Ficathon 2011: An Evening [Part 1 of 2]
Title: An Evening [Part 1 of 2]
Characters: Nephrite & Jadeite
Rating: R for Language & Sexuality
Timeline: CT
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
The More Loving One, W.H. Auden
Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
“Why so melancholy, friend?”
Jacinto looked up from his position at his desk, he was resting in the chair as he stared out of his office window. “A man can’t watch the sun set without being accused of being sad?” he asked, a lazy smile on his features.
Napoleon wouldn’t be fooled. “Not on his own he can’t.” He sat himself on the couch opposite. “Sunsets make people feel wistful, unless you're with a woman. In that case you're too busy to notice the skyline.”
Jacinto looked at his friend with scepticism. “Where did you get that fact?”
Napoleon shrugged. “Common sense if you think about it. It’s the end of a day, the sun is dying for the night, the colours are romantic. It’s normally a thing you do in couples, right? People can’t help feeling wistful.”
“Sometimes Leo, you're full of it.”
Napoleon waved him off. “Maybe, but I’m right.”
“Are you, now?”
Napoleon nodded seriously. “Something’s on your mind, and judging by the uh...time of year it is, I have a feeling it has something to do with a certain Senshi of Fire. One whose childish vow of celibacy has prevented you from regularly achieving pure carnal satisfaction with her for the past, what? Forty seven years? Well, five hundred and forty seven if you really want to get technical, and that’s not including the time you knew her before the Freeze.”
“Fuck you.” The bitter edge to Jacinto’s voice was out of character but it revealed that Napoleon was right.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Napoleon said, not taking Jacinto’s venom to heart, “Because you certainly aren't getting any from her.”
Jacinto sighed and looked out of the window.
After a moment Napoleon threw his hands into the air. “Well, that was pathetic.”
The blonde turned his head again. “What?”
“I came here for banter. I was expecting some kind of witty repartee and all I get is a girly sigh?”
“I did not sigh.” Jacinto could not help the small smile which appeared on his face. “I was trying to stop myself from yawning. You’re boring.”
“Right now you’re the one who’s fucking boring.”
“I’m not a trained seal, I don’t entertain on cue.”
“Only boring people say that sort of thing. Ones who are out-bantered by their amazing friends.”
“You’re pulling at straws there, seriously.” Jacinto twisted his chair to face the desk, meeting Napoleon’s gaze head-on. “And we’re not eighteen anymore. Insults and bullshit aren’t going to make me forget my problems.”
Napoleon scoffed. “What problems do you have? You’re Overseer of the Interior. Nothing fucking happens in Crys-T, it’s practically Utopia. I’m the one who drew the short fucking straw.”
“You do realise people stopped using the word ‘fuck’ about two decades ago.”
“I’m old school, and you still use ‘fuck’ too.”
Jacinto paused and look up in thought. “I suppose I do.” He refixed his gaze onto his friend. “You know what they say nowadays?”
Napoleon rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’ve heard a few of them. None of them work quite as well, though. Back in our day, we really knew how to fucking swear.”
Jacinto shook his head and laughed. “Do you realise how old you just sounded?”
“We are old.” Napoleon shrugged. “Just because we don’t look it, doesn’t mean that we aren’t. We’re the dinosaur exhibition at the museum…except alive.”
“I feel so much better about myself now, thank you Leo.” Jacinto smirked.
“It’s what I’m here for.”
“And for the record, your analogy didn’t make any sense.”
Napoleon looked at Jacinto for a moment, as if he saw through Jacinto’s comment. “Yes it did. You know what I meant.”
We’re obsolete… Jacinto thought to himself, but he didn’t like it. “We’re not dinosaurs yet.” He said.
Napoleon replied with a small smile and then changed the subject. “You remember that video website from back in the day? What was it called...” He creased his dark brow as he searched his memory. “Tube something...” He clicked his fingers several times in an attempt to help himself remember.
“YouTube.” Jacinto supplied after a moment of searching his own memory.
“Yes! That was it! YouTube. Before it was bought over and turned to shit. Remember how long we used to spend on that thing?”
Jacinto smiled. “Hours and hours. There were so many useless videos on there,” he said. “Although I did learn how to bake a cheesecake with it, and how to tie knots for boating.”
“No kidding.” Napoleon licked his bottom lip. “I remember those cheesecakes. They were pretty tasty.”
“I know. I used to make different flavours too.”
Napoleon’s eyes lit up, as they always did, at the memory of good food. “Oh yeah! What was that really nice one? The one with the swirls?”
“Whiskey and cream.”
Napoleon sat back and lifted his head in an exaggerated nod. “That was it.” He paused a moment, his mind sifting through his old memories of the past. “Why boat knots?”
Jacinto shrugged. “Seemed interesting at the time.”
Napoleon gave him a snarky smile. “Have you ever even been on a motherfucking boat?”
“Yes,” Jacinto scoffed, “of course I have.”
“One where you actually had to tie some kind of boating knot?”
Jacinto blinked for a few moments as he tried to remember if he had. “I’ve seen people tie the knots. That counts, right?”
Napoleon smiled. “Yeah, that website was a definite waste of time.”
Jacinto couldn’t help but agree. “It’s crazy what passed off as entertainment in those days.”
“We had fun though. You remember that video that gave all the different uses of the word ‘fuck’? Now that was hilarious.”
Napoleon’s sense of humour was often very different to Jacinto’s. “I can’t say I ever saw it.”
“You missed out. It used ‘fuck’ in ways I hadn’t even thought of using.”
“I’m sure it was hugely entertaining for you.”
“Of course it’s nothing compared to what I’d like to say to these fucking foreign diplomats.” Napoleon’s face turned to one of disgust.
Jacinto smiled as he suddenly understood what Napoleon's unusual visit was secretly for: griping about his job. “This coming from the guy who has the most delicate job on the planet is not exactly reassuring.”
“They don’t want our help, but they’re jealous of us all the same. I can’t stand these people. We’re better than them, and they know it. It’s not my fault they can’t handle it.”
Jacinto laughed at his friend’s frustration. “I'm surprised that no-one’s gone to war with us yet with you and your winning personality in charge.”
“Don’t joke.” Apparently, Napoleon was surprised as well. “I try and avoid actual face-time with people. I find things go a lot smoother that way. The sooner we take over this planet, the happier I’ll be.”
“That’s not going to happen anytime soon if you keep making us sound like dictators,” he paused for a moment, “although I suppose technically we are dictators.”
Napoleon tsked, “I obviously don’t use the actual phrase ‘take over this planet’ when I’m negotiating.”
