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Chapter Text

Christopher hadn’t always lived in his small apartment (or ‘the shoebox’ as Ricardo was fond of calling it). When he had first signed his contract he had been assigned an apartment with a room and space for everything. A living room, and a dining room, and a kitchen, and a bedroom, and a guest room, and an office; and Christopher had spent days wandering all the space that had been assigned to him. At first it had been fun to try and think of ways to fill the empty places – to think of color schemes and what he could buy beyond the necessities.

But Christopher had never had much room in his life things that weren’t practical. Yes he loved luxury and opulence and decoration, but ultimately he preferred things that served a purpose while being beautiful. So the space never filled and the rooms took on the melancholy air so often found in places that sat unused. They served as reminders that rooms were made to be filled with loved ones, and Christopher had left those people in New York.

Christopher lived in the rooms for six months before caving and asking a very amused Ricardo for something smaller. Stepping into the shoebox felt like coming home. Three rooms (living/kitchen, bedroom, bath) roughly five hundred square feet. It was small and boxy and was on a corner so there were wonderful windows through the bedroom and the main room. Christopher loved it, even when an amused Ricardo explained rooms like this were generally reserved for custodial staff or interns.

The smaller space was easier to fill. It was easier to /own/ it; to paint and buy furniture and decorate. It was cozy and over the years mementos and memories came to reside within it, making it the home the larger apartment never could have been.

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Christopher sighed and ran his fingers over his stomach where the baby bump was just beginning to show. He kept his eyes closed in the darkness, just feeling the soft swell of his stomach where the skin had once flat. He shifted slightly before rolling over and opening his eyes. Adrian was watching him with a small, sleepy smile.

“Hi.” Christopher greeted quietly, still not entirely used to the idea of the same someone sharing his bed for more than a night or two at a time.

“Hi.” Adrian replied, his smile morphing into one that was more amused than anything else. “Come here.” He reached for Christopher, crossing the small space that separated their bodies, and pulled the pa closer to his body. Christopher let Adrian tug him closer; shifted to fit neatly into the curve of the agent’s body.

“Hi.” He said again, softer. Adrian just laughed, slipping his arm around Christopher’s waist and pressing a gentle kiss to the back of the smaller man’s shoulder. Christopher hummed happily, relaxing for the first time all night as the agent’s hand wandered under his shirt, tracing the same patterns that Christopher had been minutes before.

“Go to sleep.” Adrian yawned, burying his face in the crook of Christopher’s shoulder. And Christopher, for all the words he normally had in his possession, could only think of one.

“Okay.” He murmured, a small smile on his lips as he shut his eyes.

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Christopher sighed and ran his fingers over his stomach where the baby bump was just beginning to show. He kept his eyes closed in the darkness, just feeling the soft swell of his stomach where the skin had once flat. He shifted slightly, going still when his bed partner let out a loud sigh.

“Be still.” Diego commanded, voice loud and harsh in the silence. Christopher simultaneously loves and hates the nights Diego spends with him. The sex was always fantastic. The guilt that came the morning after never was. The pa wondered why he kept falling into bed with Diego; the older man was a drug he couldn’t quit, an addiction that was slowly wearing him away.

And of course, there was always the fact he was terrified to say no; terrified of having his baby taken away and given to another man to raise. So he would be Diego’s whore, his mistress, his other woman until the CEO grew bored of him and stopped. He shifted again. Diego groaned and reached for Christopher, pulling him over and spooning around him.

“Now be still, or next time I won’t stay the night.” The older man threatened. Christopher whimpered softly and nodded. Diego had done it before, gotten him through the most basic aftercare and left him alone for the night. Fucked him and left him, to sleep with Kevin.

Christopher shut his eyes and forced his breathing to even out, trying to fall asleep.

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Christopher watched the clock carefully, counting the seconds until he could expect to hear the gunshot and the subsequent call. Thirty eight, Thirty nine, Forty. Ricardo had looked spectacularly pissed at this intern. Most people wouldn’t have noticed the subtle hints; the glint in his eye, the straightening of his cuffs, the particular set of his shoulders. Forty, Forty one, Forty two. Christopher knew Ricardo’s office was sound proofed, but he could have sworn he heard the muffled gasps of someone screaming through sewn shut lips.

“Christopher.” Came the call, low and ominous. There were times that the pa hated the fact his boss’s office door opened and closed silently. More than once he had looked up from his work to find the other man watching - his head tilted and eyes narrowed, almost as if he was double checking for flaws. Christopher made his way to the CEO’s office.

“Sir?” The younger man asked, stepping through the threshold. Ricardo’s office was comfortingly familiar. The dim lights, the smell of cigar smoke, the ancient wood desk, and - of course - Ricardo, remained the same, no matter how many other little things changed. “Do you need something?” Whatever the intern had done, their end had been neither quick nor painless.

“The cleaners, and then Conrad. Tell him my office needs to be redone.” Ricardo frowned at the mangled corpse of the intern as he rolled down his blood splattered sleeves, as if this was somehow all their fault. “Who else am I meeting with today? Are they important enough to change my shirt for?” Christopher did a mental run down of who was left in the planner.

“No one too terribly important.” He decided with a shrug. “Just in-company meetings for the rest of the day.”

Ricardo turned more fully towards his pa, allowing a brief look of weariness to pass over his features before they evened back out into his usual look of calculated indifference. The dim light reflected off the older man’s glasses, hiding his eyes but illuminating a splash of blood that was drying on his cheek.

Christopher crossed the room, taking his handkerchief out of his pocket. Getting up on his tip toes he wiped the blood away, not realizing until after he had done so he had probably overstepped a line.

“Sorry, sir.” He bit his bottom lip and grinned. Ricardo raised an amused eyebrow.

“I do not need to be mothered by you, Christopher.” The CEO chided. “Now go get my office fixed.”

“Yes, Mr. Vega.” Christopher sing songed, taking several steps back and tucking the hanky back in his pocket. “And of course you don’t need me to mother you. That’s what you pay Cleo for.”

“Mr. Rose, I am quickly growing less amused.” Ricardo warned, voice stern. Christopher offered another, more apologetic grin before disappearing out the door.

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Christopher had been working for Mr. Vega for six months when it snowed.

This was not an unusual or unheard of occurrence, simply a rare one. So the pa did what any self respecting adult would do - he pulled on his over coat and goulashes and went to play in the snow.

In the park one thing led to another, there was a minor war among the various factions of snowpeople (as they insisted they preferred), and a snowball fight among the various factions of schoolchildren. Between the two, there were more serious maiming’s among the children. Several parents went home with tears of joy in their eyes.

Christopher stripped off his wet clothes in the hall outside his apartment, leaving them there to dry. Sometimes he missed the house he had once called home that was equipped with things like a wet room or laundry room. Paying five dollars a load got annoying after awhile.

Thankfully, he did have a full sized kitchen where he could make himself things like hot chocolate before curling up on the couch in pajamas to unwind with Strexflicks.

It had been a good day.

