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mortemoppetere · 8 months

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TIMING: last night LOCATION: a random dive bar PARTIES: @closingwaters & @mortemoppetere SUMMARY: teagan runs into emilio at a bar, and the two have a conversation. CONTENT: alcoholism, mentions of past parental death, sibling death, & child death

Teagan laid in bed, staring at the ceiling far longer than she’d meant to. Standing seemed daunting, for whatever reason. It wasn’t something the nix could entirely decipher on her own. Depression, maybe? Xóchitl had thrown that term around, along with anxiety and something, something, a traumatic disorder. It was stupid, really. All of it. Was the therapy even working? Was there even a point?

She didn’t ask to be born, to be dealt the hand she was given. But that was a horrible way to think, wasn’t it? Teagan thought so. The intricacies of that idea, the purpose of it if one were to truly think about it, was simply to blame something. Anything. To blame life for death and death for life. And that was as useful as blaming your lungs for needing breath. Fighting simple facts of life was futile.

Finally, after a few hours, Teagan tore herself away and made her way into town, hoping to find some sort of distraction to lay her worries down. A pub or dingy bar seemed like a good enough idea. There weren’t many people she thought she’d run into, and considering her options, Teagan warily pushed through a well-worn door. The building was dimly lit, an ambience of despair and hollowness covering every inch of shadow. Fitting enough, for how she felt, and with a humorless smile, Teagan sighed and planted herself next to a man who had his head laying on the bar. Poor sod, she thought, empathizing and seeing her own future in the way his body was positioned.

“Whiskey neat and…” The nix looked to the man next to her, making a concerned face. She jutted her chin his way and slid some money over. “Whatever this lad is having, please.”

His leg ached. It always did, of course, but there was something so much more intense about it now, something so much less manageable since Lucio’s voice rang through that empty apartment. It was like his uncle’s reappearance put him back to square one, like he was back in the streets of Etla with a limb too far gone to even pretend to hold up his weight. Emilio knew, on some level, that it was in his head. He might not have any kind of grasp on mental health, but he was smart enough to know that the old injury shouldn’t bother him more than usual without any new irritation of it. Unfortunately, knowing this didn’t do much for the ache.

But whiskey did.

He’d spent a lot of time in bars since that conversation with his uncle. For two days after, he hadn’t even come up for air. He’d slept in the same back room he’d stayed in when the goo first overtook his apartment building, downed shot after shot until he couldn’t think straight. It wasn’t a good thing. His friends had worried, had thought the worst, and he’d made no move to correct them until he’d sobered up enough to turn his damn phone on. A better man would have taken this as a warning sign, would have slowed down. But hadn’t Emilio proven, time and time again, that he wasn’t a better man? That he wasn’t even a good one?

The bar was comfortable. The buzz of alcohol swimming in his veins was better than the harsh light of sobriety. His head rested against the bar, and his leg still ached but he didn’t have to think about it as much when he had enough whiskey in his system. Someone settled into the barstool beside him and he tensed a little, but when they spoke, he relaxed more than he might have thought. He turned his head slightly, squinted up at Teagan before forcing himself into an upright position and turning towards the bar. Javier was working tonight; it was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because Emilio preferred a familiar face when he was like this, but a curse because…

“He’s having water,” the bartender said flatly.

“Whiskey,” Emilio corrected. “I’ll jump the bar and get it myself, pendejo, you know I will.” Javier rolled his eyes, turning his back to retrieve a pair of glasses. Emilio shifted, angling himself towards Teagan a little. “Hey,” he greeted with a brief nod. It was hard to know where he stood with Teagan. He doubted they’d ever like one another, but… he could get along with her, sometimes. For Arden’s sake. And for the free whiskey.

—

Teagan arched a brow at the bartender with a hint of amusement, finally hearing the stranger’s gruff voice. “Emilio?” Her face fell into surprise, and then slowly into vague discomfort. The two of them had been at each other’s throats from the beginning, only just recently finding some sort of common ground with the Parker incident. Lucky for both of them though, Teagan was feeling grateful and quite fond of the way Emilio had taken a finger from the hunter. As far as she was concerned, the slayer had more than earned a free drink, including the bottle she’d gotten him for Christmas.