“But you do tell ‘didgeridoo-fucking ’ Australian trade ministers to go ‘ride a kangaroo into their croc-infested rivers and get eaten slowly’ because they disagreed with a few provisions in the draft energy trade agreement?”
Napoleon grimaced. “You heard about that?”
“Who didn’t?”
“Yeah well, it wasn’t just a few provisions, they were refusing to sanction the general quota reduction of crystal power allocation during cases of emergency in other member states,” he explained, as if it excused his behaviour. “Crys-T is fucking struggling to power East Asia by itself, and now we’ve got to send it to Australasia too?! And they won’t accept a reduction in power during the minute likelihood of a disaster somewhere else.” He shook his head, riled at just the memory of the last international trade session.
“They have a right to be scared. They’re switching from fossil fuels which have powered the world for a long time, to something which is still relatively new and unknown.”
“Just because you did a unit in psychology at university back in the day doesn’t mean you have to point out the obvious all the time, I know perfectly well what the real issues are.”
“Enlighten me, then.”
“It wasn’t just the quota restriction provisions they were complaining about. They also want to be bumped up the List of Conversion.”
“They’re right behind the South West African countries, aren’t they? That means they’re twenty ninth?”
“Thirty second,” Napoleon corrected. “Which means we’ll be ready to start converting the continent fully in about half a century. That’s before Brazil.”
Jacinto frowned. “Brazil is a lower priority for full crystal assimilation than Australia is? Wasn’t Brazil a developing country before the Freeze? I thought we prioritised through necessity, the poorer first?”
“Usually, but it makes more sense to convert Australia before we move onto the Americas, that way we’ll have crystallised the entirety of Asia, Africa and Australasia before we cross the Pacific, instead of leaving a massive gap of un-converted country on the map.”
“Makes sense.”
“Yeah, well tell that to the Australian trade ministers. They want to be higher up. Last time I checked, they didn’t have starving Congolese children or Nigerian oil-shortage wars,” he threw his hand up like he was tossing something away, “but they don’t fucking care, they’re trying to sabotage the energy trade agreement so that we can’t give them a temporary source of power. If we leave them the way they are, they think we’re going to have to fully assimilate them sooner or they’ll run out of fossil fuel completely. They were being greedy and stubborn and I lost my temper.” He sighed. “Remember when Australia was the cool country? With all the cricket and shrimp barbecues and cork hats and sexually attractive women?”
Jacinto ignored the urge to remind Napoleon that use of the word ‘cool’ had not actually been cool since the early nineteen nineties, and nodded instead.
“I used to have the patience for this kind of thing.”
“No you didn’t.” Jacinto laughed. “I still think Cairo was on drugs when he was delegating our roles.”
“You’re telling me. How the hell he thought I would suit this job, I’ll never know. I think he chose it to spite me. Psh,” Napoleon shook his head with disbelief, “me, watching over dealings with fucking foreigners.”
“Well you definitely do the last part. Perks of the job, right?” Jacinto gave his friend a wry smile. “I hear tell that Argentinian ambassador’s assistant was exceptionally pleased when she left last week.”
“What?”
Jacinto waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t try it. My source is too reliable to be questioned.”
Napoleon looked away, staring out of the window. “It was nothing,” he stated. “We didn’t-” he stopped himself, not quite able to go through with the lie. “It was nothing,” he repeated instead.
“Were you actually trying to be discreet?” Jacinto’s tone was mocking.
Napoleon did not smile at the comment. “Evidently I didn’t try hard enough. Shit.” The last word was said in a whisper as he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs.
“Feeling guilty about it?” Jacinto raised his blonde eyebrows.
Napoleon’s face darkened as he looked back at his friend, his temper changing suddenly. “Hey, you know what? You're not my fucking priest.”
Jacinto hadn’t quite expected Napoleon to take the comment so personally and tried to salvage the mood. “I wasn't criticising-“
“Yes you were.” He knew his friend too well to not see the hidden reproach. “I needed a fuck. She was there and she was willing. That’s all it was,” he stated, defending his actions.
Jacinto raised his hands in defence. “You have needs, we all do. I understand that.”
Napoleon looked up. “You’re not the only one with problems, alright?”
“Never said I was, but then I don’t have the same obligations as you.” Jacinto wasn’t trying to hurt him, nevertheless he deliberately brought the matter to the surface.
Napoleon risked getting fully angry. “Makoto isn’t an obligation,” he snapped. “You don’t understand what it’s like. You don’t have a wife refusing all fucking forms of intimacy with you just because she’s terrified of having kids that you’ll fucking outlive.”
“At least you have a wife.” Jacinto said as he pulled out a wooden box and a lighter from his desk drawer, sensing that the evening was going to become a long one.
Napoleon calmed down at Jacinto’s comment, remembering that his purpose in coming was to cheer up his friend and not to air out his own grievances.
“She’s still not talking to you?”
Napoleon shook his head. “We were supposed to have dinner together but she didn’t show. By now I shouldn’t be so disappointed.”
“It’s not your fault, Leo. You’re doing the best you can, given the circumstances.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not how we thought forever would be,” he said as he sat back into the couch.
“No, it definitely isn’t.” Jacinto tossed his friend a cigar along with the cutter. “She’s never heard of contraception?” he asked as he lit up and then passed the lighter on.
Napoleon took it and lit his own cigar. “It’s not just the risk of pregnancy that’s gotten her like this.” He drew in deeply and then exhaled the white smoke before speaking again. “She’s generally depressed about it, you know? We made all these plans, for years even. How many we were going to have, how many boys, girls. We’d even picked out names.” He took in another deep drag. “She can’t even look at me if we’re in the same room. I think there are times when she feels like the whole world is to blame and then sometimes she feels like it’s all on her.”
“Has she talked to any of the others in the same situation?”
Napoleon raised his eyebrows in mock amusement. “And just who would these others be? Endy and Sere? Luna and Artemis? Their kids are going to live longer than we are.”
“Well obviously not them.” Jacinto took another drag.
“Then who? The Outers? They have Hotaru, one of their own to raise. You know who that leaves?” He left the rest of the list unsaid, knowing that he did not need to mention the obvious.
Jacinto gave his friend a sour look, acknowledging his point. Rei was going to be celibate for the rest of her unnaturally long life, the last thing on her ridiculously stubborn mind was children. Ami already had them, millions of them: they were her life’s work. They took up more time than there were hours in the day and she had little, if any time, for anything else. As for Mina... children were not brought up. Ever.
Napoleon looked out the window, watching the last rays of the vibrant orange sunlight as it faded into deep violet. “I don’t know what to do.”
