Work Text:
ACCESS: RESTRICTED
DECRYPTION KEY: 8KF2Y5AG89$IKO-006
REP#: 088-ATHENAEUM-DERELICT-AUDIO
AGENT(S): AUN-326
SUBJ: VIP#1316 AND ERI-223 INTERACTIONS - PASTA SALAD
RECORDING 81009.2
[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]
“Well that was quick.”
“What is this you left for me?”
“You don’t like it? I can bring you something else.”
“It’s delicious… but very confusing.”
“O great and powerful hive god of vengeance, you are currently being confused by a pasta salad.”
“I did not think pasta could be a salad.”
“Well, proof of the contrary is currently in your mouth.”
“Where did you get the noodles?”
“I made them.”
“How?”
“With flour, water, salt and an egg.”
“What are the round things?”
“Uh… black round things with holes in them?”
“Yes. They are salty and briny, like cheese. But they are not cheese.”
“Those are olives. You ain't never eaten olives, Moondust?”
“How do you make them?”
“They’re a fruit. They grow on a tree, although those ones came from a jar I...uh... obtained... in the tower. The holes are from where they take out the seeds. They’re preserved, like pickles.”
“I like pickles.”
“Oh I know. That’s why I figured you’d like olives.”
“What are the green and red things?”
“Peppers. It’s a vegetable. I grow them under the lights with the other plants in that room on the Derelict I showed ya with all the plants and lights.”
“Is the white substance cheese?”
“Yup. Very simple cheese.”
“You… make cheese?”
“Not all kinds, cheese can be hard to pull off, but this one is easy. Takes a couple hours to prep and then it only needs to sit for a couple days. After that you can keep it for weeks.”
“It’s very salty.”
“That’s cuz it’s stored in a jar of salt water. You like it?”
“Yes.”
“Thought you might. You ain’t much for sweets, but you like salt and sour.”
“I’ve never eaten anything like this.”
“Well I’ll file that one down for a repeat performance some time then.”
“From where do you get your culinary expertise? Your conversations regarding food always run from revolting to horrific, yet everything you’ve ever made for me to eat is genuinely… good. Exceptionally so.”
“Farmers, Moondust. You live with farmers, you learn how to make a lot of good food, how to preserve it, how to make stuff taste good. Plus, do anything for a few hundred years and you get good at it. I’ve had a long time to get good at it. And, you know, starving to death repeatedly does tend to give a person a healthy appreciation for food in all its forms. I like food. I like making it for you. I like surprising ya with things you didn’t know you’d like.”
“You always do. Do farmers do that as well?”
“Figuring out what else you’d like? Nah, that’s a bartending skill if there ever was one. Not much of a stretch to shift from drinks to dinner. Most of it’s just payin’ attention, if we’re bein’ honest. You don’t like stuff with a lot of sugar. You find it false and trite. Candy, especially. To you, candy is just... lies in your mouth.”
“I have never told you that. How do you know this?”
“I mean, I’m tempted to tell you it’s magic and feel you silently scream through the radio and want to stab me with that fork I left you, but the truth is even stranger. I sometimes play mahjong with Eva Levante.”
“You what?”
“Yeah. Don’t ever tell her I said this, but that sweet old keeper of festivals and traditions is one of the few people I’ve met who’s better than me. At mahjong, anyway.”
“Really.”
“Really.”
“Your social aptitude and ability to make connections with people is inversely proportional to your focus on detachment and insistence you trust no one, except for me, and sometimes the Guardian.”
“Yeah, I have a lot of friends for a guy who has no friends. I know. That’s different though, and it’s also changed, cuz of you. But even before that, best way to keep an eye on your enemies is to be friendly with ‘em. Best way to avoid getting shot is to talk your way out of it. And I’ve talked my way out of getting shot way more times than I could possibly remember at this point.”
“And how many people have you shot who were trying to talk their way out of it?”
“Well, usually if we’re talking we can work something out. Not always, though. I told you how I gunned down my own crew after drinks once.”
“You also told me why. They deserved it.”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t any better. Thinking about how I am today compared to how I was then…”
“Comparing the past to the present is futile at best, and more than often, cruel… to yourself as well as others. You survived. You would not have otherwise. You smelled blood and betrayal plainly upon their hands as they lied to your face. You reacted in vengeance and exacted vengeance. Decisively. Without restraint. ”
“Yeah. It was like that.”
“If there is anyone who can understand your reasoning keenly, crisply, in its concentrated form, it is I. Do not despise yourself for who you were. Were you a monster? Was what you did monstrous? Yes. You were. It was. But it was also necessary.”
“Yeah. It was. That crew were some of the nastiest pack of assholes I’ve ever run with. Stone cold killers, the lot of us. Vicious. Effective. That was a 'do unto others before they do unto you' sorta situation. Weird bit of what you’d call resonance though. When I killed them. I called them rats. Told them this is what we do to rats. And that’s the name you sometimes call me now.”
“I- I’m sorry. I did not realize…”
“No no no, that’s not why I’m telling you this. You gave me an out pretty early on and I didn’t take it. I still don’t, Moondust. I didn’t really like it when you started but, what’s that saying? It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. I don’t ever want you to stop calling me something you put so much affection into like that. You know there was that one time you left me a message when I was galavantin' off on the Reef with Mithrax and Spider? Where you said you might want something more than peace?”
“I remember it.”
“The way you said goodbye... you said ‘Take care, Rat’ and I swear my heart flew right up into my mouth and choked me. I couldn’t breathe. It was a good thing I was sitting when I first heard it cuz it cut me off at the knees, Moondust. All I could think of was how since that time you walked onto the Derelict while I was packin’ to leave, where you asked me to teach you about the darkness, where you’d told me not to ignore you and I’d first seen just how intense you really were… how hard and completely and painfully you loved the ones you loved… all I’d been able to think of was ‘I ain’t never been loved with that level of ferocity and sharpness and sheer power. Damn, I wanna be loved like that. That’s the sort of love that’s actually worth dying over.’ And then, when you called me Rat at the end of that message, I felt it. I felt it in your voice: a sliver of that love I wanted so bad. And I just… I couldn’t move. Your little voice message left me frozen in my chair for a couple hours and I just played it and replayed it over and over. Couldn’t do nothing else. And I been chasing your love ever since, desperate to just have you want me like that.”
[SILENCE 1.75 MINUTES]
“I do.”
“You do what.”
“Want you. Like that.”
“And it is still taking my breath away, Moondust, even now… so uh… don’t stop calling me that, ok?”
“Very well, Rat.”
“Ha. You can’t see it, but you literally just sent shivers up my spine. I am not bluffing. This is some serious drunk on love bullshit going on right here and I am all for it. I just wish you were here, or I was there, or something, so you could actually feel and see what it is you do to me.”
“Soon. I do not know how much longer, but we are making progress. And I will be able to return to you soon. And I shall. Trust.”
“Oh, I’m counting on it, but in the meantime, we gotta keep you fed on something more than nasty rations. If I sneak over and leave you dinner again tomorrow, you still gonna eat it?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now to figure out how to top that pasta salad.”
“You do not need to impress me.”
“Oh but I do. I absolutely do. And I will. You’ll see.”
“Hmmm…”
“Hmmm indeed. Goodnight, you beautiful badass witch.”
“Goodnight, Rat.”
[END TRANSCRIPT]