“Didn’t expect to see anyone I knew, but I’m not upset about this.” With a soft grin, the nix looked to the bartender and slid the plastic money for both of their disposal. “Clear his tab and the rest of these beverages will be charged on this thing, eh?” She winked and slid her glass of whiskey over to Emilio while she waited for it to be replaced. “What’s got you all hangin’, mun? You look like shite. Which, I mean, is not unusual, but it’s…” Teagan chuckled lightly, gesturing vaguely at Emilio. “A bit worse than usual. Like there’s more…going on with ya.” Receiving her drink, she took a drink and sighed at the hum of warmth that settled her anxiety slightly. It was enough, and she smiled.

“No offense.”

She wasn’t upset, and there was some surprise at that. They’d reached something of an unsteady truce after their most recent conversation, maybe understood one another a little better than they had before, but Emilio half expected her to turn and leave the moment she saw him there. He wouldn’t have blamed her for it, really. After all, didn’t he know firsthand how jarring it could be to run into someone you knew when you weren’t expecting it? Granted, running into someone you knew lived in town was probably a little less surprising than running into the uncle you’d thought you’d killed two years prior, but… there was still something to be said for it. And for the way she still wanted to pay for his drink.

Javier took the credit card with a sigh, looking like he wanted to say something but stopping at the look Emilio shot him. His tab wasn’t small, but it wasn’t as if Teagan was the one footing the bill for that credit card. If some asshole who was stupid enough to get bound to a nymph for a credit card was going to pay for Emilio’s drinks, he wasn’t going to complain about it. “That’s nice of you to say,” he said dryly, tone dull but not devoid of the faintest hint of amusement. Javier put a glass down in front of him — thankfully one full of whiskey rather than water, likely because he knew Emilio would make good on his threat to jump the bar — and Emilio took it, swallowing half the liquid inside in one go.

Normally, he would have responded to Teagan’s statement with something vague. He wasn’t much of a talker, didn’t really care to share personal details of his life with much of anyone. Only a select few knew what he’d lost in Mexico, and while Teagan knew the basics, she still didn’t know all of it. Emilio was a private person… most of the time. But most of the time, he wasn’t quite as drunk as he had been since Lucio’s arrival back into his life, and Rhett’s exit from it. Alcohol had a tendency to loosen lips that couldn’t be denied. “My uncle is in town,” he said flatly, that humor gone from his voice now and replaced by a sharp bitterness.

—

There was something in the man’s eye as he mentioned his uncle that didn’t quite sit right with the fae, making her stomach sink and her nerves burn. Her instincts were rarely wrong, but they were forged in the fires of a past she could hardly let go of. Emilio had proven he was different, and going after another hunter had to count for something. Perhaps, Teagan thought, relying on those old instincts at that moment wasn’t the best course of action if she was going to venture towards a friendship with a man that cared for Arden, and her care for him. She could kill others. The ones not willing to see beings like Teagan as people. That seemed reasonable enough.

“Family is hard.” She began, sipping her whiskey for just a moment before downing the rest. If she was going to discuss a difficult topic, Teagan figured she should at least be a little inebriated. “Another.” She slid the glass back over to be filled. “Actually, make it two.” The bartender poured generously and she hissed slightly after finishing one of the glasses quickly. She wanted to save the other for sipping as a means to mediate herself. “Had a brother visit out of the blue a few months back. It’d been…” Teagan paused for a sip, savoring the slight warmth that settled in her belly. “Just about fifteen years since I seen ‘im after he told me to make a difficult choice.” She chuckled dryly, spinning her glasses slowly while she took a moment to breathe.

“What’s got you tampin’ ‘bout him? Arden always says talking helps.” A snort escaped her, “But do not tell her I think she’s right. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Family is hard. It felt like an understatement, but what other words were there to use? Emilio let out a quiet half-laugh, strangled and humorless. He thought of Rhett, of the look in his eye when he left in spite of Emilio’s pleas for him not to go. He thought of Ophelia, of the argument neither of them could ever seem to win no matter how many times they had it. He thought of Lucio, too. Of that unloaded gun, of the things he hadn’t wanted to hear, of the way he could still feel his knife slipping into his uncle’s gut years after he’d pulled it out. Was there a right way to do this sort of thing? Was there an easier way to love people? If there was, Emilio had never managed to find it. Love was always hard for him. It burned too hot and too long, it destroyed everything in its path like a forest fire. He’d never been much good at it.