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The inside of Chris’s wrists had chaffed, the result of too many nights secured to the bedposts or a ring on the wall. Neither situation was preferable; the bed was warm and soft and held horrors of its own, while the floor was cold and he could never quite get to sleep on it. But regardless, once soft skin had grown callous. Diego would still run his thumbs over the space in mock tenderness, comment on how Chris’s body was hardening like an old whore’s. And Christopher would close his eyes and flush with shame, knowing it was true. When Diego wasn’t home he would rub balm in the spots, wincing as it stung cracked skin. The ceo caught him once and laughed. And then punished him by tying his wrists together and bringing him to work that way since he obviously couldn’t be left home alone.

Christopher’s life was nothing more than a cycle of shame and punishment, until it got to the point where the shame didn’t burn so hot and the punishments didn’t hurt so much. Until he simply learned not to look anyone in the eyes and see the pity that would inevitably reside there. He learned to tie hair bows and shoelaces and kiss the tops of little heads without looking up. To cook and give instructions while smiling blankly at the space next to a grinning face. To moan like a whore and arch his back and not cry. But Diego always made him look him in the eyes; not to see the pity but the self satisfaction as bruises layered on bruises and scars on scars. Diego only wanted to see Chris’s eyes when they fucked, and closing his eyes to stare into darkness offered no comfort there.

But the skin never softened again, no matter the lotions he put on it or the time he gave it. Eventually Chris learns to look up, to look people in the eye, to smile and speak his mind again. But he never lets another man tie him to the bedposts or run their thumbs over the secret place generally reserved for mothers and lovers. He gave up on the endless string of lovers and told himself it was because he as getting old, because he had a daughter to watch, because he needed to reestablish himself in a career field. He told himself he just needed time and stability, that it was never the right time or the right man - the right woman. He told himself he needed time without ever acknowledging that the time he needed was to heal.

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Umbrella
March is a rainy month, in New York. The city was defrosting, shaking out six months of pent up frustration from lack of sunshine and bitter winds that swept up under the hems of long coats. Transitioning from the monotones of winter into the pastels of spring.
March is a rainy month in New York, and the au pair yells after him to take an umbrella if he was going to insist on walking to school. The one he claims belonged to his father. The wooden grip slips easily into his hand, worn by years of gloved hands clenching it tighter in a vain attempt to ward off that last sprinkle of water that always got under the protection.

Cologne
Ricardo always smelled some long lost spice, exotic and ancient. It lingered around like an aura - like the air of authority that he draped about his shoulders as naturally as his suits. No amount of dry cleaning could rid his clothes of the scent, and as Christopher folded and hung clothes it clung to his hands.
Christopher, like Ricardo’s suits, and the inside of Ricardo’s car, the entry to Ricardo’s office, always smelled faintly of Ricardo. It clung to the pa, just like it clung to all of the ceo’s other possessions.

Family: Magic Circus AU
Christopher sighs and pulls the blanket up over Ellie’s shoulders again, crawling into the small space behind her as the bus lurches and the privacy curtain parts to allow in a glimmer of light. At least, that’s how he explains away the sparks that fall from the little girl’s fingertips. He pulls the curtain shut as the last glimmer fades and reminds himself that magic is not real, no matter what Caesar has to say about it. Reminds himself that Ellie is about to be too big to stay with him anymore, and reminds himself that Ellie leaving his bed does not have to correlate to Diego coming back into it.

Steel
The other boy’s fingers were firm, pressing red marks into his biceps as he tried to squirm away. Glasses were lost somewhere on the ground beneath squirming feet and Christopher couldn’t squirm away. His fingers were firm - like bars of steel forcing him backwards into the wall.

There was a teacher’s voice and a crunch of glass, and the other boy fled. The eight year old slipped down the wall, listening to the increasing ace of heels on linoleum as his fingers quested for shards of broken glass.

Angel
He fidgeted uncomfortably, looking around at the stained glass as refrains of a dead language washed over him. Latin. His mother would always be disappointed he hadn’t decided to study Latin. But his mother would also be disappointed by his lack of belief in a higher power, and what exactly he got up to on Saturday nights. She would sigh and shake her head and murmur something about brilliant children and lost potential.

If she was even home.

But he was with her right now - in her church in the old world, kneeling to recite prayers he didn’t truly believe or understand as the faces of long dead angels and saints looked down on him.

Friends
She hated him - something that hadn’t happened to Christopher in a few years. She hated him irrationally and without cause from the first moment she had laid eyes on him (as far as he could tell).

And that shifted over the months. Between cups of cold coffee and insane quests for seemingly random objects she began to soften towards him. It shifted into silent acceptance, into quiet friendship, into loud and obnoxious best friendship.
Which was ironic, after all. Because what she had disliked about him in the first place was how loud and obnoxious he could be.

Sleep
He slipped from the bed, wrapping a cardigan around himself as he padded into the other room to turn on his laptop and check the emails tracking Adrian’s mission reports. He never slept well alone, the tiny apartment too big - too silent - without another person in it. It was as in if the walls themselves were waiting for someone to break the silence, contracting and expanding like the ribcage of a beast.

Like Jonah we’ll be swallowed whole, and spat back teeth and bones.

The walls shifted around him as he shut the computer, the light blinking out of existence and casting him into darkness. He sat there, listening to the walls breath, until the sun peaked over the city scape and he drifted into sleep.

Coffee
It was too hot, too bitter, burning the roof of his mouth and he scrunched his nose and swallowed it down. But he could feel the burn, despite the fact he rest of his body felt like it had been stuffed with cotton balls, and in its own way that was addictive enough.

So he took another drink and leaned into the person next to him - feeling a too quick pulse shuddering through their body and into his ear. And the burn cut through the cotton balls again, until the coffee was only lukewarm and the most of the people around him had dozed off, leaving him alone with his thoughts in a tiny Queens diner.

Tea
Tea was a private ritual, preformed daily in and at the same time. His door would snick shut, the lock slipped into place. He would plug in the electric kettle and wait. It wasn’t a meal like the Au Pair had made it. It wasn’t a ceremony like his mother had made it. Tea time was a cup of tea in his office, the only bit of private time he would claim even from Ricardo.
And once it was done he would open his door and allow the noise of the bustling building to wash over him, perhaps a little calmer or a little more relaxed.

Math Class
Cold plastic seats. The sort of cold that never quiet managed to dissipate no mater how long you sat and pretended to listen to the teacher. Cold metal bars connecting cold plastic and cold, mind numbing boredom that crept through your brain like some sort of sickness.

Deutsch
The language was harsh. It almost hurt your ears to listen to it and it was long and complicated and some of the words, quiet frankly, made no sense. It was the opposite of everything his mother loved about the romance languages, and that is why he loved it.

Perhaps it was a petty type of rebellion - to take a gift he shared with his mother and do the opposite of what she had done with it. But it was the type of rebellion he had left against a family that was little more than a distant memory and a monthly phone call.