“But she can conceive, can’t she?” Jacinto asked. “I mean, her plumbing’s ok?”
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
“Then maybe one day she’ll be ready.”
“The situation’s never going to change. Our offspring are going to be mortal, that’s just the way it’s going to be. She’s never going to be ready for that.” Napoleon shook his head lightly. “She’s lost Jace, and I don’t know how to reach her.”
Jacinto gave him a look of sincere understanding. “I’m sorry, friend.”
They sat in silence for a while, watching as the sky darkened to evening.
“Fucking Ami and her big mouth,” Napoleon said finally.
Jacinto frowned. “You’re not still angry at her?”
“Always will be.”
“She was trying to do the right thing.” Jacinto took a puff of his own cigar. “It would have been worse to find out after you guys had kids, and I think the small fact that they would have been obliterated during the Freeze would have clued you into that fact anyway, even if she hadn't said anything.”
Napoleon scoffed. “Trust you to jump in and defend the bitch. It wouldn’t surprise me if you were still pumping her.”
Intentionally inflammatory remarks rarely set Jacinto off and this one was no exception. “It was a one time deal, you know that.”
“And you say I’m the one full of bull.”
“Don’t be like that.” Jacinto let the remark drop. “What was she supposed to do? Not warn her? Look how Mako is acting by just knowing. Look what if did to Mina. You think Mako is bad now, imagine how she'd have been if she'd actually had to bury her children.”
“Ami could be wrong. Just because she spends her whole fucking life staring at computers doesn’t mean that she’s right about everything.” Napoleon angrily stubbed out the end of his cigar in a glass ashtray on the table next to him. Even as he said it, he knew in his heart that she hadn’t made a mistake, Mina and Cairo had provided them with irrefutable evidence. “At the very least she should have told me first. I could have broken the news better.”
“Technically she’s known her longer, maybe she thought it would have been easier coming from her. Plus she’s Mako’s doctor, she couldn’t have told you.”
Napoleon’s gaze became fierce. “I know what the law was. Doctor/patient privilege and all that shit, she could have told me anyway. She should have told me. It would have been the decent fucking thing to do.” Jacinto tried to speak but Napoleon wouldn’t let him. “Don’t try and deny it, you know how Mako is. I could have helped her through it.” He stopped and took in a breath before he lost his temper. “All those years of watching her fall apart and not knowing why. I was too stupid to figure it out.” He shook his head. “I love Ami, I really do, she’s like a sister to me, but I’ll never forgive her.”
“You’re looking for someone to blame when it's no-one's fault, Leo.”
Napoleon shrugged. “Maybe I am.” He reached his hand out. “Another cigar would make me feel a hell of a lot better about it.”
Jacinto smiled and tossed him another.
“You need to get away from here,” Napoleon said after a long pause.
“What do you mean?” Jacinto picked up another cigar for himself.
“What I said. Away, as in not staying in Crys-T. A change of scenery would do you some good, maybe somewhere like Barbados, with the sunshine, or Hawaii, somewhere where you can surf again, you used to be into all that ocean-hippie bullshit.” He put the cigar to his lips and lit it.
Jacinto raised his eyebrows. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything like that.”
Napoleon let out a laugh. “You were probably shit anyway, you practically lived on the beach and you never even tied a boat knot yourself.”
“You don’t need a boat to surf, you idiot, you just paddled in and rode the wave back.”
“Yeah, but you must have needed a boat at some point. Fishing? Travelling somewhere? Something?”
The memories brought on an almost wistful quality to Jacinto’s face. “All you needed was your board.”
Napoleon rolled his eyes. “Whatever. My point is that sitting there sighing isn’t going to help your situation. You need to forget about it.” He tossed back the lighter. “You and Rei, it isn’t going to happen. Maybe you should try moving on.”
Jacinto smiled at the impossibility of the suggestion. “I could offer you the same advice.”
Napoleon blew out a puff of smoke and waved the cigar in his hand from side to side. “Can’t do that. The difference with me is that I'm already committed. I made that promise to stick with her, you know? Through everything.”
Jacinto decided to avoid mentioning that Napoleon had also vowed to stay faithful.
“But you,” Napoleon pointed with his cigar hand, “you’re free and single. You can keep looking.”
“For what? The love of my life?” His lips curled into a sneer.
Napoleon titled his head slightly and rubbed his forehead with his index and middle finger. “Maybe you’ll find another, if you try hard enough.”
“I don’t think that’s how it’s meant to work.”
“Says who?”
Jacinto huffed. “And then what? Get married? Outlive her and the kids?”
Napoleon didn’t rise to the bait. “Then don’t settle. Fuck a girl a night if you really want, just stop weighing yourself down when you don’t have to.”
“The way I feel isn’t exactly a choice, Leo.”
Napoleon gave a sigh of his own. “Maybe love isn’t designed to be forever.” He stood up and moved towards the window. “You mind if I...”
“Sure.” Jacinto reached into one of the other desk drawers and pulled out a key. “Here.” he said as he tossed it over.
Napoleon gave a small laugh. “You still keep your window locked? You think someone’s stupid enough to break into the main palace of Crystal Tokyo?”
Jacinto took in a puff of his cigar, leaving it hanging in his mouth as he spoke. “Old habits, I suppose.”
Once he’d turned the lock and opened the window as wide as it would go, Napoleon leaned out, resting his elbows on the ledge and taking in a deep breath. “I love the night air.”
“I’m not loving the view of your ass.”
Napoleon ignored him. “Look at this fucking city.” He drew in another deep puff of his cigar, exhaling slowly and watching as the air currents played with it, twisting it away. “Millions and millions of little lights flashing from here to beyond the horizon - blue, red, green, yellow, white. Like fucking stars.” He looked up. “Just like up there.” He turned back to look at Jacinto, a smile on his face. “Heaven and Earth, perfect mirrors of each other.”
Jacinto joined him by the window and took a glance up at the black abyss, the lights from the city blocking out the starlight. “We can’t see what you see.”
“More’s the pity for you, friend.”
They stopped talking for a while as they took in Crystal Tokyo by night. It was moving, alive and sprawled to beyond the line of sight. People walked and ran, worked and slept, created a pulse, an energy just like any other city from before the Freeze, except the difference here was that the two men could no longer consider themselves a part of that life. Instead they stood a step back, watching, ruling from on high, their unnatural life spans separating them from their own people.
“So you’re getting divorced in a few decades?” Jacinto finally asked, breaking their reverie.
“What?”
“Love isn’t eternal according to you.”
Napoleon shoved him. “Marriage is. Till death do us part, and since we’re living forever...”