“What’d you do about him? Your brother.” The situation didn’t sound the same. If anything, based on her vague description of events, Teagan’s position would have been closer to Lucio’s than Emilio’s. He hadn’t asked his uncle to leave, but he’d certainly ensured a lack of contact with that bloody knife, certainly hadn’t wanted the reappearance. He downed the rest of his drink and Javi, who was probably listening more than a bartender ought to, topped it off without a word. “Haven’t seen him in two years,” he commented. “Not since…” He trailed off, letting it hang. Teagan didn’t know the details; not many people did. But she knew he’d lost something, even if she didn’t know what. “He’s the reason it happened. The reason why I lost my…” He couldn’t say it. He swallowed another mouthful of whiskey, swallowed the word daughter along with it. “And now, he comes back. Says he made a mistake. Says… Says he did what he did for me, out of love for me. But that’s not — That can’t be what love is. Can it?” How much did Emilio know about love, really? He knew what it felt like for him, that raging fire of destruction and despair, but what did he know of being loved? His own mother hadn’t loved him. He knew that now, thanks to Lucio. If she’d loved him the way he’d loved his daughter, she wouldn’t have been making plans to kill him. So maybe Lucio did love him. Maybe he was the only one who ever had.

It was worse, somehow.

—

Teagan snorted, the alcohol making her inhibitions slip and her empathy rise with a flair of humor. “I attacked him.” What else should she have done? The boy she knew was now a man she didn’t recognize, and she’d been attacked only days prior. Her adrenaline and fear had such a vice grip on her that she didn’t realize the thrum beneath her skin was actually the cause of nearby kin. Blood kin, in fact. “I…I thought he was another hunter. Your brother had attacked me and I had gotten what I thought was a threatening call.” Taking a sip, Teagan hissed quietly at the way it burned along with the acid of regret in her throat. Not the best cocktail, but she supposed it was a small cost.

“Didn’t feel him. Just…attacked.” She shrugged, unaware of the tears brimming in her eyes. The sting of sorrow at her eyes and nose was completely numb due to the alcohol. “And now I don’t think I will ever get my family back. My damn anger. It-it blinded me.” Admitting her reignited rage after her talk with Nicole wasn’t a good idea. Even in her slip into inebriation, Teagan knew that. She wasn’t sure Emilio would understand despite their little truce at hand. Besides, he had enough to deal with having to see the very man who led to the slaughter of his family. Betrayal like that had to burn for eternity. Teagan wasn’t sure if that fire could be put out, although she hoped it could be. While the two of them could hardly get along, they both understood the depths of loss at an unimaginable degree. Emilio didn’t deserve that. Not even as a hunter. And especially because he had what most of his lot lacked. Morals.

“Love is…is relative, I suppose.” She thought of Arden and Burrow, how intense that love was, but different for each. “He tried to help you out of love, but made a horror out of stupidity. No forethought. It’s the worst combination, and I’m sorry you had to bear witness to that. That they had to pay the cost. None of you…” Teagan took a shaky breath, “None of you deserved that.”

Emilio let out a little huff, half a laugh and half something he couldn’t quite recognize. “Would have done the same,” he admitted. “Think he knew it, too. He spent about a week… feeling me out, I guess. Talked to my friends, told them he wanted to know my ‘state of mind.’” He waved a hand at the phrasing, sloppy and uncoordinated with the alcohol coursing through him. “Scared the shit out of them. Guess he figured out enough from them to know I wouldn’t want to hear what he had to say without something making sure I didn’t give him what I owed him. Had a gun on me the second I got home.” An unloaded gun, as it had turned out, though it had made no difference to Emilio at the time. He hadn’t known the gun was unloaded until after Lucio said his lot, until after the world had already ended. He thought he might have preferred the story with bullets in the gun. It would have been easier for him to make sense of that way.

