#i was like… who is she?? so i kept original flavor sophie. but KNOW that i did consider these things

[munchiezxx]

wanted to take it back to the beginning for the finale** 🥰 i don’t know if the cathedral apartment was actually this nice but i like to imagine it this way.

**clearly it was optimistic of me to believe i could get it done before the finale. i actually almost changed it to moreau instead of evelyn afterwards, but looook at them they’re so innocent 😭

[solynaceawrites]

Wires [5]: Marie Walters

Rating: Mature Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death Categories: F/F, F/M Fandom: Devil May Cry Relationships: Dante/Original Female Character(s), Implied Nero/Kyrie, Implied Vergil/Original Female Character(s), Implied Lady/Trish, Dante/Lirael Thorne, Dante/Lir Characters: Dante, Morrison, Nero, Original Female Character(s), Lirael Thorne, Lir Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Violence, Gore, Dark, Horror, Supernatural Elements, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Serial Killers, Angst, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut Summary: In Red Grave City, a serial killer stalks the streets. Lirael Thorne, recently transferred from Fortuna and looking for an escape from her past, winds up on his trail. Hunting him with her veteran partner, Dante Redgrave, they try to piece together the wires that bind the three of them together. In a race to catch him before he leaves more victims in his wake, the things thought buried will come to the surface, tearing lives and comfort apart.

»»————-　⚜　————-««

“A void in my chest was beginning to fill with anger. Quiet, defeated anger that guaranteed me the right to my hurt, that believed no one could possibly understand that hurt.” —Rachel Sontag

»»————-　⚜　————-««

There’s a particularly gruesome quality to death in the daylight. It’s a stark reminder that everyone will eventually die, a brush with human mortality that leaves those who see it uncomfortable, and the fact that the sun now is hidden by clouds and rain does nothing to lessen the effect. The body is located in an open expanse next to a jogging path, tucked neatly underneath a statue of an angel in prayer; all around the scene, yellow tape is strung from tree to tree to create a barrier that keeps the gathering of curious onlookers at bay, even if does nothing to stop them from craning their necks, their whispers drowned out by the patter of water on leaves and grass. Lir takes in everything else: the blood, the slick, dark asphalt of the trail, the cops in jackets with Forensics emblazoned on the back picking carefully through the debris. So much for good forensics, she thinks bitterly, though he’s never left us much to begin with.

At her side, Dante stands with his hands in his coat pockets, his expression frustrated and thoughtful. “Couldn’t have picked a better day,” he says tightly. “We’ll be lucky to get anythin’ off of her now.”

Lir nods in agreement. Back up at the top of the hill, a cruiser is idling at the curb with an officer standing by the back door and a man seated within, his face drawn and miserable. “Witness?”

“Dunno. We’ll have to ask.” He cranes his neck, then shouts, “Simmons!”

The young officer walks over hesitantly, his wide eyes darting from Dante’s face to the body and back again. Lir remembers how upset he’d been by the first victim and feels a mixture of pity and annoyance; Homicide is always tough on rookies, but if his stomach is truly this weak, he’d be better off in another department. “Yessir?”

Dante gestures to the statue. “You gonna fill us in?”

“Oh! Right. Sorry, sir.” Simmons fumbles a notepad from his belt and flips it open. She notices how he favors his right arm, which is slightly odd looking: like it was broken once and never quite healed correctly, leaving his hand resting a little crooked. He holds the notepad close to his body to keep it safe from the rain, which by now is a soft drizzle. “The call came in forty-five minutes ago. A woman walking her dog heard shouting and what she described as a girl begging, and she thought it was a domestic until someone said, and I quote, ‘I’m going to fucking kill you, you bitch.’ That’s when she phoned 9-1-1.”

It doesn’t sound at all like their killer, and her shoulders tighten with a new frustration. A distraction is the last thing they need now. “Where’s the witness?” Lir asks.

“Officer Galstin is getting her contact information, but I already took her statement,” Simmons responds, not meeting her eyes.

“And the guy in the cruiser?” she prompts.

Simmons glances over his shoulder. “He was here when Officer Galstin and I arrived. There’s blood all over him, and he had a knife on him, but he clammed up as soon as he saw us and tried to run. I caught him,” he adds with a bit of pride, and Lir looks down and notices the mud on the knees of his trousers. “We cuffed him and read him his rights, but he hasn’t said a word so far.”

Dante places his hands on his hips as he surveys the scene. “You rope everything off?”

“Yessir. Put up evidence markers on anything that looked interesting and contacted the M.E., too.”

Lir feels a begrudging speck of respect. “You did good, Simmons. Go see if Galstin is finished with the witness, then take our suspect back to the precinct and get him settled in interrogation.”

“Yes ma’am.” He flushes. “Sir.”

She waves off the mistake, then turns to Dante. “Doesn’t look like this is our guy.”

“Nope.”

“Morrison said it was.”

“That’s my fault,” Simmons interjects. “When I heard there was a killing in the park, I thought . . .”

“That’s alright, Simmons,” Dante says before Lir can think of a way to verbalize her frustration at the false alarm without ripping him a new asshole. “Rookie mistake. From here on out, get your facts before you come to any conclusions. Go help Galstin.”

The youth snaps a salute and hurries off, and Lir lets out a slow sigh. “Fuck,” she mutters.

“Don’t hold it against him,” Dante advises.

“I’m not,” she replies sharply. At his raised brow, she shrugs. “Like you said, rookie mistake. Doesn’t mean I can’t be pissed that someone else is out here killing women, now.”

He snorts. “At least this one was stupid enough to hang around.”

“Yeah.”

Together, they cross the clearing towards the statue and the body beneath. At first look, it’s easy enough to tell that the man who did this is not the same as the one who mutilated Sophie Marsons: this victim is clothed, her knitted scarf knotted around her throat, the front of her white shirt ripped and soaked with blood. Dante lets out a low whistle while Lir leans down, pulling a pair of gloves from her pocket and sliding them on. Trish is standing nearby, talking to a man with a camera, and Lir calls out, “You got your pictures?”