“A hundred thousand years isn’t forever,” Jacinto corrected.
“Danny says that’s a conservative figure, actually. He says it could be up to five hundred thousand, maybe more.”
The thought didn’t sit well with Jacinto at all. “What does he know?”
“As much as Ami, definitely. Probably more.”
Jacinto smirked. “Care to bet on that?”
Napoleon frowned. “How do you expect to measure it?”
“See how many places have been named after them,” Jacinto said, pulling out a handheld from his pocket.
“Even I know that’s a shitty way of gathering evidence.”
Jacinto didn’t care. “Loser gets to be the one to tell Cairo that Mina totalled his Rolls two nights ago.”
“Fuck off!” Napoleon’s eyes were wide with shock at the revelation. “The two thousand and three Phantom?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you fucking serious?!”
Jacinto was laughing as he nodded his head.
“How hasn’t he noticed yet?”
“She covered it with a dust shield,” he said as he took in another puff, “and he’s been busy.”
“How the hell did she manage to crash it?” Napoleon was still in disbelief. “We have fucking auto-pilot and invisible shields dividing fucking lanes! We have compu-stoppers and speed reducers and monitors on every fucking corner! For fuck’s sake, blind people fucking drive! Crashing a car nowadays is nearly fucking impossible. Did something break down?”
“She was coming out of a club completely shit-faced, apparently,” Jacinto said, still smiling.
“What’s new?”
“I’ve got the surveillance video if you want to look at it later. Once she told me what happened I had to see it for myself.”
“Is it hilarious?”
“Yes. She indicated left to change lanes, the invis opened up to let her through, and for no reason what so ever, she swerved right instead. Drove right into the invis that separated the road from the pavement. The force was so strong part of the car crashed through and knocked over a lightpost.”
Napoleon shook his head. “She couldn’t drive a car back then, she definitely can’t drive one now. What the fuck was she doing setting it to manual? That’s for emergencies only. She should have auto-piloted.”
“That’s what I told her.”
“And what did she say?”
“That we have privileges and she felt like using them.”
Napoleon had to laugh at that. “Fucking Mina. That girl’s got balls.”
“Bullshit she does. She’s laid it on me to tell Cairo that a car, his car, worth fourteen million is now a pile of shitty scrap metal and burnt leather.”
“Ah fuck! The real fucking leather!” Napoleon had forgotten about that. Killing animals for food or their hides had been banned as soon as cloning technology had advanced enough to make suitable meat and hide substitutes. Neither were ever quite as good as the originals though, and any products leftover from before the Freeze which contained the latter tended to skyrocket in value. “Let’s change the fucking subject before I actually get depressed.”
Jacinto smiled and flicked through his handheld. “There are...” he tapped a few things before he came up with an answer, “seventy eight thousand, five hundred and sixty three locations, buildings, institutions and businesses named after either ‘Daniel Zephyr’ or ‘Zoisite’.”
“Is that global?”
“What do you think? And now,” he tapped on his handheld again and then suddenly smiled. “Fuck yes!” he said, shoving the mini-computer into Napoleon’s face. “One hundred and sixty four thousand nine hundred and ninety eight for Ami Zephyr, and that’s not even looking at the name ‘Mercury’.”
“All it shows is that she’s more popular than he is.” Napoleon was pissed off now that he had lost. “It doesn’t make her smarter.”
“You’re telling Cairo about his car.”
“Fuck no. It was a shitty bet and I still think I’m right.”
Jacinto shrugged. “Maybe you are, but you agreed to the rules. You’re not getting out of it, you’re honour bound.”
“Fuck you,” Napoleon muttered before throwing his head back and silently cursing his own stupidity. Cairo was going to be beyond furious when he told him, and he was going to have to bear the brunt of the initial wrath. He considered telling him in a public place so he couldn’t destroy anything, but then abandoned the idea deciding that it wouldn’t matter anyway. Cairo could be an unusually patient man. He had an uncanny ability to contain his rage until he felt it was appropriate to release it, waiting, letting it build until he decided it was the right time to let loose on some poor, unsuspecting victim - and that poor, unsuspecting victim would inevitably be the messenger, i.e. him, since there was no way Cairo would go near Mina, especially not to yell at her. He started contemplating how he could convince Endymion to do it instead.
“So love isn’t eternal?” Jacinto asked, going back to their previous topic of conversation. “How does that work? It lasts for long enough to help the average person procreate and then what? It dies when they do? How long do you think that is? Fifty years? A century? And if we live longer than the average lifespan, what does it do then? Disappear? You think love can do that? Just disappear because it’s time has run out?”
“I fucking hope so, between your constant pining and my wife’s descent into becoming an emotionless and completely unreachable ghost, I don’t see the fucking point. It’s just suffering. I’m sick of fucking suffering, aren’t you?”
“We all are.”
“Yeah, no shit. Cairo may look like he’s a fucking machine, but he feels the same. I can see it in his eyes. He wishes he could stop loving her more than anything else on this Earth.”
The corners of Jacinto’s mouth lifted slightly. “Well now we know she’s not as over him as she makes people think she is. As if that wasn’t obvious anyway.”
“She didn’t have to crash the fucking Phantom to do it, though.”
“No.”
“Fucking Mina and her driving.” Napoleon shook his head. “What a waste.”
“Her or the car?”
“Both, I suppose. The kicker is he’d probably take her back. No matter what she does to him, if he thought she was serious, he’d accept her back, no questions.”
“Who fucking wouldn’t?”
“I wouldn’t.” Napoleon shook his head with disgust. He stopped when he saw that Jacinto was looking at him like a crazy person. “Ok, maybe I would. She is the most fuckable woman on the planet.”
“No shit.”
“Yeah, there’s no denying that, but she’s the worst kind of woman.”
“We all have our opinions.”
“I mean it as a fact.”
Jacinto was curious how Napoleon was going to explain his ludicrous statement. “How do you figure?”
“She thinks she has more problems than anyone else, for one, and she carries them around with her. She probably thinks she’s better than us for what she does and at the same time she doesn’t think she’s good enough, and that’s just for starters. The weight on her shoulders has destroyed her. She’s broken goods, Jace.”
Jacinto let out a laugh. “What woman isn’t?” He wasn't learning anything he didn’t already know.
“Yeah well, this one intentionally fucks with you just to push you away, but she’s always hoping that you’ll come back for more. In fact, she’s fucking counting on it, and you noticed any time Cairo did, he came out of it a little bit closer to being the cold bastard he was back in the Silver Millennium. That woman’s not worth the mental anguish she causes, I don’t care how bendy she is or how wonderful a person she used to be.”