Maybe this was something he and Teagan had in common. The anger that burned through everything, the way it was impossible to breathe around it sometimes. But her family wanted nothing to do with her now, and Emilio’s last remaining blood relative was the last person in the goddamn world he wanted to speak to. He looked down at the half empty glass on the table, lifted it to empty it entirely down his throat. He couldn’t offer her any kind of advice here, and even if he could, he doubted she’d want to hear it from him. Whatever truce they’d made for Arden’s sake, the facts remained the same. Emilio was a hunter, both in the ways he couldn’t help and in the ways he could. And Teagan couldn’t seem to give up her crusade to kill as many as she could. It put them at an impasse, every time.

Still, there were some things they could agree on. Emilio continued staring at that empty glass, watching the ice melt like he might find some answers in it, some peace. He knew he wouldn’t, of course. Some things were utterly impossible to obtain. “He tried to sacrifice one life for another,” he corrected. “It was never going to work. He should have known that.” He wondered if she believed what she was saying, that none of the Cortezes deserved what they’d gotten. He knew that if Rosa or Edgar or Juliana or his mother had lived, if they’d found their way to Wicked’s Rest, they likely would have found themselves on Teagan’s list of hunters to kill. His uncle was the reason his family was dead, but in another world, it could have just as easily been Teagan. He knew that. Somehow, he wished he didn’t. “People don’t get what they deserve. He didn’t. I stuck a knife in his gut, and he lived, anyway. It’s his fault it went the way it did, and he’s the only one who made it out. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that.”

—

Something softened inside of Teagan as Emilio admitted he would’ve reacted as she had. And at the same time, she winced, the realization they were conflicted with the same rage and desire to inflict pain on those they deemed deserving. “He felt you out?” She raised a brow, gesturing for another round of drinks. “Surprised he thought a tampin’ grump like you would have people close enough to ask about ya.” With a snort, the drinks tapped the wood and she slid Emilio’s over to him. “Mun of mine figured I got no one and just came a-runnin’.” There was a sting that came with that statement, a pain like a blade to her gut that caused her breath to shudder into her drink.

“Could’ve worked had he truly looked at the balance. The tides will always move. Gotta…wade them and…” Her words were failing, Teagan’s head too foggy and her tongue too slippery to keep her voice steady. “Water.” She requested, giving herself a moment to gather her thoughts. Emilio didn’t know what to do about the one man in his family who was alive to love him. Who’d weaponized his love and cost Emilio everything. Teagan wondered how different of a man he’d be had the slaughter not happened. Would the wrinkles on his forehead and between his brows be gone? His voice not so gruff? Would he still have the same morals he did right then? It didn’t matter, not really. He’d never get to know who that man was, and neither would his family. And by the sounds of it, Emilio didn’t want his uncle to know the man he is now.

Getting her water, the nix downed it in nearly one gulp, savoring the buzzing sensation for a few moments before looking back at the slayer. She had an idea. Maybe. Teagan wasn’t so sure how good it’d be. Being a bit hanging didn’t allow much for critical thinking, so she blurted out half a thought. “What if we got him outta here? Don’t know what to do with ‘im, so just kick him out. He can stay gone.” She paused, looking up as an idea finally reached her tongue with a confident and drunken smile. “With a promise!”

“Don’t think it was what he expected,” he admitted. He figured Lucio had expected him to have more acquaintances than friends; that was probably why he’d asked the questions to begin with. Friends might not give information away to strangers, but acquaintances were easier to fool. What was more, acquaintances were less likely to tell the person you’d been asking about that you were asking about them. Had Lucio expected every one of the people he’d approached to tell Emilio about the encounters immediately after they’d occurred? The detective doubted it. It hadn’t made much of a difference in the end — Lucio had approached Emilio on his terms instead of Emilio’s, just as he’d wanted to all along — but it was… touching, in a way, to know that people cared. “He wanted them to… be less loyal than they are, I guess. Figured I couldn’t, ah… get that kind of loyalty now.”

If he’d ever been able to inspire it to begin with. After all, his mother had felt no loyalty towards him, had she? She’d been prepared to kill him for her greater good, for the family name. His sister, too, had told on him only a few days after uncovering the truth. (Did it mean anything that she’d waited those few days? Emilio still couldn’t decide.) “Never been much good in the water,” he said. It was a metaphor, he knew; not physical tides. Still, he thought his statement was true. He didn’t know how to navigate his feelings any better than he’d know how to navigate a raging river or a stormy sea.