“Yup. Look to your heart’s content, Detective,” Trish replies.

Lir lifts the girl’s arms, first her right, then her left, taking in the deep cuts to her palms and fingers. Then she carefully tugs the scarf to reveal the livid bruises and claw-marks beneath before reaching into the purse on the ground next to the body. Inside is a wallet that she opens, pulling out the driver’s license. “Marie Walters.” Lir rocks back onto her heels. “She fought, and she fought hard. There are defensive wounds on her hands, and the ground is churned like she was kicking.”

Dante nods. “Reads like anger to me.”

“The scarf, though . . .” she murmurs. “Why start with strangulation, then end with stabbing?”

The leaves rustle as he crouches next to her. “You gotta think like a pissed off man, Lir. Look around you. What do you see?”

She bristles at the coaching. “A struggle.”

“Walk me through it.”

“I’m not a rookie, Dante.”

“Humor me.”

Huffing, she pushes herself to her feet and moves from marker to marker, talking as she walks. “They came down from the road. There are skid marks up here, which means one of them slipped in the mud and the other probably kept them from falling. Somewhere around here,” she pauses by a cone next to a tree, “they paused for a bit. There’s a half-smoked cigarette with lipstick on it that matches the shade she’s wearing, so she was either comfortable enough to enjoy a smoke with him or nervous enough that she needed one to calm down.”

“Right.” He stands, shoving his hands in his pockets. “So, somewhere between the cigarette and here is where the argument started. It gets heated, probably somethin’ she says going by what the witness heard. Strangling someone carries a lot of different meanings, but . . .”

“It’s a silencing tactic,” Lir finishes.

“Mm-hm. He didn’t want to hear what she had to say, and didn’t want anyone else to hear it, either. You know how long it takes someone to die from suffocation?”

The casual way he asks the question throws her so that she can’t formulate a reply other than, “No.”

“Five minutes until brain death occurs, if consistent pressure is held.” Dante looks around. “Public park, people walkin’ their dogs, he needs her quiet so no one knows what’s goin’ on. Now, even if you know what you’re doin’, strangling someone with a scarf ain’t easy. They’re in pain, fightin’ back, scratchin’ you and themselves bloody to get you to stop. You lose pressure for a second, the screamin’ starts.”

Lir’s stomach twists, shoving acid up her throat. “He didn’t know that. That’s why, when she wouldn’t stop struggling, he used the knife.”

“That’d be my guess.”

“What a bastard.” She takes off her gloves, shoving them into her pocket. “I say we go talk to the guy Galstin and Simmons pulled in.”

Dante nods in agreement. Together, they climb the rain-slick slope back up to the road, and Lir bemusedly uses the towel he offers to clean mud from her boots before getting into his car. The station is only a few blocks away, but morning rush traffic delays them so that what should have been a ten minute trip winds up taking closer to forty, and in that time Lir’s mind stews. It flips back and forth between Sophie and their newest victim, Marie Walters. Two women, murdered by men, brutalized and terrified and left to rot. Her nails bite into her palms as bile flavors her mouth. Are they connected? Or did this new bastard just get enough courage from seeing someone else do it that he decided to take a life, too? She’s so tense by the time they arrive at the precinct that her jaw aches from being clenched, and Lir forces herself to relax as they head inside to avoid any probing from her partner.

At the back of the building, down a hallway lit with bright white fluorescents, are the interrogation rooms. The three of them sit on the left-hand side, each with two doors: one for the observation room, one for holding suspects for questioning, separated by a wall and a pane of one-way glass with recording equipment set up to capture the conversations that occur within them. Lir and Dante step into Observation 1, where they find Morrison waiting, watching the man through the window.

“His name is Jonas Miller,” Morrison tells them. “No prior arrests, lives in Hyde Park with his wife, Lucille.”

Dante makes a low noise of surprise that mirrors how Lir feels. Hyde Park is one of the more affluent neighborhoods in Red Grave City, a gated community with manicured lawns, neat hedges, and large houses that start out with six figure mortgages. “He give you anything?” she asks, stepping closer to the glass.

“No. Hasn’t even asked for a lawyer.”

“Huh.” Miller certainly looks like he could afford one without a problem. Even from here, she knows that the watch on his wrist is a Rolex, that the shoes on his feet are too nice to be anything other than genuine leather, probably Gucci. “I’ll take him.”

“You?” Dante doesn’t sound angry, just startled. “Why?”

Lir is already halfway out of the door. “Because he killed a woman. Being questioned by one is going to throw him off.”

The door shuts off his answer. She pauses for a moment outside of Interrogation 1 to put her thoughts in order and breathe deeply to fight off the anger that’s been getting sharper all morning, since she first spotted that guy in the alley where Sophie died. Then she opens the door and steps inside. 

Miller doesn’t look up as she takes the seat across from him and pulls out a notepad and a pen. His eyes remain downcast, focused on his hands, and Lir takes him in. His hair is mussed, his eyes bruised and bloodshot, and there are deep scratches in the tanned skin of his face, neck, and forearms. His shirt is too dark for her to tell if there’s blood on it, and if there was any on his hands, he’d been allowed to wash it off, a fact that makes her frown even as she takes the cap off of her pen and writes the date and time at the top of the paper. “Jonas Miller,” she says. He flinches. “Want to tell me what happened this morning?”

“Nothing,” he mumbles. “I don’t know why I’m here.”

Her fingers tighten on her pen. “You were found in Tellula Park with the body of Marie Walters. Officers Simmons and Galstin both stated that you ran from the scene with a knife in your hand.” Miller says nothing. “If we test that knife, do you think it will match the wounds on Marie Walters?”

Slowly, seeming dazed, he shakes his head. “I didn’t touch her.”

He’s lying, a voice whispers. The hair on the back of her neck stands on end at the sound of it, furious and grieving and not at all her own, and she takes a slow breath and counts to ten until the gray at the edges of her vision recedes. “We have a witness, Mr. Miller, one who will be able to identify your voice threatening to kill someone, we have your knife, which will match Marie Walters, and, going from the state of your face, there’s going to be enough skin under her nails to crucify you in court. If you cooperate with me, there’s a chance that the D.A. will work with you. If you don’t, then whatever it is you’re hiding is going to be blasted in the news. Do you understand?”