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Nihilism

There’s only so many bruises you can count, pressed into pale skin, before even that task becomes monotonous and numbing. There’s only so many times you can pull away from kisses and touches before your lover becomes convinced you don’t want them anymore. There’s only so many days that you can keep collars and sleeves tightly buttoned in the heat of the desert before people’s glances begin to shift from confusion to shock to pity.

Sometimes you can lay back and close your eyes and pretend that everything is perfectly alright. But there’s only so many times you can do that before the illusion fades and you’re cast back into the real world. No matter the stories you will one day tell your child, grown ups have long since given up on the idea of having a happily ever after. For happily ever after allows for a sort of permanence that grown ups know does not exist.

Everyone dies in the middle of a story. In the middle of a sentence that continues without them onto the next page. And another page, another chapter will come after that. Everyone dies in the middle of a story that never ends and barely pays lip service to their existence, and certainly gives none to the lack there of. There is no happily ever after, because there is no end.

Gospel

Christopher had once learned that 'Gospel' was derived from the ancient Greek euangelion. It wasn't a direct translation, everything had gotten a bit muddled in the Latin and Old English, and when it straightened itself out again it had become gospel, meaning 'the teaching or revelation of Christ'. But euangelion was Greek for 'good news', and was very specifically used in the context of announcing a new kings. So it sort of made sense that when the Christians made their own word for it they meant it in relationship to 'Christ, the King'.

But he couldn't think of a better word to describe how Ricardo presented himself - he was the King, and when he entered a room he entered it with the expectation that you had heard the gospel, the good news. When Ricardo entered a room he expected you to know who he was and why he was important.

And the thing about kings is that most of them, and Ricardo was certainly no exception, knew precisely what they were entitled to. And then believed they deserved more than what they were entitled to. Christopher had spent more than one night on his hands and knees when Ricardo wanted a footrest. He had spent hours looking for small items Ricardo would later find in his pockets. He had retrieved or ordered items from halfway around the world that the CEO would look at, decide it wasn't /exactly/ what he wanted, and send Christopher off to procure some equally hard to obtain item. Or sometimes the wallmart equivalent. Ricardo could be odd like that.

Antonio

It would take the news a few days to pick up on the story. It always took them a few days to pick up on the story simply because it would take the doctors a few days to begin testing for whatever archaic dieses he had chosen to unleash upon the unsuspecting populace. But once the news picked up the story (first a local station, then the state, quickly escalating from there to the nation and the world) the pattern was the same.

First there was panic. It was almost unamusing, how when confronted with a threat they had thought was long past civilizations would react with wide spread panic.
Then the government would step in, establish quarantine, try to cure the masses. And then there would be panic followed by horrible understanding when the cure didn't work due to however he had tweaked the dieses.
Inevitably Christopher Rose would knock on his door the standard letter of apology (at this point he was certain it was just a form letter), and demand the cure. And he would laugh and hand it over, knowing the cycle would repeat itself then next time he got bored.

The cycle was always born out of boredom. His brothers so rarely demanded anything in the way of bio weapons, and when they wanted something it was generally on par with 'smallpox blankets'. He could have dedicated his intellect to trying to cure the world, but that was fundamentally less fun than trying to destroy it was.

Assimilation

Powerless. Powerless had never before been a word Christopher could use to describe himself. His life up until this point had always been a carefully balanced scale in which he always came out on top of the masses. In fact, Christopher had been given every opportunity in life to succeed; money, intelligence, schooling, connections. Christopher had been given every opportunity in life, and he somehow ended up polishing another man's shoes for a living.

It was a fight. Learning to obey Ricardo required the man's own particular brand of brainwashing. It required being stripped of everything that had once distinguished him and reminding him that he was nothing should Ricardo decide that was his worth. It required a loss of personhood that went against the grain of anybody who had lived believing that they were an individual.

And of course there was the shock of the culture. The cut throat business men his father had dealt with paled in comparison to the Vega clan. They inspired a sort of terror that sunk into the bones of their victims. And everyone around the Family was their victim, make no mistake.

Chapter Text

Four days. That is how long Ricardo allowed the security guards to keep Chris. The pa didn’t know that they were Strex guards, nor did he know that he was still on the premises and closely monitored by the angel. All he knew was that there were men who kept asking him questions about Ricardo - men who beat him when he didn’t answer and beat him harder when he did.

Christopher spent the first day avoiding the questions, he spent the second day apologizing, and on the third day he was silent. He seemed to have given up on being saved. It made sense, he supposed, that Ricardo wouldn’t come looking. He had been behaving poorly - talking back, refusing tasks, the like. It made sense that Ricardo wouldn’t come looking for someone who was proving to be more trouble than value.

On the fourth day Christopher tried praying. He wasn’t of a religious persuasion, but there was no reason to not beg for a savior from a God he was relatively sure wasn’t listening. And when the door opened again he flinched back into the wall, words stuttering as he screwed his eyes tighter and pretended that he was not afraid.

A gloved hand ruffled his hair, reaching down to unclip the chain that had been securing him to the wall. A warm chuckle surrounded him, a familiar chuckle that reminded him of late nights going over paperwork and sunny afternoons in hole in the wall diners. Ricardo’s chuckle. The hand slipped down to cup his chin, and Christopher looked up to see warm golden eyes and a warm smile. If the pa had been of the religious persuasion he might have believed that God had sent him a savior after all.

“Oh Christopher.” Ricardo’s voice was amused, as though he was a doting parent dealing with a naughty child or puppy. “What on earth am I going to do with you?” The ceo crouched, gloved thumb brushing away the blood and tears slipping down the pa’s face. Christopher’s only response was to lean forward and sob, burying his face in Ricardo’s chest.

Chapter Text

She dies at the end of the story. No matter what details he adds or how barebones it is, the conclusion is always the same. A baby, a body, and a plane ticket home. Sometimes Christopher will tell him that she was a painter or a poet that Ricardo fell into bed with one night. Sometimes it’s Paris, Venice, New York. And when the child is old enough to call him out on the differing details Christopher just laughs and says he can’t remember.

And what does it matter? It always ends the same.

Sometimes she’s a scholar at Cambridge; a mousy thing with big eyes and small hands. Someone with a future in front of her had she not passed on. Sometimes she a waitress from New Orleans, young and full of passion. Someone who could be written off as a drunken mistake.

She dies at the end, but before the inevitable conclusion she’s whatever Christopher wants her to be. She’s a ghost of a memory, the taste of peppermint toothpaste after the first cup of coffee. She’s every dream the assistant ever had, every life he almost lived.

Once, just once, she’s a drug addict in New York City. A girl who lived in Ricardo’s New York penthouse for a month before seducing the ceo into bed and running away the same night. Christopher never tells that story again - it’s too close to the truth.

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Day 1: Childhood

Chris couldn’t put a finger on when he stopped being a child. There was a fuzzy transitioning period from ‘everything is peachy in the world’ to ‘my life is completely unlike those of the others around me’. But perhaps, even with a shocking amount of self awareness, Chris could still be considered a child.