Part 2 is here
Characters: Nephrite & Jadeite
Rating: R for Language & Sexuality
Timeline: CT
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
The More Loving One, W.H. Auden
Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
“Why so melancholy, friend?”
Jacinto looked up from his position at his desk, he was resting in the chair as he stared out of his office window. “A man can’t watch the sun set without being accused of being sad?” he asked, a lazy smile on his features.
Napoleon wouldn’t be fooled. “Not on his own he can’t.” He sat himself on the couch opposite. “Sunsets make people feel wistful, unless you're with a woman. In that case you're too busy to notice the skyline.”
Jacinto looked at his friend with scepticism. “Where did you get that fact?”
Napoleon shrugged. “Common sense if you think about it. It’s the end of a day, the sun is dying for the night, the colours are romantic. It’s normally a thing you do in couples, right? People can’t help feeling wistful.”
“Sometimes Leo, you're full of it.”
Napoleon waved him off. “Maybe, but I’m right.”
“Are you, now?”
Napoleon nodded seriously. “Something’s on your mind, and judging by the uh...time of year it is, I have a feeling it has something to do with a certain Senshi of Fire. One whose childish vow of celibacy has prevented you from regularly achieving pure carnal satisfaction with her for the past, what? Forty seven years? Well, five hundred and forty seven if you really want to get technical, and that’s not including the time you knew her before the Freeze.”
“Fuck you.” The bitter edge to Jacinto’s voice was out of character but it revealed that Napoleon was right.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Napoleon said, not taking Jacinto’s venom to heart, “Because you certainly aren't getting any from her.”
Jacinto sighed and looked out of the window.
After a moment Napoleon threw his hands into the air. “Well, that was pathetic.”
The blonde turned his head again. “What?”
“I came here for banter. I was expecting some kind of witty repartee and all I get is a girly sigh?”
“I did not sigh.” Jacinto could not help the small smile which appeared on his face. “I was trying to stop myself from yawning. You’re boring.”
“Right now you’re the one who’s fucking boring.”
“I’m not a trained seal, I don’t entertain on cue.”
“Only boring people say that sort of thing. Ones who are out-bantered by their amazing friends.”
“You’re pulling at straws there, seriously.” Jacinto twisted his chair to face the desk, meeting Napoleon’s gaze head-on. “And we’re not eighteen anymore. Insults and bullshit aren’t going to make me forget my problems.”
Napoleon scoffed. “What problems do you have? You’re Overseer of the Interior. Nothing fucking happens in Crys-T, it’s practically Utopia. I’m the one who drew the short fucking straw.”
“You do realise people stopped using the word ‘fuck’ about two decades ago.”
“I’m old school, and you still use ‘fuck’ too.”
Jacinto paused and look up in thought. “I suppose I do.” He refixed his gaze onto his friend. “You know what they say nowadays?”
Napoleon rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’ve heard a few of them. None of them work quite as well, though. Back in our day, we really knew how to fucking swear.”
Jacinto shook his head and laughed. “Do you realise how old you just sounded?”
“We are old.” Napoleon shrugged. “Just because we don’t look it, doesn’t mean that we aren’t. We’re the dinosaur exhibition at the museum…except alive.”
“I feel so much better about myself now, thank you Leo.” Jacinto smirked.
“It’s what I’m here for.”
“And for the record, your analogy didn’t make any sense.”
Napoleon looked at Jacinto for a moment, as if he saw through Jacinto’s comment. “Yes it did. You know what I meant.”
We’re obsolete… Jacinto thought to himself, but he didn’t like it. “We’re not dinosaurs yet.” He said.
Napoleon replied with a small smile and then changed the subject. “You remember that video website from back in the day? What was it called...” He creased his dark brow as he searched his memory. “Tube something...” He clicked his fingers several times in an attempt to help himself remember.
“YouTube.” Jacinto supplied after a moment of searching his own memory.
“Yes! That was it! YouTube. Before it was bought over and turned to shit. Remember how long we used to spend on that thing?”
Jacinto smiled. “Hours and hours. There were so many useless videos on there,” he said. “Although I did learn how to bake a cheesecake with it, and how to tie knots for boating.”
“No kidding.” Napoleon licked his bottom lip. “I remember those cheesecakes. They were pretty tasty.”
“I know. I used to make different flavours too.”
Napoleon’s eyes lit up, as they always did, at the memory of good food. “Oh yeah! What was that really nice one? The one with the swirls?”
“Whiskey and cream.”
Napoleon sat back and lifted his head in an exaggerated nod. “That was it.” He paused a moment, his mind sifting through his old memories of the past. “Why boat knots?”
Jacinto shrugged. “Seemed interesting at the time.”
Napoleon gave him a snarky smile. “Have you ever even been on a motherfucking boat?”
“Yes,” Jacinto scoffed, “of course I have.”
“One where you actually had to tie some kind of boating knot?”
Jacinto blinked for a few moments as he tried to remember if he had. “I’ve seen people tie the knots. That counts, right?”
Napoleon smiled. “Yeah, that website was a definite waste of time.”
Jacinto couldn’t help but agree. “It’s crazy what passed off as entertainment in those days.”
“We had fun though. You remember that video that gave all the different uses of the word ‘fuck’? Now that was hilarious.”
Napoleon’s sense of humour was often very different to Jacinto’s. “I can’t say I ever saw it.”
“You missed out. It used ‘fuck’ in ways I hadn’t even thought of using.”
“I’m sure it was hugely entertaining for you.”
“Of course it’s nothing compared to what I’d like to say to these fucking foreign diplomats.” Napoleon’s face turned to one of disgust.
Jacinto smiled as he suddenly understood what Napoleon's unusual visit was secretly for: griping about his job. “This coming from the guy who has the most delicate job on the planet is not exactly reassuring.”
“They don’t want our help, but they’re jealous of us all the same. I can’t stand these people. We’re better than them, and they know it. It’s not my fault they can’t handle it.”
Jacinto laughed at his friend’s frustration. “I'm surprised that no-one’s gone to war with us yet with you and your winning personality in charge.”
“Don’t joke.” Apparently, Napoleon was surprised as well. “I try and avoid actual face-time with people. I find things go a lot smoother that way. The sooner we take over this planet, the happier I’ll be.”
“That’s not going to happen anytime soon if you keep making us sound like dictators,” he paused for a moment, “although I suppose technically we are dictators.”
Napoleon tsked, “I obviously don’t use the actual phrase ‘take over this planet’ when I’m negotiating.”