That gets his attention. He stares at her, his eyes wild, and stammers, “My wife, I-I have to get home to my wife—”

“I’m very sure Marie Walters would have liked to go home, Mr. Miller,” she says coldly.

“My wife is—”

“Why did you kill Marie Walters, Mr. Miller?”

“I never—”

“Did she threaten you, Mr. Miller?” Lir knows she should stop, that anything she gets out of this confession is going to be shit if she goads him any further, but, fuck, he’d been Mirandized and hasn’t asked for a lawyer, and it feels good to see him squirm. “According to her license, she was five foot five and weighed one-twenty. She was half your size, a college girl, so I’m struggling to see how she could have been so dangerous that you stabbed her eighteen times and strangled her with a scarf. What did she do to piss you off, Mr. Miller? What could a girl like that have possibly—”

“She lied to me!” he shouts, slamming his hands on the table. Lir refuses to let that frighten her, because there’s a gun at her hip and a knife in her boot, and he’d be an idiot to come after a cop with all the trouble he’s already about to get himself into. “She swore that she was on the pill, that she didn’t want anything other than a-a partner, and then she called me and said she was pregnant and demanded I leave my wife or she’d tell, and I . . . I . . .” He tapers off, hiding his face in his hands. “I just wanted her to shut up. Just once. She was such a bitch, always mouthing off, I just wanted her to shut the hell up for once.”

“So you killed her,” Lir states flatly.

Whimpering, he nods. A wave of revulsion rises within her; here is a man who looks no older than forty, with a million-dollar house and a wife, wearing designer brands, a man who had decided that he wanted to get his dick wet with a girl half his age, who had killed that girl like she was gutter trash when the consequences of his actions came to fruition, and he’s snivelling like an infant. “Did it ever occur to you, Mr. Miller, that it takes two to cause a pregnancy?” Her voice is ice. “Or did you simply assume that you were too good for a condom?”

His head snaps up, his mouth agape with shock. “What—”

“This is how it reads to me, and how it will read to a jury.” She pushes back her chair and stands. “You entered into a relationship with a college student, telling who knows how many lies to your wife. Did you promise Marie Walters that you loved her? That you would leave your wife for her? And then,” she continues, ignoring his sputtering, “when she, quite naturally, got pregnant—birth control fails, Mr. Miller, all the time—you killed not only her, but her unborn child, all because you were too much of a coward to deal with your actions. You are nothing more and nothing less than a repugnant, low-life, inexcusable—”

The door slams open, and Morrison steps inside, his face passive but his eyes furious. “Thank you, Detective. We’ve gotten what we need from him. The interview is now over.” To Miller, he says, “Officer Simmons will be along to book you while the D.A. decides which charges to press. Excuse us.”

Lir follows Morrison when he leaves, knowing that she’s fucked up but too wired to care. In the hall, Dante is waiting, and he gives a little shake of his head when he catches sight of whatever expression is on her face. Don’t, he mouths. 

Morrison turns on her. “Are you out of your mind, Detective Thorne? Do you want that man to walk free? Because that is the only reason I can think of to explain why you’d behave so irresponsibly.”

“I got the confession,” she starts.

“A confession that we’ll be lucky to get admitted,” Morrison snaps. “One look at that and whatever defense attorney Miller hires will petition to get it thrown out on the basis of coercion! You didn’t question him, Thorne, you rode his ass and degraded him, and we’re lucky that he was read his rights and denied an attorney, because those are the only things that might sway a judge into keeping the confession intact.”

“He killed her!” Her voice raises despite her attempts to keep it under control, and she sees Dante wince from the corner of her eye. “It wasn’t some accident. He took a knife with him, he fucked her and then he stabbed her eighteen goddamn times! And you think I rode him too hard?”

Morrison’s mouth twists. “You might want to reconsider your tone unless you want to be working vice from now on, Thorne.”

She opens her mouth, only for Dante to step forward, his hands raised placatingly. “Chief, it’s been a long day. Hell, a long weekend. Neither of us have slept more than four hours, we lost a suspect this morning, and we’re getting nowhere with Marsons. Thorne’s a damn good detective, but even good ones have bad moments from time to time.”

Morrison cuts his eyes from Dante to Lir. “That true, Thorne?”

As much as it humiliates her to do so, she takes the lifeline Dante has given her. “Yessir.”

“Fine.” Morrison studies her a moment longer before turning away. “Even if we lose the confession, forensics will get enough to nail him. You go home and rest. I don’t want to see you for twenty-four hours, understood? I’ll need that long just to clean up this mess.”

She nods, and he glances at her over his shoulder. “I expected better from you, Thorne.”

Then he’s gone, leaving her to wallow in the unpleasant heat of chastised embarrassment, swallowing thickly against the tears that prick her eyes. A hand grips her shoulder, but she refuses to look at Dante, merely shrugging when he says, “Let me give you a lift home,” wishing, not for the first time, that her father was still around to give her advice.

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 50

The past week has been an abominably wild ride. I’m in the U.S, and we have had entirely too many shooting recently.  Add to that the fact that our election season is starting to ramp up, and the vitriol is spewing at work.  I’m a very opinionated person when it comes to politics and human rights (this really shouldn’t be a surprise if you’ve followed this far), and I try to keep the majority of it out of this story and off this blog.  That said, I’m down for some discourse if any of you want to message me.

Moving to the actual story: This chapter gives a bit of insight into where the story is going next, plus some of the background stuff I always have cluttering up my head.  It always gives me good material to show the different personalities and skill sets of the main and secondary characters.  Overall, I really like how this chapter turned out.

And don’t worry - that difficult conversation is coming very soon.

I managed to compose myself by the time the men came into my sister’s public room, but only just.  I hardly noticed the jostling on the couch as Tyche refused to move from my side and allow Maverick and Conor to sandwich me in between them like usual.  She elbowed me to get my attention, and only then did I realize that she was still sitting next to me. Maverick on my other side, with Conor on the floor leaning against mine and Maverick’s legs.