The endless stream of Au Pair’s certainly treated him like a child, cooing over him and complimenting his good grades and big books. His teachers (until they knew better) treated him like a child. But he cut them to size with a bitter and biting tongue. Chris was a child, yes. But his childhood was full of adult realizations and responsibilities as his parents traipsed about the globe, no longer forced to bring their school-aged children with them.

His parents were the only ones who never treated him like a child. Perhaps it was because they were the ones who inadvertently forced him to grow up too quickly. But they always knew that their children were capable of more than most, and always treated them accordingly.

Day 2: Family

There is the Family you can’t chose.

There’s the long, awkward dinners in pressed shirts and stiff trousers. Stretches of silence interrupted by stilted and double sided comments. There’s absence, mostly. That is the family he can’t chose, a hole that will never be filled that spans from childhood to the present.

Then there’s the Family you can choose.

It’s Cleo, sharp and cold as frozen steel. Cleo who melts after a month or three into a slightly more approachable ice cube. Who melts even further after a drink or three into something that vaguely resembles a person. There’s Adrian, all stolen kisses and understanding touches that ghost up his arms and sides. Adrian; the protector, the knight. Adrian who is dependable like weathered stone. And then there’s Ricardo, a storm. He’s fickle and restless and pulls Christopher along with him. He leaves Chaos in his wake and laughs as people try to repair his damage. There’s Ricardo who pays no head to the consequences of his actions.

Christopher is fire. He melts the ice and warms the stone. But he’s subdued by the storm, extinguished and controlled by external circumstances.

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“No, no, no.” Christopher said quickly, lips pursed. “You’ve made it perfectly clear that she’s not my daughter and you want her to have nothing to do with me.”

“That was before Dan decided to skip town.” Earl’s drawl grated against Christopher’s skin, making the slave shudder. “Now I need her to form a strong emotional bond with someone, and who better than the guy that told her Dan was a piece of shit?”

“She doesn’t even like me.” The protest was a desperate, last ditch effort to appeal to a God who wasn’t listening.

“Change that.” The way Earl folded his arms indicated that he was growing quickly annoyed. Christopher knew he ought to quit now, before his owner decided that he was becoming too mouthy for the delicate dance they performed around the thin line between disrespect and Christopher’s ability to run the household.

“She hates my family. She’d be miserable.” The slave’s fingers tapped over the desk. Earl smiled, knowing he had won.

“Figure it out, Chrissy.”

Chapter Text

The falling out was inevitable, and a large part of the reason why Ricardo discouraged relationships among his personal staff. Christopher, after all, flitted through lovers like a teenage girl through a catalogue, stopping at whatever struck his fancy before moving on. Adrian wasn’t prepared to walk into the assistant’s apartment to find him kneeling between another man’s legs.

The gunman didn’t take it well.

It didn’t help that, when Adrian went to confront a drunk Christopher in the speakeasy a few nights later, the younger man laughed at him. Mocked his affections, his performance in bed, his obviously unfounded idea that Christopher had ever loved him back. Even the men around Christopher couldn’t help but snicker into their drinks, trying to avoid calling too much attention to themselves. No one wanted to be on the wrong side of Adrian, but some things in life were too good to pass up.

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“Can you still fly?” A girl at Ellie’s preschool asked once, seeing the harness that bound his wings to his back. This was before her parents bundled her away with a look of distrust, leaving Ellie clutching his hands with the same question bubbling from her lips. He just laughed it off, some non answer appeasing childish curiosity for the time being. She would ask again when she was older, incessantly until she learned what it meant for someone to be tied like Christopher was. Then she stopped asking, avoided the subject like the plague; like the dirty secret that it was.

Christopher couldn’t even say that he dreamt of flying. Not anymore. Instead he dreamt of falling, plummeting endlessly as he fought the too tight leather that wouldn’t let him save himself. When he would wake up screaming, Kevin inevitably pulled him close and murmured sweet nothings. They never spoke about the night terrors, just let them pass into the empty space in the sheets between the pair.  It was preferable to dream of falling when the alternative was to dream of what he would never have again.

Once a week Kevin would unclip the harness, help Christopher stretch out wings that were growing weaker and weaker. They would wash and preen together, the water cool on skin that was always hidden away. At first Christopher loved this chance to spread his wings (quite literally). But the years wore on and he was forced to face the atrophy of disuse. As the years wore on they shriveled with along with his hope of ever flying again.

And still he dreamt of falling.

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When Kevin offers him freedom, Christopher grabs it in both hands and runs.

It isn’t the most noble thing to do, to leave a soulmate and infant in mourning behind him. But Kevin is giving him the one thing he’s longed for since the police first booked him - a chance to find Ricardo again. To wake up where he belongs with the family he chose, not that which was foisted upon him.

But Ricardo isn’t in any of the safe houses.

He isn’t in New York, he isn’t in Baltimore. He isn’t even in that little Mexican town with the name Christopher can’t pronounce. He doesn’t answer the emergency phone, doesn’t respond to letters left in all the right places.

After two months the assistant has just enough money left to rent a car and drive back to Desert Bluffs. His dignity is in tatters around him as he knocks, too softly, on the worn door to Kevin’s apartment. Kevin hears, he always hears. He throws open the door and his arms around Chris. “I thought I had lost you forever.”

Christopher’s heart breaks.

Nothing had changed in his absence. The worn couch still faced the television, a weary sentinel. The books were kept meticulously clean, the floor less so. That wouldn’t do. Not once Ellie started crawling. The assistant caught his thoughts with a start, realizing that he was acclimating far too quickly.

Chapter Text

In the beginning Christopher didn’t love Kevin. He didn’t even like the radio host. But Kevin was in a position of power - of ownership - over Christopher, and if there was one thing the ex assistant was familiar with, it was how to survive when totally dependent on another.

But what Christopher didn’t understand was how Kevin failed to see through the collected façade. The radio host should have been able to /feel/ him, and Christopher didn’t know if he was broken or if Kevin was broken or if the other man simply didn’t care. The assistant could try to play Kevin’s emotions all he wanted, but if the other man didn’t care there was nothing he was able to do.

Christopher got alcohol into Kevin, got him to talk, got him into bed. Christopher cooked, wore Kevin’s too large shirts and sweat pants. A month passed and the radio host refused to care about the misery he could surely feel coming from Christopher. He refused to feel any affection for the assistant. He’d get drunk with Christopher, he’d fuck Christopher, he’d eat the food Christopher made in the apartment Christopher cleaned. But he wouldn’t care. A month into his imprisonment the assistant found a bottle of sleeping pills in the bathroom cupboard. It wasn’t quite the same as drinking his problems away, but it worked.

Kevin, damn him, didn’t even notice. He didn’t notice the lack of cooking, or how dirty the apartment had suddenly become. He didn’t notice the sudden absence of Christopher’s conscious on the outer edge of his. Christopher, for his part, slipped into a dreamscape of the past, only briefly interrupted by fears for the future and the nightmare of the present. Kevin didn’t seem to care, so long as the assistant came to bed when the radio host was drunk.