Javi approached with two glasses of water, setting one in front of Emilio with a stern expression that the detective rolled his eyes at. Still, he picked up the glass, took a swig. He missed the burn of the whiskey, missed the feel of it, but the water would make the headache he was bound to have in the morning a little less splitting. Not that his hangover would last long, anyway; perks of being a slayer, he figured. It was one he thought as necessary to their day to day life as their ability to sense the things they hunted. “Don’t think he wants to stay gone,” Emilio grumbled, taking another swig from his glass. “Don’t think…” But… wait. A promise? He considered it. “Could work. If he… I mean, he’d do it. Wouldn’t he? If he feels the way he says he feels.” Did his uncle love him enough to leave him? Did he want to know?

—

Loyalty was a trait that most sought out in others, the value of it precious, yet so easily broken or performed. Teagan had only recently experienced it for herself, after moving to Wicked’s Rest. As much as that town had destroyed and taken, it had given too. The fae smiled wanly at the thought, sighing a bit defeatedly when thoughts of her family crept in. She shook them away, flushing them fully with the rest of her drink. Teagan’s smile came easier then, her drifting mind latching onto thoughts of water and swimming. A laugh tumbled out of her, and with no inhibitions left in her, Teagan kindly pat Emilio’s shoulder with a drunken giggle.

“Arden was horrible in the water at first. Splashing around like she was lost. It was so un…natural.” She sipped, attempting to continue, but slurring her words too much to be understood. The bartender slid Teagan a glass of water, as if he could read her mind. She nodded with gratitude and hiccuped into the glass with a finger raised to Emilio to give her a moment. Requesting another glass of her domain, she swallowed every drop, smiling gleefully at a hunter, though she could only see a friend. “If she can learn, then…then you can too. Why don’t I give you a few lessons?” The metaphor wasn’t lost on her, even if her mind was slipping. Given what they’d both been through, how they both stoked the embers into a blaze, Teagan knew they both could stand to look in the mirror, at each other. “By the looks of it, I…I can learn a few things as well.”

A gentle quiet fell between them as surprise threw the nix into silence. Of all people, she didn’t expect Emilio to accept an idea of hers. The two had felt only violence or mere distaste from the moment they met. And yet, Teagan could feel a fondness building as the disgust of her similarity with a hunter slowly dissipated. Emilio wasn’t the worst hunter she’d met, after all. “Then we’ll do it. Get ‘im to promise, and poof! No more ewythr! No problem!” She banged her first triumphantly onto the bar, signaling for another round and leaning onto Emilio with a baggy side-hug. “Now, you can’t let me forget. Why don’t we plan…Oh…!” A tune began to play from an aged music machine, and despite not knowing the song, Teagan’s mind became absorbed into the melody. She swayed side to side, nearly losing her seat in the process.

“I know how to swim,” he clarified, a little defensive without really knowing why. “My mother taught me. If I hadn’t learned, there’d be…” He trailed off. There’d be no point to me, he’d wanted to say, but something stopped him short. It occurred to him that it was exactly the sort of phrasing Teddy would have chastised him for, the kind of thing Wynne would have argued. He liked to think Teagan would understand it better, but it was hard to know for sure. The problem most of his friends had with the way he spoke was the things it said about an upbringing they couldn’t understand, and while Teagan might understand the sentiment, she’d hate the cause. Maybe not for Emilio’s sake, the way his friends did, but because of how she felt about hunters as a whole.

(And, he thought, looking at the way she was looking at him now, maybe a little for Emilio’s sake, too.)

He looked down at his glass, shrugging. “I guess I never learned how to swim for fun,” he relented. “Maybe you can teach me that.” If Teagan was willing to admit that she had things to learn, maybe Emilio owed it to her to admit the same. And maybe she wasn’t the only one he owed something to. Teddy hadn’t been much for the water since the ritual with Levi, but Emilio knew they’d want to get back in it someday. They’d probably like him to go with them. And Wynne had already talked about their plans for swimming in lakes come summer. Emilio knew how to survive when tossed out into the middle of a large body of water, but maybe with Teagan’s help, he could do more than that. Maybe it could be good.