Antoine looked so amused at the situation, I thought he might explode. When I arched an eyebrow at him, he just shook his head and settled into the one perfectly empty chair.  “So, the festival?” he ventured.

Thank you for the safe ground, I thought before responding. “Overall, huge success.  I still have to debrief with Alistair tomorrow, but preliminary reports are pretty good.  There was a minor kerfluffle with a vendor before everything got set up, but we got that resolved pretty tidily.  I think so, at least.”

Tyche shook her head. “I don’t recall any vendor issues.”

“Exactly,” I pointed out. “Originally, there was going to be a location that specialized in a certain pork product, and Alistair caught it when the vendor wanted to be stationed where the Jainist cuisine ended up being.”

“But that was between….” Maverick trailed off, horrified. Conor’s shoulders shook with laughter, resulting in getting a swat on both shoulders – one from the pilot, one from my sister.  “Dude, it’s not funny!  That’s just deliberately being rude.  You don’t put pork between two groups who have religious prohibitions against it!”

Conor held his hands up in surrender. “I’m laughing at the tongue-lashing our Sophie probably gave the poor sod, I swear!”

“Actually, I didn’t.” Four heads turned to stare at me in disbelief. “Seriously. It was so much worse than you’re thinking, but I managed not to chew anyone out… much.  Remember all the gourmet bacon that was everywhere at the festival?  That was the guy.  For whatever reason, the vendor and Simon thought there was nothing wrong with having a bacon-themed stall.”

“At the same event that was intended to help everyone recover from the attack on the ship by a certain terrorist group?” Antoine asked quietly, in a tone that I had learned meant he was boiling mad.

“Yep,” I popped the last consonant in emphasis.  “I called him, pointed out how tasteless it was, and we decided instead to let the other alcoves feature the wares. To his credit, it never even crossed his mind that it was a bad idea. He was focused on the flavor list, and the vendor was focused on showing off like everyone else was.”

He nodded thoughtfully as my sister spoke. “So, the bacon gets out there, in the best possible way, without anyone being distracted by the connotation.”

“Pretty much. And, honestly? I think that particular vendor got better coverage than anyone else at the event… that stuff was everywhere.  Maple and bacon donuts, chocolates with candied bacon, on burgers, wrapped around seafood, you name it.”

“And that was the only vendor issue?” she asked.

I nodded, before switching gears. “Now, I want to hear about the low-stim portion of the event.  I have the official reports from everyone, and Alistair is going to give the highlights tomorrow, but I want to get an idea from you three how it plays against the regular session.”  Automatically, I started playing with Conor’s hair, just because it was by my hand. I had no idea how many times I had done that in the past, but I was very conscious of it right now.

Maverick spoke up, snapping me out of my distracted thoughts. “Well, it was a lot calmer, better lit, pretty much as intended.  With a very few exceptions, the vendors were much more relaxed during the low-stimulus session, too. I think that had a positive impact on the attendees, since they felt less like a bother.”

“There was definitely less resistance from the vendors in regards to food preferences in the earlier portion,” Antoine added.  “In the first session, when presented with a list of foods that were not an option, they largely cooperated. However, when we went back, this dropped by an estimated thirty percent.”

“That’s disappointing,” I muttered.

Maverick reached over to squeeze my hand gently. “Hey, on the plus side, the Japanese vendor kept the natto covered the entire time.”

“That was surprisingly popular,” my sister pointed out.  “Probably the novelty, from what you two told me about it. We may need to be on the lookout for natto-eating challenges in the near future.”

I shook with revulsion before composing myself. “To be fair, there are people who do actually like it, and it’s supposed to be very nutritious.  Don’t let our bias stop you from trying it. Just… please don’t do it when either of us is around?”

Conor took that chance to jump into the conversation. “Any of the typical disturbances you would see from a big event like that? Fights, drunk and disorderlies, that kind of thing?”

“I haven’t heard anything,” I responded cautiously. “And the alcohol was limited to two drinks per attendee, non-transferable.  Even at The Undine, the drinks were low or no content after each person had their allotment.  Xiomara will have the exact data, though.”

“Oh!” Tyche grabbed my arm for attention. “The quiet rooms? Huge success. I ducked in several of them both times I was there, and even toward the end of the festival, people were really respectful of them. Any groups were small, and they kept their voices at a whisper or a very low – “ She waved her hand at the word she was looking for. “Mutter. Not mutter. The other one. But that, yeah.”

Antoine chuckled at her excitement. “Yes, the attendees were keeping the noise to a minimum, as she says. It felt very much like walking into a library. You may receive some requests to keep the rooms in place, Sophia.”

Regretfully, I shook my head.  “I wish we could, but the majority of the space we used for the festival was only loaned to us by people who actually live there.  If those people want to keep the rooms as they are, they are more than welcome to the free re-decorating, but those are still private residences.  In fact, most of the people have already moved back in.” A collective groan came from everyone in the room, Conor going so far as to bury his face in my knee out of disappointment. “The best I can do is offer the design plans freely to everyone on the Ark, and I can talk to the Council about the demand for spaces like that. Maybe we can set up a few small libraries or botanical gardens throughout the ship, if Miys is okay with it.”

“I think the botanical gardens will go over well,” Conor offered, glancing up. “Noah is fond of air-cleaning plants, it turns out.  Calls them little trooplings.”  When Maverick furrowed his brows so hard it looked like it hurt, our resident pseudo-botanist clarified. “Hujylsogox are mycogenetic, which means they evolved from fungus-like lifeforms.  Mushrooms grow in colonies, clusters, and troops.  The word’s probably not the same, but the closest the translators can get to the concept of a baby Hujylsogox is ‘troopling’.”

“But why would Miys compare plants to baby-thems?” Maverick asked, glancing around for explanation.  Tyche, Antoine, and I just stared at Conor, waiting for an explanation.