The bottle was almost empty when Kevin finally needed a little non alcoholic help. He shook Christopher awake, his face dark enough to send a pang of fear through Christopher’s chest. The pill bottle sat on the counter, accusing.

“We need to talk.” Kevin’s face didn’t soften as Christopher’s pulse sped up and panic tightened his chest. Kevin, damn him, still didn’t care.

“Later.” The assistant tried to plead. It was a sleepy mumble, but Christopher could still feel the heat of Kevin’s anger around his conscious; he was drowning in it, losing even himself to the tide.

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Terrified isn’t the word that best described how Kevin felt when he stumbled out of Chris’s bed and into the kitchen, just to find his (tryst? Lover? Friend?) chatting casually with Ricardo Vega. His shirt sleeves were rolled to the elbow, dicing something with a knife that didn’t quite resemble a kitchen knife.

Terrified isn’t the best word, but it’s damn close as the pair turn to study him. There’s a sort of mimicry in the way Christopher tilted his head and narrowed his eyes (vivid green, too Irish for a respectable family, too pretty when wide with pleasure as Kevin-). But then the bookie smiled, and something besides fear fluttered in Kevin’s chest.

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Adrian couldn’t understand the nervous energy that surrounded Chris. He couldn’t understand the way his fingers clicked nervously over his rosary, the beads hitting each other methodically; the way he would tie and retie Ellie’s hairbow until she finally pulled away. Adrian didn’t understand why Chris jumped every time the thug wrapped his arms around Chris from behind.

Ricardo wasn’t any better at explaining it. Their boss would just shrug and tell Adrian that Chris came from a family of a religious persuasion, and some habits were harder to kick than others. All Adrian could have gleaned from this was that Catholics were generally nervous people. Yet the Vega family seemed to of settled their conscious with God just fine.

They were two drinks in before Divina, dabbing at her lipstick, reminded the gunman that Chris was an accountant, a damn fine one at that. He viewed the world as debts to be paid, and she was sure that his book had an awful lot of red in it that was waiting to be settled.

The idea of being afraid of salvation was entirely foreign to Adrian, even though the rest of the family seemed to understand it well. Once someone /believed/ their spot in heaven was promised. It was simple as that. Why would Chris, so steadfast in his faith, be afraid of God?

It was Diego, who had apparently already resigned himself to hell, who put the idea into context for Adrian.

They were on a job. A man was pleading, trying to appeal to Diego’s sense of religion. Diego laughed and told their victim that his soul was long gone. That of he wanted to go to heaven he would have stopped before he had started. That there was no turning back at this point, salvation was lost to the irredeemable.

Diego seemed to take a special sort of pleasure in shooting that one - once through the eye. He drank twice as hard that night, grimacing as bathtub gin rubbed his throat raw. The gunman had to whisper for the next few days.

Whenever Christopher’s fingers clicked over his rosary, Adrian would press them flat to the bed or desk or Christopher’s thighs. Would press him back against the wall or bed and kiss him breathless. Until the fingers lost their tension and curled into themselves. Adrian reminded Christopher that he was worthy of love - redeemable.

Chapter Text

In an unexpected turn of events, the first drunk driver Christopher ever rode with was his mother. It’s not that Christopher’s father was an alcoholic (the man only drank socially, and never to excess) but that his mother never drank. At least, that’s what her children would have told you. But here he sat, his mother swerving through streets in the Hampton’s and masquerading the event as driving lessons.

Chapter Text

It gets worse before it gets better. Recovery isn’t a straight line. Getting better takes time. Everyone tells him the same things over and over, remixed with pitying looks and conversations that end suddenly when he walks in the room. They’re accurate, and Caesar asks him why the truisms make him angry.

The answer is that he’s already angry. At Diego, at Jake, at himself. Mostly at himself. He’s already angry and it’s so easy to channel that anger into the people who won’t stop telling him that it’s going to get better. Christopher doesn’t want better, he wants the status quo.

That’s what makes him angriest. Caesar will sigh and make notes about codependency or brainwashing, but Caesar gets to go home to a husband. Caesar doesn’t sleep alone at night.

Chapter Text

Christopher held a certain amount of fondness for Diego. It was hard not to, after nearly a decade of marriage. He understood the older man’s quirks, what the slight fluctuations in his stoic expression meant. He knew just how to run his fingers through Diego’s hair to turn the other into a puddle, what phrases to use to work him up or calm him down. He understood that Diego cared for him and the children and the façade of marital bliss they displayed at gatherings.

Bliss didn’t describe their relationship. Their marriage was hard, built on a mutual respect that was hard won. It was full of fights; over the children, the household, Christopher’s place as a house husband. It was full of familiarity, and the fondness that came from familiarity.

But Christopher wouldn’t claim that their marriage was one of love. It wasn’t loveless, per say. Not in the way that unhappy families are loveless. There was still kindness and caring. A mutual respect and regard. But Christopher didn’t love Diego, not in the way that happy couples love each other. He held no misconceptions that Diego’s feelings went further than the same sort of fondness that Christopher would claim.

It didn’t help that Christopher loved Kevin.

That was the unspoken rift that existed between Chris and Diego. The Lord could accept that his husband didn’t love him, he couldn’t accept that Christopher loved someone besides him. It was the underlying tension in many of their fights. Diego was afraid to let Christopher go about unescorted, he and Kevin had run away once.

Chapter Text

Sucking Adrian’s lip felt inherently sleazy. It’s not that Christopher wasn’t used to lip sucking. Quite the opposite, in fact. It’s not even that Christopher was opposed to sex for money. Being a whore put a bit of a damper in thinking that prostitution was inappropriate. It was the way Adrian looked at him, like he was still so in love, that made Christopher’s stomach turn.

This wasn’t fair.

Adrian hadn’t been the messiest break up he had been through. That went to the girl he had dated sophomore year of high school, who had caught him in bed with her brother. But Adrian had demanded that he clean up, and Christopher wasn’t willing to grant that. He had given up everything else for the ability to live his life as he saw fit. Perhaps it could be said that he loved getting high more than he loved Adrian. Claiming that he loved the freedom represented by his ability to get high was closer to the truth. They seperated.

Christopher fell into prostitution. He met Kevin. He kept getting high. Everything continued as though Chris and Adrian had never dated. But now Adrian was above him, spreading him open with careful fingers, and Christopher wished that the other man would slap him and fuck him. Wished he would tell Christopher that he was a useless slut, a washed up whore. Useless and broken. Christopher could handle spite or revenge or roughness. He couldn’t handle how Adrian looked at him like they had never stopped dating. Like he had never stopped loving Christopher Rose.

Whores were meant to be fucked. At least, the cheap one’s like Christopher were. But the way Adrian murmured sweet nothings in his ear was closer to love making than anything else. There was inherent gentleness. Kindness in the voice that told Christopher to relax, that warned Christopher that he was about to push in.