“But you do tell ‘didgeridoo-fucking ’ Australian trade ministers to go ‘ride a kangaroo into their croc-infested rivers and get eaten slowly’ because they disagreed with a few provisions in the draft energy trade agreement?”
Napoleon grimaced. “You heard about that?”
“Who didn’t?”
“Yeah well, it wasn’t just a few provisions, they were refusing to sanction the general quota reduction of crystal power allocation during cases of emergency in other member states,” he explained, as if it excused his behaviour. “Crys-T is fucking struggling to power East Asia by itself, and now we’ve got to send it to Australasia too?! And they won’t accept a reduction in power during the minute likelihood of a disaster somewhere else.” He shook his head, riled at just the memory of the last international trade session.
“They have a right to be scared. They’re switching from fossil fuels which have powered the world for a long time, to something which is still relatively new and unknown.”
“Just because you did a unit in psychology at university back in the day doesn’t mean you have to point out the obvious all the time, I know perfectly well what the real issues are.”
“Enlighten me, then.”
“It wasn’t just the quota restriction provisions they were complaining about. They also want to be bumped up the List of Conversion.”
“They’re right behind the South West African countries, aren’t they? That means they’re twenty ninth?”
“Thirty second,” Napoleon corrected. “Which means we’ll be ready to start converting the continent fully in about half a century. That’s before Brazil.”
Jacinto frowned. “Brazil is a lower priority for full crystal assimilation than Australia is? Wasn’t Brazil a developing country before the Freeze? I thought we prioritised through necessity, the poorer first?”
“Usually, but it makes more sense to convert Australia before we move onto the Americas, that way we’ll have crystallised the entirety of Asia, Africa and Australasia before we cross the Pacific, instead of leaving a massive gap of un-converted country on the map.”
“Makes sense.”
“Yeah, well tell that to the Australian trade ministers. They want to be higher up. Last time I checked, they didn’t have starving Congolese children or Nigerian oil-shortage wars,” he threw his hand up like he was tossing something away, “but they don’t fucking care, they’re trying to sabotage the energy trade agreement so that we can’t give them a temporary source of power. If we leave them the way they are, they think we’re going to have to fully assimilate them sooner or they’ll run out of fossil fuel completely. They were being greedy and stubborn and I lost my temper.” He sighed. “Remember when Australia was the cool country? With all the cricket and shrimp barbecues and cork hats and sexually attractive women?”
Jacinto ignored the urge to remind Napoleon that use of the word ‘cool’ had not actually been cool since the early nineteen nineties, and nodded instead.
“I used to have the patience for this kind of thing.”
“No you didn’t.” Jacinto laughed. “I still think Cairo was on drugs when he was delegating our roles.”
“You’re telling me. How the hell he thought I would suit this job, I’ll never know. I think he chose it to spite me. Psh,” Napoleon shook his head with disbelief, “me, watching over dealings with fucking foreigners.”
“Well you definitely do the last part. Perks of the job, right?” Jacinto gave his friend a wry smile. “I hear tell that Argentinian ambassador’s assistant was exceptionally pleased when she left last week.”
“What?”
Jacinto waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t try it. My source is too reliable to be questioned.”
Napoleon looked away, staring out of the window. “It was nothing,” he stated. “We didn’t-” he stopped himself, not quite able to go through with the lie. “It was nothing,” he repeated instead.
“Were you actually trying to be discreet?” Jacinto’s tone was mocking.
Napoleon did not smile at the comment. “Evidently I didn’t try hard enough. Shit.” The last word was said in a whisper as he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs.
“Feeling guilty about it?” Jacinto raised his blonde eyebrows.
Napoleon’s face darkened as he looked back at his friend, his temper changing suddenly. “Hey, you know what? You're not my fucking priest.”
Jacinto hadn’t quite expected Napoleon to take the comment so personally and tried to salvage the mood. “I wasn't criticising-“
“Yes you were.” He knew his friend too well to not see the hidden reproach. “I needed a fuck. She was there and she was willing. That’s all it was,” he stated, defending his actions.
Jacinto raised his hands in defence. “You have needs, we all do. I understand that.”
Napoleon looked up. “You’re not the only one with problems, alright?”
“Never said I was, but then I don’t have the same obligations as you.” Jacinto wasn’t trying to hurt him, nevertheless he deliberately brought the matter to the surface.
Napoleon risked getting fully angry. “Makoto isn’t an obligation,” he snapped. “You don’t understand what it’s like. You don’t have a wife refusing all fucking forms of intimacy with you just because she’s terrified of having kids that you’ll fucking outlive.”
“At least you have a wife.” Jacinto said as he pulled out a wooden box and a lighter from his desk drawer, sensing that the evening was going to become a long one.
Napoleon calmed down at Jacinto’s comment, remembering that his purpose in coming was to cheer up his friend and not to air out his own grievances.
“She’s still not talking to you?”
Napoleon shook his head. “We were supposed to have dinner together but she didn’t show. By now I shouldn’t be so disappointed.”
“It’s not your fault, Leo. You’re doing the best you can, given the circumstances.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not how we thought forever would be,” he said as he sat back into the couch.
“No, it definitely isn’t.” Jacinto tossed his friend a cigar along with the cutter. “She’s never heard of contraception?” he asked as he lit up and then passed the lighter on.
Napoleon took it and lit his own cigar. “It’s not just the risk of pregnancy that’s gotten her like this.” He drew in deeply and then exhaled the white smoke before speaking again. “She’s generally depressed about it, you know? We made all these plans, for years even. How many we were going to have, how many boys, girls. We’d even picked out names.” He took in another deep drag. “She can’t even look at me if we’re in the same room. I think there are times when she feels like the whole world is to blame and then sometimes she feels like it’s all on her.”
“Has she talked to any of the others in the same situation?”
Napoleon raised his eyebrows in mock amusement. “And just who would these others be? Endy and Sere? Luna and Artemis? Their kids are going to live longer than we are.”
“Well obviously not them.” Jacinto took another drag.
“Then who? The Outers? They have Hotaru, one of their own to raise. You know who that leaves?” He left the rest of the list unsaid, knowing that he did not need to mention the obvious.
Jacinto gave his friend a sour look, acknowledging his point. Rei was going to be celibate for the rest of her unnaturally long life, the last thing on her ridiculously stubborn mind was children. Ami already had them, millions of them: they were her life’s work. They took up more time than there were hours in the day and she had little, if any time, for anything else. As for Mina... children were not brought up. Ever.
Napoleon looked out the window, watching the last rays of the vibrant orange sunlight as it faded into deep violet. “I don’t know what to do.”
“But she can conceive, can’t she?” Jacinto asked. “I mean, her plumbing’s ok?”