With a sigh, he continued. “Noah – or Miys – absorbs nutrients and sustenance from the air, constantly.  It has to be supplemented with rations, sure, but it’s a function they can’t control.  Miys jokes about not having a sense of smell, but they can definitely tell how clean the air is, and they’re sensitive to caustic fumes.”

“Just like the plants,” Tyche ventured.

He nodded. “It’s really similar. The plants are a bit less sensitive to things like fumes from spicy foods, though.”  Tyche and I flushed at the reminder of the time we ran Miys out of my quarters while making dinner.  Antoine smiled, but Conor roared with laughter and told the story to Maverick.

When he finished, Tyche jumped in. “In our defense, we didn’t know the smell of the chili sauce reducing would give Noah actual burns.  The fumes or vapor, or whatever you want to call it, had run a couple people off, but Noah told us before that they don’t have noses, so it never occurred to us that it would be a problem.”

“Nothing in what you just said argues against the fact that you two were deliberately cooking and eating something so spicy that people ran away and one needed treatment for burns,” Maverick pointed out.

“Miys pointed that out, too,” I admitted. “Okay, new topic, before I die of embarrassment. Festival is out of the way, so the gravity adjustment is scheduled for two days from now.”

Antoine leaned forward with laser-focus. “We need to expect increased anxiety and paranoia, along with some fatigue.”

Tyche and I nodded, while Maverick made a noise of agreement. Conor glanced around at all of us. “Okay, superbrains, tell the dumb lug what I’m not understanding here.”

I rolled my eyes at the self-assigned appellation - he had just given us a  small lecture on the similarities between Miys biology and that of a potted plant -  and gestured for Antoine, following the evening’s convention of deferring to the people with the most expertise. He nodded and explained, “The increase in gravity will only be five-percent of Earth gravity, putting the entire ship at 1.1. It is not enough for anyone to really notice, beyond some minor discomfort, as everyone has already adjusted to the initial increase to 1.05. However, our brains know something is ‘not right’ for lack of a better term.  Not necessarily wrong or dangerous, but not the same and not what we have grown to consider normal, similar to if everything was moved two centimeters to the left – just because you cannot tell exactly what changed, it does not mean you cannot tell something has changed.  This results in increased anxiety and sometimes paranoia.”

Conor nodded as it started to make sense to him. “Even knowing ahead of time that the gravity will be adjusting, it can still happen?”

I snorted violently. “Never expect people to read all their mail.”

“Good point,” he conceded.  “How many total adjustments to gravity are we going to have?”

“Ten, total,” Tyche answered as she flicked open her data pad, shrugging apologetically. “I know, I know. Family rule: no data pads on dinner nights. But I don’t have all the information memorized, and this is a good discussion.”  Scrolling through the information, she stopped and mimed tapping a screen. “Kepler 442b has half-again as much gravity as Earth, which is more than our scientists Before had initially estimated.  Its star is slightly bluer than Sol, but not quite as bright. It isn’t tidally locked, but just barely.  A year there is about three Terran months, with the days half that long. It’s also colder than Earth, due to its star being smaller, but not by much once you compensate for Terran global warming and Kepler 442b having a denser atmosphere.” She scowled up at me. “We need to name our new home, you know. I thought you were going to work on that.”

“I’ve had a lot on my plate,” I objected before sighing and slouching against the back of her couch. “But you’re right. We need to get on that. I want to do an Ark-wide poll, but I need to set the criteria and have it approved by the Council, first. Nobody actually wants to name our second chance ‘Colony McPlanetface’, and I would like to weed out the multitudinous variations of home or dirt.”

“Have people submitting ideas include a justification,” Maverick pointed out. “That will weed out a lot of people who aren’t serious, if they have to include an essay.”

I grinned widely at him, squeezing his arm in affection. “That’s a great idea, actually.  Granted, I don’t look forward to reading all those essays – even if a single-digit percent of people submit, that’s still hundreds – but at least it will limit the submissions that are intended as a joke.”  I thought for a moment. “And… if we include the criteria that the name cannot be certain words or versions of certain words, Zach can probably write a program to weed those out, as well.”  I turned to my sister and Antoine, nudging Conor gently.

“Start thinking of names we don’t want to see.  I’ll send a message to the Council tomorrow asking for their input and running the idea by them tentatively.  And whoever is keeping track, add Goldilocks to that list.  It was unoriginal to start with, and now it just feels cursed.”

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[rebaobsessivelywrites]

Lies an Ties that Bind Us

You can find this series here on AO3.

Fandom: Leverage (TV) and Highlander: the Series (TV)

Series Description: A series that will be five or more one-shots about one or more of the Leverage members being immortal. They will stand alone.

Series Warnings: cannon-typical violence, temporary character death, character death, original characters

One-shot word count: 6,328

One-shot warnings: nothing I can think of... (no OCs seen in this one)

Summary: Nate and Jim have been friends for a very long time. They just don't always know how to show it. Now, they're each neck deep in their own form of trouble, but they can only help each other so much.

Please read the fic! Masks and Pasts that Haunt Us, more to come, master list. And let me know if you want to be tagged.

Nate jogged through the lobby of the impressive sky scraper, trusting Eliot to handle the terrorist goons, focused on a single goal. A steady buzz rattled just behind his eyes, guiding him as he exited a final door to the sight of a black sedan pulling away with purpose. As far as Nate was concerned, the car could be a minivan and he’d still know that it was that car that he needed to follow.

Thinking on his feet, Nate slipped past the valet and into a newly parked, and rather elegant, red sports car. It would do. Once he was speeding down the road, he spared a thought for the con.

“Ok, we’re done; everyone out,” Nate ordered, certain his com would pick it up, “Hardison, Eliot’s here— ground floor —find him, free Sophie. Everyone’s in the extraction points.”

“Woah, woah, Eliot’s here?” Hardison’s voice echoed in his ear.

“Yeah, just follow the trail of terrorists, you won’t miss him,” the mastermind assured his hacker.

“Where you going?” the hacker moved on to the next issue.

Nate allowed himself a shadow of a smile, “I’m going after Sterling.”