After Adrian came he spooned around the smaller man, crept a hand down his body to fondle Christopher’s still soft cock. The whore caught the hand and pressed it flat to the bed. There wasn’t any strength behind the action, but Adrian let it lie.

Eventually Adrian got up and put on his pants. Looked at Christopher, curled in the sheets, one last time before leaving. And the Kevin came in, helped Christopher into the shower. Kevin washed the sweat from his hair and the come from his body. Kevin kissed his forehead, and everything was centered again.

Chapter Text

It had been three days, seven hours, and roughly twenty-one minutes since Christopher had left. Ricardo was certain of this because roughly three days, six hours, and forty-five minutes ago Kevin R Free had come storming into his office and demanded to know why Christopher hadn’t shown up to lunch. It was three pm, and Christopher (according to Kevin) always lunched at three pm. The truth was that Ricardo took lunch at two thirty, and Christopher was free to find his own meal once the older man’s was finished.

All of this was a fancy way of saying that it was currently nine forty-five and Kevin was standing outside Ricardo’s office with a disgruntled look on his face. The options facing the executive were to either climb out the window and down the drain pipe, come in through the kitchen, and hope that Kevin didn’t pick the lock on Ricardo’s bedroom door; or he could let Kevin in. Climbing out the window very nearly won, but the thought of having to explain to Santi why he was tracking mud into the kitchen (it had been pouring all day) deterred Ricardo. The cook was a far more intimidating figure than Kevin.

Ricardo opened the door.

If the look of surprise on Kevin’s was face was anything to go off of, he hadn’t been expecting to get his way so easily. He stepped into the office after a moment of hesitation, suspicion flickering across his face before settling into a look of forced determination.

“Christopher was supposed to come home yesterday.” The radio host set his jaw, staring Ricardo down.

“He was.” The response was short, measured.

“He hasn’t come home.”

“The weather’s been poor. I’m sure travel was delayed.” Ricardo gestured to the pouring rain through the window. This was a perfectly rational response. It wasn’t uncommon for travelers to hole up until inclement weather had passed; in fact, it would have been unreasonable to expect Christopher to travel in what were undoubtedly unsafe conditions.

“You sent him to see Diego.” Kevin was rapidly going red in the face, words dancing on the tip of his tongue only to be swallowed down rapidly.

“I did.” The executive tipped his head to the side. “Christopher travels to see Diego once a month. I don’t see why this time would be cause for concern.” Ricardo moved to the liquor cabinet next to the door, pushing aside earthen jars to pull forward a cut glass decanter. Amber liquid caressed the inside of the glass, easily older than both men combined. “Why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you?” Kevin watched Ricardo pour two glasses and settle onto the couch. Old springs creaked sullenly, and Ricardo busied himself with his watch until he heard them creak again.

“Why do you keep sending him to Diego?” Kevin’s long fingers wrapped around the glass. Pride demanded that the former radio host refuse the drink. Curiosity insisted that a sip wouldn’t hurt. He’d never had the chance to try pre-war whiskey, and it wasn’t the sort of opportunity that presented itself every decade.

“Christopher is the expert in his project. It would be stupid to send someone else.” The words were smooth, practiced; spoken as though the executive had been expecting this conversation. Kevin barely avoided choking on the whiskey.

“Stupid? So it’s intelligent to send someone whom Diego knows he can treat however he wants, and get away scott free? It’s intelligent to dangle him like a treat in front of a scientist you’re trying to get results from? It’s intelligent to not worry when he doesn’t come home on time, when he could very well be lying tied to a sad-”

“That is enough, Mr. Free.” Ricardo’s voice, sharp and quiet cut across Kevin’s tirade. Somewhere during the onslaught of words the radio host had risen to his feet, voice growing steadily louder.

“It’s enough when I decide it’s enough.” Kevin retorted defiantly. The whiskey was still clutched in his left hand, his right balled into a fist and shaking. His voice dropped to match Ricardo’s tone. “You may have Christopher convinced that you care for him, but I know better. I know you only view him as a tool. Something that you can whore out in order to get what you want. What’s going to happen once he’s too old to entice people with his pretty face? Will you find some new thing to take his place in your bed, Christopher cast to the side like so many other playthings?”

Kevin heard the glass shatter before he registered the pain. Ricardo was now standing over him, the former radio host knocked off his feet. Blood smeared across the floor as Kevin scrambled backwards, pouring freely from his palm.

Chapter Text

The monotony of paperwork held a comfort of its own, Christopher decided as he slid another sheet into the correct folder. Intern X was off somewhere with Y, the less legal talents of the pair being put to use. The pa hadn’t asked Ricardo where he was sending the workers, just huffed and went to find the forms he was looking for. A pair of woman slipped into the file room, and all Christopher could see from his crouched position was the bright red heels that one had decided to wear to work today.

He didn’t look up.

“File these when you’re done.” A stack of folders dropped next to his feet, papers scattering across the floor as they flew from their respective homes. The woman sounded bored. Christopher took a breath.

“Do it yourself.” His voice was rough from a days disuse, his accent hidden behind the phlegm he swallowed down.

“Interns these days.” The woman laughed. Christopher could hear her heels click back across the floor. She nudged him once, gently. The pa still didn’t look up. “Look sweetie, I don’t care who your boss is. When your better tells you to do something, you do it. I’ll let you off this once-”

Christopher looked up.

“Excuse me?” He rose gracefully, brushing off his knees on the way up. “My /better/?” She towered over him in her heels, but shrunk down when confronted with who she had just been ordering about. It wasn’t a matter of height so much as it was a matter of power. In this situation Christopher held all the cards.

“Mr. Rose. I didn’t realize-”

“What you did and didn’t realize isn’t my problem.” Perhaps a more moral person might try to make this an issue about respecting everybody, because one never knew who one was dealing with. Christopher’s pistol slipped into his hand.

He wasn’t one of those people.

The woman started hastily apologizing, fear paling her features. Red sprayed across her face, dripping down to match her shoes. Her friend fled.

He returned to his paperwork, blood staining the edges of the papers as it puddled.

Chapter Text

There are moments that the words don’t reach

The wall above Caesar’s desk is infuriatingly blank, giving Christopher nothing to focus on other than the therapist. The shrink is waiting for him to say something, for words to come pouring out. Normally Christopher can find something, but he can’t hear, today he can only search desperately for something else to latch onto. It’s like he’s been cast adrift at sea, water is filling his ears and he can feel the gentle pull of the waves caressing his body. He can’t hear, he can’t think. There’s only silence and the chaos in his mind.

The hour ends and Caesar escorts him out. Squeezes his shoulder once and tells him to tell Ellie and Maria hi.

There is suffering too terrible to name

Christopher wakes up, reaching desperately for Diego in the empty space next to him. The engineer hasn’t been there in months but Christopher continues to search for him. The bruises have long since faded, the bottles have been fished out from air vents and desk drawers, the sheets washed and replaced with a pale blue set.

