mistaken."
Corinth wasn't mistaken, of course. Cyrano knew that as soon as the word 'godfather' had come out. "I'll kill her."
"I sincerely hope you mean Kalte. I don't think I can abide you killing my daughter."
"Oh fuck off."
The rest of the drive was quiet, save for the sounds of traffic and the growl of the engine.
==-==-==
Fiye had been found, face turned backwards, in a drainage ditch in the French countryside, six months later. Kalte's body was never discovered, but she had certainly disappeared without a trace.
Centenaria had been moved temporarily into Corinth's flat, until Cyrano could come and collect her.
Cyrano came, three weeks later.
He never managed to leave again.
Stupid country, with its gray skies and its frigid beaches and its unforgivable habit of making him stay far longer than he'd intended.
=
Hah! Not quite a happy ending,
But apparently things can't
Normalize for Corinth and Cyrano
Unless Fiye is dead and Kalte is missing.
I suppose I can't call this the Fiye is Alive AU anymore.