“Where’s he going?” Hardison persisted.

“Well, he’s escaping with the target.”

“How’d Sterling get the weight?” Parker pitched in, sounding out of breath.

“No. The real target.” Satisfied his team had the situation under control, he didn’t wait for any sort of response. He simply pulled his earpiece out with one hand a stuffed it in his pocket, before refocusing on the task at hand and the humming in his head. He didn’t need an audience for this.

There. A black sedan—that was the one. Nate hit the gas, in hot pursuit. As though sensing his renewed pursuit, the sedan whirled around a corner. Unperturbed, the mastermind hit the break and spun the wheel, hurling around the corner at break-neck speed, tires screeching as they slid across the pavement underneath him. Ahead he could see the black sedan accelerating and swerving, paying no mind to the yellow lines. Tongue pressed against his teeth in concentration, Nate gunned the gas and shifted the stick, rapidly gaining in his (stolen) flashy red sports car.

The two cars toyed with each other, swerving back and forth as the black sedan repeatedly blocked the sports car from slipping past. Finally, though, Nate saw and opening and hit the gas with all he was worth, speeding past the larger car in a blur. For two heart beats Nate continued straight, before hitting the break with even more gusto than he had the gas, swerving to a stop directly in the path of the sedan. Calmly, the thief turned in his seat to observe his quarry grind to a stop mere feet from where he sat.

With a faint smirk gracing his lips, still riding high on adrenaline, Nate stepped from his car as the other driver mirrored his actions. The scowl on Sterling’s face was legendary. Nate could count on one hand the number of times he had seen this particular flavor of the sour man’s displeasure. See, this flavor was the most real and the most dangerous of them all.

“You going to leave without saying goodbye?” Nate poked, adjusting his suit jacket.

Sterling’s scowl deepened, darkening the harsh lines outlined on his face in the scorching sunlight. “Nate,” the man greeted his old friend with something just short of a growl. This was the most righteous of anger—the anger they only ever showed for family.

But, Nate being Nate, he had no sense of self-preservation (being immortal did that to you), and kept poking, “Honestly, Sterling. I was hoping we were done with this.”

“And what, exactly,” the Interpol agent enunciated in his ever so careful accent, “is ‘this’?”

“The lies, Jim, the lies,” the mastermind leaned back onto his stolen vehicle, easily mimicking relaxation and concealing the slight pang of hurt he hadn’t even known he had been harboring.

“I had to get my informant out,” Sterling argued, eyes narrowing slightly, “When Olivia’s mother died, she turned on Livingston— fed Interpol everything we needed.”

“Stop insulting me, Sterling,” the thief cut in, causing Sterling’s eyebrows to shoot up.  “I knew she was the informant as soon as I found the source of the buzz.” Nate paused and searched his friend’s face, “Did you really think I wouldn’t figure out she was your daughter?”

Sterling’s face was suddenly and completely blank. “You know that’s not true,” the other immortal murmured, uncharacteristically subdued.

Nate shook his head, his heart giving a twang in sympathy, “It’s true in every way that matters,” he argued just as softly.

Sterling said nothing, his face still painfully blank.

After a beat of silence, Nate sighed, “But, why? You used us, you manipulated the team. You lied to me. Again. Was it too soon to hope for honest friendship? Did last time even qualify?”

Sterling’s jaw ticked. “Would you have come to Dubai if I had told you?” he asked pointedly, trying to redirect the conversation.

“No. No, you know I would have, but that’s not what this is about, Jim.” Once again, Nate emphasized the name. This time, Sterling flinched. It was almost imperceptible, but it was there.

“No. I’m talking about before that,” Nate continued, “Back when we were last friends—this most recent time, when we worked together, drank together, watched each other’s backs….” Nate shut his eyes for a split second, “You had a wife and daughter, and I didn’t know. Why?”

“Because it was my fault they left,” Sterling offered, voice quiet once more, “And I knew it.”

Nate nodded in understanding. “They found out about the Game.” It wasn’t a question.

“Sharron thought it was safer they move on,” Sterling shrugged, “I didn’t argue.”

“Not even for Olivia?”

“She deserved to have a normal life, Nate. I wouldn’t take that from her.”

“What changed?” Nate asked with an honest curiosity, “Besides Livingston being dirty, that is.”

Sterling shrugged, “Sharron died; Olivia reached out.”

“And?” he pushed off the car to stand straight once more.

Sterling’s gaze snapped up to meet his. “And what?”

“We both know you’d need more than that, Greg,” Nate veiled the old barb against the MacGregor clan with a jovial tone.

“Don’t call me that,” he hissed and took a step forward, a brogue slipping into his voice as he continued, “I will’na allow you to insult ma’ clan ev’n now—”

“Easy, Jim,” Nate interrupted, “Just tell me what has you spooked.”

Sterling’s lips thinned.

Nate scowled, “I just want to help, you stubborn bastard! You have a new pre-immortal student—you can’t be looking over your shoulder and fielding challenges right now!”

“This does not concern you, Neil,” the other man growled, carefully enunciating once again.

Nate huffed angrily, “Be logical, Jim! You can’t—”

Their slowly escalating argument was effectively cut short by a car door opening and slamming shut.

Sterling whirled around, “No, get back in the car—”

“He didn’t have a choice! You can’t challenge him—he didn’t have a choice!” Olivia interjected, attempting to diffuse the situation she perceived, “It’s not safe here. I was in danger and he’s my dad. I don’t care what you people say; he’s my dad and I need him. What wouldn’t you do to save your kid?!”

“Olivia!” Sterling admonished her, likely knowing how hard that barb hit Nate, how it skewered him like a hot rod, bringing the all too recent death of Sam back to the fore-front of his awareness.

Olivia glared at her father, tears glistening in her eyes, “No! This isn’t ok, dad. You were just protecting me from Livingston and Maycher!”

“Charles Maycher?” Nate asked sharply. The man was a well-known headhunter who went after pre-Immortals, capturing, torturing, killing, and finally—sometimes after years—beheading them. The only reason he was still in the Game was because he had no honor, using guns and poison indiscriminately, and was unnaturally slippery and good at disappearing.