Outside the sun breaks over the distant city skyline. A boy on a red bicycle pedals past, trying to get home before his parents wake up and notice he’s missing. Somewhere past the skyline Christopher’s husband (ex husband, a spiteful voice reminds him) will be woken up by a prison guard. Chris will go to work, will come home early for his weekly meeting with Jake. He’ll make dinner for Maria, and then he’ll go to bed.

You hold your child as tight as you can

Jake left early, an emergency pulling the social worker away from the long since gone cold cups of tea that Christopher had made. Maria was late, and Christopher paced restless circles around the living room, torn between calling her again and calling the police. He can’t help but think that Diego’s broken out, kidnapped their daughter. That he sent a friend to get her and take her away.

The clock slips past six.

It’s an old thing. Diego had bought it at a second hand sore and refurbished it in a fit of boredom between work projects. That had been earlier in their marriage, and he had been so proud when he hung it on the wall. Christopher remembers wishing that Diego would look at him like that.

Six o’ five.

Maria walks in, unperturbed and unworried. A knot loosens in Christopher’s chest as he gathers her into his arms. She smells like grass from the soccer field. For a moment, everything is centered again.

And push away the unimaginable.

Chapter Text

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray love, remember; and there’s pansies, that’s for thoughts.

 

It began with silence. Most things do. It was dawn, unfurling over swathes of sand. It was an empty hallway well past midnight, potential lurking unbidden in each shadow. It was the silence after the storm, far more ominous than that which preceded it. 

Blood smeared across Christopher’s nose as he pushed his glasses up. It dripped freely down his fingers as he stumbled from the office, refusing to recognize the woman slumped in the corner as Cleo. She didn’t have a face, and surely that glimpse of gold around her neck wasn’t - it wasn’t, and that was all that mattered. 

The lights failed to flicker ominously overhead as he made his way down the hall, instead remaining forcefully cheerful. There was no more blood than one expected to find splattered against the wallpaper of a Strex facility. The knock against Divina’s door held a pregnant promise, one that was quickly aborted when he stuck his head inside. She, at least, had retained her face. Whether the back of her skull had been granted the same courtesy he was unwilling to find out. 

Christopher pulled out a handkerchief and held it to his wrist, realizing belatedly that a line of blood marked his path from office to office. And if he went to visit the next division he already knew what was waiting in store for him. Perhaps it would be best to double back: past the woman-who-was-not-Cleo; past his desk, overturned in the struggle; past the shattered glass pane that separated his office from Ricardo. His boss was an angel, there was no reason he shouldn’t have survived. Ricardo and Cleo would be waiting for him, laughing at his fear. 

The door swung freely beneath his touch, ready to reveal - 

Christopher woke to screams. It took a moment to realize that they belonged to Ellie and were not his own. Not Ellie, Maria. His body protested being spurred so quickly to action as he hauled himself to his feet and stumbled towards the cradle before the cries could wake Diego. Once he picked the baby up she quieted, lower lip wobbling as if to ask him why he had abandoned her in the dark. He had no answer for her, only the same question echoing somewhere inside a memory. Or maybe it had only been a dream.

Chapter Text

Ricardo Vega cannot find his earrings. They were on his desk thirty minutes ago, before he had gotten distracted in the cafeteria by a gaggle of interns getting into a fist fight over a racy comment one of them had made towards another. It had ended rather abruptly when they had realized the man standing in the background was none other than the CEO himself, and they had made themselves scarce as though that would mean he wouldn’t remember who they were. But regardless, his most expensive earnings seemed to have dissipated into the same void that had claimed his least favorite cuff links, his third favorite tie, and a mostly full (seventh) glass of scotch he was in the process of becoming better acquainted with. 

“Christopher.” He called, voice barely rising above speaking volume. It only took a few seconds for the door to shick open, as though the personal assistant had been waiting just outside for such a summons. Ricardo didn’t look up, still absorbed in his quest. “Have you happened to have seen my-”

The CEO looked up and blinked.

Perched in the assistant’s ears were Ricardo’s most expensive earrings. The little gold and ruby balls stood out against Christopher’s ears and matched the gold tie pin that perched slightly above the center of his chest that had been a gift from Ricardo last May. 

“Sir?” Christopher tucked a stray piece of hair behind his ear, and Ricardo swallowed. It was getting long again, meaning that Christopher had probably been too busy to get it cut. Meaning that Ricardo had probably been running him too hard again, and during a relatively quiet week as well. He made a mental note to fix that. 

“Never mind.” The CEO replied, standing and dusting off his knees. Christopher would be left to puzzle over the eccentricities of his employer, but that was a common state for the assistant to be left in. “Lets get lunch. You can tell me everything I need to do today and gripe at me about how little I’ve accomplished.” 

Chapter Text

Loneliness is something you never quiet adjust to. When Ricardo is gone he spends his days moving from the small apartment on the Strex campus to a smaller one on the edge of the city. He spends his days packing and unpacking and realizing how little he’s accumulated during his time at Strex. How much of his life was tied to a man and a life that was constantly shifting. How the chaos offered its own sort of equilibrium.

He learns, quickly, that the stillness of the desert makes it hard to sleep. He can hear the neighbors through the paper thin walls; gets to listen to the family life he once had (of a sorts). When the neighbors or Cleo or Adrian come around he sits on the couch and almost doesn’t dare to breath. They stop coming, after a while. Stop texting. Every time his phone lights up he hopes to see his employers name yet it never graces the screen.

First he’s melancholy, listless. Waiting hopelessly. Then he’s angry that he was abandoned. That anger propels him from the apartment, determined to be more than something cast aside. He studies, he writes, he starts showering again. He invites Cleo and Adrian over for dinner. He never stops waiting for that text from Ricardo.

He spends his nights trying to sleep. He listens to the neighbors bicker, make up, make love. He listens to children have night terrors and parents sooth them. His dreams are scattered and filled with white light. Sometimes there’s feathers.

Weeks turn to months, he gets ready to leave Desert Bluffs. He could go to college, he could teach, he could get a job flipping burgers. Back in New York you can make fifteen an hour doing that now. He packs up again, and is surprised to learn that he has even less than he had when he came to this place. He gets ready to move on.

His phone buzzes once. [[Message From: R Vega]]

Chapter Text

Ricardo is standing over him. There’s a gun to his head and yet all he feels is relief. Ricardo is standing over him with a gun to his head and the CEO is crying. Ricardo is standing over him with a gun to his head and his eyes slip closed. Ricardo is standing over him with a gun to his head and the CEO apologizes. Ricardo is standing over him with a gun to his head and -

Christopher comes awake with a scream, echoing against the silence of Ricardo’s bedroom. The room is too dark, and for a second he is convinced that he has died and this hell. When Ricardo turns on the bedside light, a beacon of sanity, an odd sense of relief bubbles in his chest. He is not dead.

“Chris?” Ricardo is sitting on the edge of the bed, and the personal assistant hadn’t even realized that he had tumbled off. “What’s wrong?”

Ricardo is wearing a military uniform, badges pinned neatly to his chest. He’s standing over the personal assistant asking the same question, but he’s using a different name.