And it wasn’t her only good idea. The prospect of a promise bind removing Lucio from his life was one that made sense, one that solved his problem without asking him to kill someone for loving him. He couldn’t be around his uncle. He knew that. Seeing Lucio brought back all the memories of the massacre in a brutal downpour, threatened to drown him in grief that felt just as fresh now as it had back then. But for years, he’d hated himself for putting that knife in his uncle’s gut. For years, he’d thought of how irredeemable that act made him. If he could have freedom without guilt, shouldn’t he take the chance? “You wouldn’t… mind it?” That was part of what perplexed him. The idea that Teagan would do this willingly, that she’d help him without expectation of anything in return even when it explicitly meant letting a hunter she didn’t know walk free. Was that for Arden, too?

She leaned against him, and he let her, and that wouldn’t have been true a few months ago. He didn’t even jerk back from the sloppy side hug, though he stiffened a little instinctively under the embrace. “We should… be less drunk,” he said thoughtfully, though he took the new round she’d ordered and took a swig all the same. Teagan nearly slid from her stool, and Emilio grabbed the back of her shirt absently, balancing her so she wouldn’t fall. The music was unfamiliar, though not unpleasant. He hummed under his breath, chest aching a little with the action.

—

Maybe a few months ago, Teagan wouldn’t have considered Emilio worth a single breath. She wouldn’t even have considered speaking to him or being in the same room. And despite her distaste for hunters and her innate need to kill them, she found she couldn’t raise a knife to Emilio. Not anymore. Arden was right, and against all odds, Teagan accepted that fact and offered a chance at peace of mind for a man that killed people.

Because hell, she killed people too. Though, she wouldn’t consider hunters as such, and she knew how evil that made her, but couldn’t find it in her to care all that much about that fact. Revenge, while deadly and unsatisfying, was Teagan’s path, and she had to accept herself fully if she was going to properly engage on her deadly quest.

Or maybe that was the alcohol going to her head. Emilio was right. They should be less drunk.

“Oi, mun.” Teagan slurred as she squeezed Emilio’s shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t mind it now, and I ain’t gonny mind it in the mornin’.” She continued to bob her head absentmindedly to the music, appreciating the way Emilio kept her in her seat. It made something warm trickle into her chest, and Teagan didn’t know what to think about that or how to feel, but she kind of didn’t care. Unexpected friendships happened more often than not to her, and it was beginning to be something she enjoyed. Which, sounded so strange.

Teagan enjoyed Emilio?

“Let’s just…let’s just relax, eh?” Carefully, she slinked away into her seat and smiled. “Kinda nice to not have to calculate where to stab someone or deal with dread. You know,” Teagan snorted, “Besides mine.” The bartender gave her another glass of water, which she promptly consumed before regarding Emilio again. “Sound good, mun?”

Would she have made the offer if she were less drunk? Would he have accepted it if he were? It was impossible to know for sure. It often felt as though he and Teagan were on opposite sides of some holy war, both driven by similar events into similar methods of coping against opposite people. Emilio didn’t kill every vampire he saw, but he’d taken plenty of them out and would do the same for plenty more. Teagan would never give up on her vendetta against hunters, no matter how many times she tried to. There was every chance that they’d find themselves facing off directly someday… but it wouldn’t be today. Tonight, in this bar with an ungodly amount of alcohol singing in their veins, they were allies.

It wasn’t a bad thing to be.

“All right,” he agreed with a nod. “Yeah. We can talk about it more in the morning, then.” When they were less drunk, as he’d said they should be. When they could make a plan not colored by the whiskey and tequila and everything else flowing between them.

For the first time since Barry had warned him about the man asking questions around town, Emilio felt a little less hopeless. The tightness in his chest loosened just a little, the weight lessened. He could blame it on the alcohol, but… Teagan definitely had more to do with it than he’d admit sober.

“Relax,” he repeated with a quiet huff of a laugh. “Never been much good at that.” But maybe he could give it a try, anyway. Just this once.

#closingwaters #teagan: the only exception #wickedswriting

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