Olivia and Sterling’s reactions were telling; Olivia blanched, and Sterling instinctually moved closer to her.

Nate let out a colorful curse in old Irish Gaelic. “James bloody MacGregor,” he hissed, “I will not allow you to do this by yourself.”

“And I told you, Neil,” the other immortal hissed right back, “This does not concern you!”

“Of course this concerns me!” Nate snapped, “I will not allow my oldest friend to be stabbed in the back by a snake!”

“And how, exactly, would you explain it to you little team?” Sterling sneered.

Nate threw his hands up, “I’ll figure out something, Jim, just let me help you.”

“You don’t train new immortals.”

“I helped train you.”

“And you were a shit teacher.”

“Then… let me help provide protection.”

“No, Neil, you aren’t up for that—we both know you’re not.”

“Bullshit.”

“You won’t leave your team, and you know it.”

“I’ve left them before.”

“They won’t let you go.”

“I’ll make them.”

“You still wouldn’t be ready.”

“To hell I wouldn’t!”

“What about Sam?!”

Olivia’s eyes had gone wide, her eyes bouncing between the two immortals like she was watching a tennis match. As a deafening silence descended between the two, she took in a deep shocked breath.

Nate’s jaw was clenched tight and he was glaring a hole in his friend’s forehead, eyes beginning to moisten. Sterling swallowed hard, and carefully collected himself before continuing.

“Can you honestly tell me, Nate,” Sterling emphasized his friend’s current identity, “that you’d be ready to fully get back into the Game so soon after Sam died?”

Nate’s voice was flat, “Fine. You win.” He took a deep breath, regaining some of his fire, “But I still won’t let you do this by yourself.”

Sterling rolled his eyes. “What, exactly, do you suggest?”

“Call Mac.”

“What? I most certainly will not!”

Nate was not surprised by Sterling’s knee-jerk reaction. “I’m not arguing with you about this, Jim. Either you call MacLeod, or I will.”

Sterling narrowed his eyes. “Which one are you talking about?” he ventured cautiously.

Nate rolled his eyes, “Duncan.”

“No.”

“Jim…”

“No.”

“Dad…” Olivia surprised them both; they had forgotten she was there. “If this Duncan can help us, shouldn’t we ask?”

Sterling looked like he had sucked a lemon.

“Look, I know you and MacLeod have had problems for centuries, but I know for a fact that he considers you a friend. He’s a great teacher, and an even better swordsman. He can watch your back.”

Sterling clamped his eyes shut, and Nate was certain he had heard what was unspoken: because I can’t.

“Fine,” he growled, echoing Nate, “You win.” He opened his eyes and glared at his old friend, “Tell the Highlander Olivia and I are headed to Paris.”

“Thank you, Jim.”

“Save it, Byrne.”

Nate wrinkled his nose at that, but let it slide. “Listen, can you do one thing for me?”

“I thought I already was,” Sterling snarked back.

Nate stepped forward and held out a folded piece of paper. Sterling quirked and eyebrow, but accepted it. “What’s this?”

“It’s a name. Give me everything you got on him. Everything.”

Something in his voice must have tipped the other immortal off, because he narrowed his eyes in concern. “What sort of mess have you gotten yourself into, Neil?”

Nate gave a wry chuckle and turned to leave, “A mess that’s a great deal less permanent than yours. Watch your head, MacGregor.”

“Always, Byrne.” Sterling promised his friend’s retreating back, “Always.”

Nate didn’t hear; his mind was already on to the next problem. He needed to go wrangle his team back home and track down a highlander’s phone number. After that, well… then he’d worry about that name.

[biofunmy]

In Search of the Real Bouillabaisse, Marseille’s Gift to the Fish Lover

MARSEILLE, France — In this ancient port city on the Mediterranean, there is no escaping the dark, hot, earthy fish concoction known as bouillabaisse.

All around the Vieux Port, restaurants with multilingual menus lure tourists with the promise of an authentic taste of the city’s signature dish. One advertises in bright white lights a “bouillabaisse royale” with lobster on the side; another features a “petite” bouillabaisse at a bargain price. A third has created a “milkshake of bouillabaisse,” while yet another proposes a “bouillabaisse hamburger,” a fish fillet in a bun accompanied by fish soup and French fries.

Newsstands sell postcards bearing a recipe for bouillabaisse in French and English. Shops offer jars of concentrated bouillabaisse stock and prepared rouille, a sharp, garlicky mayonnaise with olive oil and a blend of saffron and other spices that is used to enliven the bouillabaisse broth.

In truth, few native Marseillaises eat bouillabaisse, and certainly only at home, never in a restaurant. Many snicker at those who come here and want the dish. The most inventive cuisine in the city these days, they say, is the pizza prepared on food trucks and the couscous served in North African restaurants.

Bouillabaisse sometimes seems as old-fashioned as coq au vin or blanquette de veau. Here, and all over France, it is often said you can no longer find a classic rendition of the dish, which is something between a soup and a stew.

Yet there is also a rumor that bouillabaisse survives, especially in this city, which is celebrating its food this year with an initiative called Marseille Provence Gastronomy 2019 that includes cooking lessons, dinner concerts, wine-tastings, art exhibits and markets. To mark the occasion, a group of elementary-school students painted two large outdoor “bouillabaisse” murals featuring the rockfish necessary for the dish.

So when I decided to seek out and taste the real thing, I came to Marseille.

The search wasn’t easy, as bouillabaisse is steeped in myths, tradition and gastronomic polemics.

The origin of the dish is the stuff of legends. One has it that Venus, the Roman goddess of love, invented bouillabaisse to put her husband, Vulcan, to sleep so she could be with her paramour Mars. Many food historians speculate that bouillabaisse is a descendant of kakavia, a traditional soup of the ancient Greeks, who colonized Marseille in about 600 B.C.

It developed over the centuries as a one-pot meal in which poor fishermen threw rockfish — several species of sea creatures, most of them ugly and at one time unsellable — fresh off the docks into a large iron caldron of boiling fish stock to feed the family. By the late 18th century, a version was served in restaurants.