“You killed me.” The words are choked, tears slipping down the smaller man’s face. It is obvious that he is alive, and the assistant can’t figure out why the dream feels so real. Understanding dawns on Ricardo’s face, and he slips off the bed to kneel next to the smaller man.

It is hot outside and Chris is sitting on a concrete floor in prison fatigues. Two men walk in and he fears them without knowing why. They walk past, but one does a double take and comes over to kneel next to Christopher.

Ricardo slips two fingers under Christopher’s chin, tilting his face up gently.

The man forces him to look up, and the man in the military uniform has Ricardo’s face.

“I would never hurt you, Christopher.” The words are soft, the CEO placing a worrying amount of emphasis on his name. “You’re mine, and I would never hurt you.”

“This one is mine.” The man in the military uniform says, standing and dusting off his knees. His comrade nods, and they continue walking.

“You killed me.” Christopher repeats, tears drying as the dream and reality separate themselves. He leans forward, forehead resting on Ricardo’s shoulder. “Why did you kill me?” The taller man simply runs a cool hand down Chris’s back, slipping under the pa’s shirt to rest on the small of his back. There’s no good answer that he can give to that question, so it remains between them, a dark reminder of a darker time.

Chapter Text

There was a tickle in the back of Chris’s mind as he watched the girl in front of him with growing annoyance. She was - familiar. Disconcertingly familiar and he couldn’t figure out why. All he knew is that he arrived at the coffee shop on Madison and Fifth at the same time every day, and there was never /ever/ anyone in front of him.

The next day she was in line behind him, and the day after that and the day after that; scrolling through her phone as she waited for the personal assistant to place his order and pay. A week passed, then two, and Christopher all but forgot about the incident. Kat stood in line behind him every day, and although there was a vague sense of satisfaction, he forgot why it existed.

Three weeks later she was on queue in front of him three days in a row. He had to arrive early to end the streak, and she retaliated by arriving earlier the next day. When he inquired as to /who/ this infuriating girl was, he was told she worked under Luc, and was thus protected. The next day she arrived ten minutes after he did, depriving him of the joy of knowing that she had to stand behind him.

It was now a game between the two of them, even though Chris still had no idea if she knew she was playing. Who was going to time their visit so that the other would have to stand behind them? Who was going to have to stare at the back of the other’s head and plot bloody murder that would never be carried out? It was a game - like many things in life - and Christopher fully intended to win, even though he was unsure what that entailed.

Chapter Text

When Christopher was drunk it almost didn’t matter who it was above him. When Diego was drunk he didn’t care who was below him. After a bottle of wine on an empty stomach they made a fine pair, all selfish desperation and a sense of obliviousness to their current situation.

When they woke up, curled into each other, they would sneer and separate. That would be followed by a fight (which Diego almost always won) to see who would get to wash away the scent of sex and smoke and booze first. The other would wait petulantly on the bed, forced to bear the physical memories of the previous night.

That was all there was to their trysts; a drunken idea and a vague sense of regret that was quickly drowned by the determination to forget. This self induced amnesia was the reason that the cycle kept repeating itself.

Chapter Text

They say that Lord Strex is heartless. That's a half truth. Lord Strex has a clockwork heart, the result of an injury sustained during one of his experiments. It's experimental and volatile, and the reason you'll see his consort ushering him from the room when his knuckles turn white from clenching the armrest of this throne too hard when some idiot is angering him.

His consort will lie on his chest at night, listening to the soft ticking that resonates into his bones - that's become the undercurrent to his life. His consort will run hands through his hair and smile up at him, and try to elicit some reaction that isn't a half hearted grumble. But hands will stay above the waist line, the clockwork heart can't stand the stress that illicit activities will bring.

They have a child, just one. A little girl with eyes as black as the space between the stars. It's rumored that the couple got her in a deal with a demon. When she smiles, you're not sure if they lost the bet or won. She's brilliant and her vocabulary proves it. Plants spring to life beneath her fingers, and the wall around her window is covered in blooming ivy.

They say that Lord Strex is heartless. His consort will sometimes have bruises, purple plastered across pale skin. His advisors will die, often in private and seldom in front of crowds (blood thirsty, calling for death after a mishap). His wars are brief and brutal, prisoners sent home with missing fingers, hands, feet, demoralized.

They say that Lord Strex is heartless, but his consort will smile at him like he's the world. His child will run into his arms when he comes home from a long trip. His people live prosperous lives, toast his name at feast days (and when drunk in the tavern). They say Lord Strex is heartless, but whatever ticks in his chest seems to work for him.

Chapter Text

When Christopher first begins working for the university, the Dean makes it abundantly clear that he's only here to satisfy liberal donors. It's the late seventies. Both or his children have flown the nest, and Christopher has been alone with his writing for a few years. Diego had been surprised when the university reached out to a "Dr. Vega" to come and teach. But completing the letter had made abundantly clear that the opening was in the humanities department, to teach freshman level philosophy and sociology classes.

Christopher begged Diego to let him go. There were no more children to look after, and the increased wages meant they could hire a house keeper. Christopher begged Diego, told the engineer he was dying of boredom when stuck at home. Diego, of course, wanted to know why Christopher couldn't take up a /normal/ hobby. Why he couldn't sew or embroidered or volunteer at the library. Diego also knew that the battle was lost as soon as Christopher said "please". What could it hurt, after all?

The professor hid certain facts from his husband in the beginning. Half the grading that Christopher did was foisted upon him by others, taking advantage of the newest member of the faculty. He never told Diego thay his office wasn't a proper room, but a corner of a supply closet that they sectioned off. He was spoken over and disregarded by his fellow teachers, even the ones who were younger (the ones who didn't care that the degree on his wall was from an ivy university).

But Diego came in one day to surprise his better half. The engineer got to hear the way he was spoken to (it was Phil that Diego overheard, Phil from antropolgy who had decided to explain, at length, why it was inappropriate for a homemaker to be out of the home). Diego threatened to make Christopher quit. He threatened to go to the news with the tale of how the university was treating an ivy educated, well respected, member of the academic community. Diego threatened to sue.

Christopher's office was moved to an actual office (with a view of the promenade). He was no longer spoken over at meetings. Other professors stopped dropping off their work for him to complete. The university press started publishing his writings again. The head of his department had made them stop, claiming that a new professor didn't have the necessary academic background to be published.

Through all of the drama, Christopher's students loved him. At first the head of his department thought that Christopher was going too easy on them. The pass rate of his classes was higher than most. But when it came time for faculty review, they found that Christopher was pushing his students into more and harder work.

There were hiccups, of course. Students who would disregard and disrespect Christopher in the classroom. There was the Colt boy who took to stalking the professor (and Dwyer, the campus police officer who told Christopher he was over reacting to a bit of boyish fun).

Dwyer regretted that statement when Diego went to the actual police. When Diego had to carry a bloody Christopher home the way he had when they were children. That was when Diego started picking Christopher up from the university. The professor didn't protest, just adjusted his office hours to fit around Diego's work schedule.