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
“Then maybe one day she’ll be ready.”
“The situation’s never going to change. Our offspring are going to be mortal, that’s just the way it’s going to be. She’s never going to be ready for that.” Napoleon shook his head lightly. “She’s lost Jace, and I don’t know how to reach her.”
Jacinto gave him a look of sincere understanding. “I’m sorry, friend.”
They sat in silence for a while, watching as the sky darkened to evening.
“Fucking Ami and her big mouth,” Napoleon said finally.
Jacinto frowned. “You’re not still angry at her?”
“Always will be.”
“She was trying to do the right thing.” Jacinto took a puff of his own cigar. “It would have been worse to find out after you guys had kids, and I think the small fact that they would have been obliterated during the Freeze would have clued you into that fact anyway, even if she hadn't said anything.”
Napoleon scoffed. “Trust you to jump in and defend the bitch. It wouldn’t surprise me if you were still pumping her.”
Intentionally inflammatory remarks rarely set Jacinto off and this one was no exception. “It was a one time deal, you know that.”
“And you say I’m the one full of bull.”
“Don’t be like that.” Jacinto let the remark drop. “What was she supposed to do? Not warn her? Look how Mako is acting by just knowing. Look what if did to Mina. You think Mako is bad now, imagine how she'd have been if she'd actually had to bury her children.”
“Ami could be wrong. Just because she spends her whole fucking life staring at computers doesn’t mean that she’s right about everything.” Napoleon angrily stubbed out the end of his cigar in a glass ashtray on the table next to him. Even as he said it, he knew in his heart that she hadn’t made a mistake, Mina and Cairo had provided them with irrefutable evidence. “At the very least she should have told me first. I could have broken the news better.”
“Technically she’s known her longer, maybe she thought it would have been easier coming from her. Plus she’s Mako’s doctor, she couldn’t have told you.”
Napoleon’s gaze became fierce. “I know what the law was. Doctor/patient privilege and all that shit, she could have told me anyway. She should have told me. It would have been the decent fucking thing to do.” Jacinto tried to speak but Napoleon wouldn’t let him. “Don’t try and deny it, you know how Mako is. I could have helped her through it.” He stopped and took in a breath before he lost his temper. “All those years of watching her fall apart and not knowing why. I was too stupid to figure it out.” He shook his head. “I love Ami, I really do, she’s like a sister to me, but I’ll never forgive her.”
“You’re looking for someone to blame when it's no-one's fault, Leo.”
Napoleon shrugged. “Maybe I am.” He reached his hand out. “Another cigar would make me feel a hell of a lot better about it.”
Jacinto smiled and tossed him another.
“You need to get away from here,” Napoleon said after a long pause.
“What do you mean?” Jacinto picked up another cigar for himself.
“What I said. Away, as in not staying in Crys-T. A change of scenery would do you some good, maybe somewhere like Barbados, with the sunshine, or Hawaii, somewhere where you can surf again, you used to be into all that ocean-hippie bullshit.” He put the cigar to his lips and lit it.
Jacinto raised his eyebrows. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything like that.”
Napoleon let out a laugh. “You were probably shit anyway, you practically lived on the beach and you never even tied a boat knot yourself.”
“You don’t need a boat to surf, you idiot, you just paddled in and rode the wave back.”
“Yeah, but you must have needed a boat at some point. Fishing? Travelling somewhere? Something?”
The memories brought on an almost wistful quality to Jacinto’s face. “All you needed was your board.”
Napoleon rolled his eyes. “Whatever. My point is that sitting there sighing isn’t going to help your situation. You need to forget about it.” He tossed back the lighter. “You and Rei, it isn’t going to happen. Maybe you should try moving on.”
Jacinto smiled at the impossibility of the suggestion. “I could offer you the same advice.”
Napoleon blew out a puff of smoke and waved the cigar in his hand from side to side. “Can’t do that. The difference with me is that I'm already committed. I made that promise to stick with her, you know? Through everything.”
Jacinto decided to avoid mentioning that Napoleon had also vowed to stay faithful.
“But you,” Napoleon pointed with his cigar hand, “you’re free and single. You can keep looking.”
“For what? The love of my life?” His lips curled into a sneer.
Napoleon titled his head slightly and rubbed his forehead with his index and middle finger. “Maybe you’ll find another, if you try hard enough.”
“I don’t think that’s how it’s meant to work.”
“Says who?”
Jacinto huffed. “And then what? Get married? Outlive her and the kids?”
Napoleon didn’t rise to the bait. “Then don’t settle. Fuck a girl a night if you really want, just stop weighing yourself down when you don’t have to.”
“The way I feel isn’t exactly a choice, Leo.”
Napoleon gave a sigh of his own. “Maybe love isn’t designed to be forever.” He stood up and moved towards the window. “You mind if I...”
“Sure.” Jacinto reached into one of the other desk drawers and pulled out a key. “Here.” he said as he tossed it over.
Napoleon gave a small laugh. “You still keep your window locked? You think someone’s stupid enough to break into the main palace of Crystal Tokyo?”
Jacinto took in a puff of his cigar, leaving it hanging in his mouth as he spoke. “Old habits, I suppose.”
Once he’d turned the lock and opened the window as wide as it would go, Napoleon leaned out, resting his elbows on the ledge and taking in a deep breath. “I love the night air.”
“I’m not loving the view of your ass.”
Napoleon ignored him. “Look at this fucking city.” He drew in another deep puff of his cigar, exhaling slowly and watching as the air currents played with it, twisting it away. “Millions and millions of little lights flashing from here to beyond the horizon - blue, red, green, yellow, white. Like fucking stars.” He looked up. “Just like up there.” He turned back to look at Jacinto, a smile on his face. “Heaven and Earth, perfect mirrors of each other.”
Jacinto joined him by the window and took a glance up at the black abyss, the lights from the city blocking out the starlight. “We can’t see what you see.”
“More’s the pity for you, friend.”
They stopped talking for a while as they took in Crystal Tokyo by night. It was moving, alive and sprawled to beyond the line of sight. People walked and ran, worked and slept, created a pulse, an energy just like any other city from before the Freeze, except the difference here was that the two men could no longer consider themselves a part of that life. Instead they stood a step back, watching, ruling from on high, their unnatural life spans separating them from their own people.
“So you’re getting divorced in a few decades?” Jacinto finally asked, breaking their reverie.
“What?”
“Love isn’t eternal according to you.”
Napoleon shoved him. “Marriage is. Till death do us part, and since we’re living forever...”
“A hundred thousand years isn’t forever,” Jacinto corrected.