In 1966, the New York Times food critic Craig Claiborne called bouillabaisse “a dish that is always good for controversy.” The debate over what constitutes a real bouillabaisse grew so fierce that a group of 11 local restaurateurs drew up the Marseille Bouillabaisse Charter in the 1980s, codifying the ingredients and preparation allowed.

Even now, there is no official governmental protection for the name bouillabaisse as there is for so many other French comestibles, from Champagne to Brie de Meaux.

Then there is downright trickery. Several years ago, an investigation by a French television channel revealed that many of the restaurants around the Vieux Port used processed ingredients and frozen fish of indeterminate origin.

On this visit, I stayed far away from the port area, where I had eaten my first, mediocre bouillabaisse years ago.

I also avoided the deconstructed, dressed-up and expensive interpretation at Gérald Passédat’s Michelin-starred restaurant Le Petit Nice, on the scraggly shoreline about two miles away. My Bouille Abaisse, as he calls it, consists of three courses: a raw shellfish starter, a selection of classic bite-size fish fillets covered in a light saffron-infused broth, and finally, a selection of deep-sea fish in a thick soup adorned with small crabs. With dessert, the price tag for the meal comes to 250 euros, about $280.

Marseille is a sprawling city that includes 111 neighborhoods called quartiers-villages, and I headed to one of them, the vacation spot Carry-le-Rouet, 20 miles northwest of the Vieux Port, to try what is reputed to be one of the best traditional versions in town.

Bouillabaisse was never meant to be served in restaurants on demand; the dish is too expensive and difficult to make for a restaurant to gamble on the chance that a customer might want it.

So I ordered it two days in advance from a popular restaurant. The setting was picture-perfect, an open-air balcony overlooking a small port full of pleasure boats. But the meal was disappointing — the broth was a pretty shade of orange, but tepid and too tomatoey. Its side dish of half a chewy lobster was certainly not authentic.

Success came when I turned to a friend who knows the area. Friends of his who live along the coast suggested another restaurant, and spoke to the chef, who only occasionally makes bouillabaisse but agreed to prepare it for us.

On a hot Sunday in June, I drove 40 minutes east along the coastal road to the small fishing hamlet Les Goudes, the farthest point in Marseille before you hit the hidden inlets known as calanques. There is no post office or bank, and the tiny Roman Catholic church is seldom open for services.

Clusters of small cottages, some of them no more than shacks, cling to the hillsides. Some were built in the days before building codes, and function with exposed electrical wiring. Many of the families who live here go back generations.

Here, the outdoor terrace of L’Esplaï du Grand Bar des Goudes is perched on the rocks overlooking a tiny fishing port; it is the place where native Marseillaises come for a long, languorous Sunday lunch.

The restaurant was filled with the smell of garlic and the sounds of loud chatter — even singing. (This is not Paris, where voices are kept low and soft.) From here, the clientele can see the main port, on the other side of the bay, where the big cruise ships dock.

The chef, Christophe Thullier, prepared his bouillabaisse the classic way. He made a stock using tiny scaled and gutted rockfish, fennel, tomatoes, a mixture of spices, olive oil and water. He boiled the stock furiously for 20 minutes until it thickened, then turned it down to a simmer before straining in a sieve.

At least five types of whole rockfish had marinated for several hours in white wine, olive oil, thyme, rosemary, saffron, paprika, turmeric and lots of garlic and saffron.

Part of the ritual of bouillabaisse is the presentation of the marinated fish before they are filleted and thrown into the simmering broth “à la minute” — at the last minute. The word bouillabaisse derives from the Provençal bouï-abaisso, meaning “when the pot boils, lower the fire.”

Eric Para, the restaurant’s co-owner, brought a huge platter of fish to the table, including Saint Pierre (John Dory); vive (weever), a small eel-like creature with poisonous spines; galinette (gurnard); grondin rouge (red gurnard), congre (conger eel), rouget (red mullet) and both red and lean white varieties of rascasse, an ugly, spiny sea creature known as scorpion fish and an absolute must for any bouillabaisse worth its name. (“Alone, it is not particularly good eating, but it is the soul of bouillabaisse,” wrote the great food writer Waverley Root.)

With an index finger, Mr. Para pulled up the poisonous spiny crest hidden inside the head of the vive. “If it pricks you, it can give you a fever,” he said.

“Can it kill you?” I asked.

“No, of course not!” he replied, his derisory tone suggesting that I must be an idiot.

The broth was served first, with slices of crisply toasted baguette, whole cloves of raw garlic and rouille. The tradition here is to rub raw garlic onto the toasts, spoon generous dollops of the rouille on them and float them in the broth. Then came a second course: the just-cooked fish fillets with some broth ladled over them.

The soup, opaque and mud-colored was heavy, viscous and gritty, with small bits of fish settling on the bottom of the bowl.

“This is not for the faint of heart,” one of the other diners said. “This is not a dish appreciated by the young.”

Mr. Para concurred. “It’s an acquired taste, especially when you make it the correct way,” he said. “Frankly, for a special meal at home, I prefer a côte de boeuf.”

He had the highest praise for Mr. Passédat of Le Petit Nice, who is known as the “godfather” of the yearlong food initiative in Marseille and the ultimate cheerleader for bouillabaisse. “He is the star of the region and an artist,” Mr. Para said. “We’re not artists here.”

Food will always be better at its place of origin, and bouillabaisse purists have always believed that there is a mystical connection between the dish and the city.

“I always feel that part of Marseille itself is cooked right into the bouillabaisse,” Julia Child said on her television show “The French Chef” in 1970. “You can somehow just taste the flavor, the color, the excitement of that old port.”

Perhaps that explains why, however hard it may be to find, bouillabaisse is likely to live on.

L’Esplaï du Grand Bar des Goudes, 29 Rue Désiré Pelaprat (Rue du Chasseur), Marseille, France; grandbardesgoudes.fr

Sophie Stuber contributed reporting.

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