“Danny says that’s a conservative figure, actually. He says it could be up to five hundred thousand, maybe more.”
The thought didn’t sit well with Jacinto at all. “What does he know?”
“As much as Ami, definitely. Probably more.”
Jacinto smirked. “Care to bet on that?”
Napoleon frowned. “How do you expect to measure it?”
“See how many places have been named after them,” Jacinto said, pulling out a handheld from his pocket.
“Even I know that’s a shitty way of gathering evidence.”
Jacinto didn’t care. “Loser gets to be the one to tell Cairo that Mina totalled his Rolls two nights ago.”
“Fuck off!” Napoleon’s eyes were wide with shock at the revelation. “The two thousand and three Phantom?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you fucking serious?!”
Jacinto was laughing as he nodded his head.
“How hasn’t he noticed yet?”
“She covered it with a dust shield,” he said as he took in another puff, “and he’s been busy.”
“How the hell did she manage to crash it?” Napoleon was still in disbelief. “We have fucking auto-pilot and invisible shields dividing fucking lanes! We have compu-stoppers and speed reducers and monitors on every fucking corner! For fuck’s sake, blind people fucking drive! Crashing a car nowadays is nearly fucking impossible. Did something break down?”
“She was coming out of a club completely shit-faced, apparently,” Jacinto said, still smiling.
“What’s new?”
“I’ve got the surveillance video if you want to look at it later. Once she told me what happened I had to see it for myself.”
“Is it hilarious?”
“Yes. She indicated left to change lanes, the invis opened up to let her through, and for no reason what so ever, she swerved right instead. Drove right into the invis that separated the road from the pavement. The force was so strong part of the car crashed through and knocked over a lightpost.”
Napoleon shook his head. “She couldn’t drive a car back then, she definitely can’t drive one now. What the fuck was she doing setting it to manual? That’s for emergencies only. She should have auto-piloted.”
“That’s what I told her.”
“And what did she say?”
“That we have privileges and she felt like using them.”
Napoleon had to laugh at that. “Fucking Mina. That girl’s got balls.”
“Bullshit she does. She’s laid it on me to tell Cairo that a car, his car, worth fourteen million is now a pile of shitty scrap metal and burnt leather.”
“Ah fuck! The real fucking leather!” Napoleon had forgotten about that. Killing animals for food or their hides had been banned as soon as cloning technology had advanced enough to make suitable meat and hide substitutes. Neither were ever quite as good as the originals though, and any products leftover from before the Freeze which contained the latter tended to skyrocket in value. “Let’s change the fucking subject before I actually get depressed.”
Jacinto smiled and flicked through his handheld. “There are...” he tapped a few things before he came up with an answer, “seventy eight thousand, five hundred and sixty three locations, buildings, institutions and businesses named after either ‘Daniel Zephyr’ or ‘Zoisite’.”
“Is that global?”
“What do you think? And now,” he tapped on his handheld again and then suddenly smiled. “Fuck yes!” he said, shoving the mini-computer into Napoleon’s face. “One hundred and sixty four thousand nine hundred and ninety eight for Ami Zephyr, and that’s not even looking at the name ‘Mercury’.”
“All it shows is that she’s more popular than he is.” Napoleon was pissed off now that he had lost. “It doesn’t make her smarter.”
“You’re telling Cairo about his car.”
“Fuck no. It was a shitty bet and I still think I’m right.”
Jacinto shrugged. “Maybe you are, but you agreed to the rules. You’re not getting out of it, you’re honour bound.”
“Fuck you,” Napoleon muttered before throwing his head back and silently cursing his own stupidity. Cairo was going to be beyond furious when he told him, and he was going to have to bear the brunt of the initial wrath. He considered telling him in a public place so he couldn’t destroy anything, but then abandoned the idea deciding that it wouldn’t matter anyway. Cairo could be an unusually patient man. He had an uncanny ability to contain his rage until he felt it was appropriate to release it, waiting, letting it build until he decided it was the right time to let loose on some poor, unsuspecting victim - and that poor, unsuspecting victim would inevitably be the messenger, i.e. him, since there was no way Cairo would go near Mina, especially not to yell at her. He started contemplating how he could convince Endymion to do it instead.
“So love isn’t eternal?” Jacinto asked, going back to their previous topic of conversation. “How does that work? It lasts for long enough to help the average person procreate and then what? It dies when they do? How long do you think that is? Fifty years? A century? And if we live longer than the average lifespan, what does it do then? Disappear? You think love can do that? Just disappear because it’s time has run out?”
“I fucking hope so, between your constant pining and my wife’s descent into becoming an emotionless and completely unreachable ghost, I don’t see the fucking point. It’s just suffering. I’m sick of fucking suffering, aren’t you?”
“We all are.”
“Yeah, no shit. Cairo may look like he’s a fucking machine, but he feels the same. I can see it in his eyes. He wishes he could stop loving her more than anything else on this Earth.”
The corners of Jacinto’s mouth lifted slightly. “Well now we know she’s not as over him as she makes people think she is. As if that wasn’t obvious anyway.”
“She didn’t have to crash the fucking Phantom to do it, though.”
“No.”
“Fucking Mina and her driving.” Napoleon shook his head. “What a waste.”
“Her or the car?”
“Both, I suppose. The kicker is he’d probably take her back. No matter what she does to him, if he thought she was serious, he’d accept her back, no questions.”
“Who fucking wouldn’t?”
“I wouldn’t.” Napoleon shook his head with disgust. He stopped when he saw that Jacinto was looking at him like a crazy person. “Ok, maybe I would. She is the most fuckable woman on the planet.”
“No shit.”
“Yeah, there’s no denying that, but she’s the worst kind of woman.”
“We all have our opinions.”
“I mean it as a fact.”
Jacinto was curious how Napoleon was going to explain his ludicrous statement. “How do you figure?”
“She thinks she has more problems than anyone else, for one, and she carries them around with her. She probably thinks she’s better than us for what she does and at the same time she doesn’t think she’s good enough, and that’s just for starters. The weight on her shoulders has destroyed her. She’s broken goods, Jace.”
Jacinto let out a laugh. “What woman isn’t?” He wasn't learning anything he didn’t already know.
“Yeah well, this one intentionally fucks with you just to push you away, but she’s always hoping that you’ll come back for more. In fact, she’s fucking counting on it, and you noticed any time Cairo did, he came out of it a little bit closer to being the cold bastard he was back in the Silver Millennium. That woman’s not worth the mental anguish she causes, I don’t care how bendy she is or how wonderful a person she used to be.”
Part 2 is here