nexus_crossings | +1 Cylon to the Nexus

+1 Cylon to the Nexus

There is a man standing near the vending machines in the Plaza, dressed in a well-tailored, peacock blue suit. He looks like he could get you an excellent rate on your second mortgage, but you'd be wise to double-check the fine print before you sign anything. As he fixes himself a cup of coffee, he glances periodically at the people who pass by, his expression perfectly neutral. Although the more astute might pick up on the way he tugs at the cuffs of his sleeves impatiently, as if wishing he were somewhere else.

Finally, he sighs. "Okay. Listen up. Adia asked me to come here because she thought it'd be good for me to make some friends, so if you see her, you can tell her that we chatted and save yourself the actual trouble. All right? I'm sure we're all very busy people."

He takes a sip from his to-go cup and grimaces. "On second thought, can anyone tell me where I can get a decent coffee around here? I can't believe she's been drinking this stuff for the past three years.."

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He didn't ask for another pearl of wisdom, but whatever, he'll play along. "Sounds like you know your way around," he remarks as he continues to follow the other man. He keeps his face politely neutral, although there is a growing wariness in the line of his jaw as he's led through what feels like a maze of ever narrowing side streets. He puts his hands in his pockets and feels the comforting weight of his PINpoint. If Mr. Moustache tries anything funny, he'll be ready.

It's only when they've cleared the narrow entrance and he sees that he's been led into a legitimate coffee shop that Caspar relaxes. The owner with no mouth gets a raised eyebrow, but he places his order anyway: a plain, dark roast. Nothing fancy for him this trip.

He picks a table tucked under the stairs, but facing out to keep an eye on the rest of the establishment. "Does Adia know about this place?" he asks Reynard, after the taller man has joined him. "It's quiet. She'd like it."

The remark gets a quiet, pleased little smirk from Reynard, but he's content to let that sit and focus on getting the man some decent coffee.

After ordering a Turkish coffee, he joins his new acquaintance, only slightly put off by the fact that facing him means a limited view of the other patrons. He likes to be able to watch others, but perhaps this is better. He can focus on the man in front of him.

Reynard settles into the sturdy chair, leaning back and setting his interlaced fingers at his navel while he considers the other man. So neat. So serious. "I'm afraid I didn't catch your name."

Sorry he took your spot, Reynard, except that he's obviously not. He keeps an eye on the other man while he takes a careful sip of coffee. It's good, he grudgingly admits to himself. Very good.

"And I didn't catch yours," he replies, setting down his mug, before consciously releasing the tension from his jaw. There's no need to be evasive, despite the secluded spy-like atmosphere. "My name's Caspar. I'm Adia's boyfriend."

Reynard's expression doesn't change. He just... stares. The small, cheeky smile on his lips holds still while he processes this.

Caspar is alive. He's alive and he's sitting in from of Reynard right now. He's alive and Adia took him back. All of his past words to Adia about being sympathetic to Caspar's situation are suddenly at the furthest corner of his mind.

Well. Caspar doesn't guess his name just by looking, which means Adia hasn't mentioned him, or hasn't described him. Which means he has a unique opportunity here. It takes him time to process this revelation, but when he looks Caspar over with a deep inhale, widens his smile and nods, Caspar must know what the wait is about. "Caspar. She's talked about you..." He chuckles awkwardly. "I admit, I thought you were dead."

He presses a hand against his chest. "I'm Loup. Just a friend."

The staring is not new. It's almost expected at this point; it's Caspar, the last of the Fives. The enemy Cylon who somehow survived Galactica's final battle, who against all odds was pardoned by the Quorum and welcomed into the settlement, back into the life of the woman that he hurt most.

When the derision, the suspiciousness and fear, when they don't follow, that's when he stares back.

"I almost was," he replies, looking at this man in something between confusion and suspicion. "I was shot on Galactica, but I recovered. Adia took me back." He thinks back to when she told him about her friends in the Nexus. She mentioned a winter spirit, a talking polar bear, robots and aliens... he can't recall a man named Loup...

"Nice to meet you," he says finally. Reluctantly. "Have you known her long? Whatever she said about me..." A touch of guilt passes over his features. "Well, it's all true, but I'm making it up to her."

Edited 2017-12-09 00:00 (UTC)

With a tug of each finger, Reynard slips off his gloves, tucking them into his belt while Caspar talks. The casual act helps buy him time to consider how he feel about all of this. Caspar being alive, and Caspar being... this. It was easier to have him as some faceless, ethereal love interest, a ghost of the past. Now... Now Reynard has to deal with him.

That last comment gets a low chuckle and his eyebrows bounce once. "I should hope so, after everything you put her through," he says before taking a sip of his own coffee. He sets it down again, winces, and huffs. "I can scarcely imagine how you'd apologise for how you left her... That must have been... Well." He smiles at Caspar again. "Quite the apology."

That's genuine shame that passes over Caspar's face before he tightens his jaw defensively. "If you're such a good friend of hers, why don't you text her and get the play-by-play?" he replies coolly. "But yeah, I apologized. And she forgave me. I don't deserve it, but nobody deserves a girl like that. You just have to try your damnedest and hope it's enough."

He won't deny how much he hurt Adia, how unworthy he is of her love, but he's not looking for anyone else's forgiveness. And this guy's nosiness is rubbing him the wrong way. It'd be easier if he were angry at Caspar. This reaction feels... patronizing. He doesn't like it.

Seeing such quick defensiveness makes Reynard warm and fuzzy inside. Besides, it's more certain now that this is Caspar and isn't some impostor, even if the feel-good mini-speech starts turning to white noise in his ears.

Reynard laughs again, genuinely amused, and shakes his head until his laughter is gone. His grin is still there when he points out, "You didn't try very hard while she was stuck on that barren planet, did you? Not a word of hello, not a secret message, no sign... Ah!" He snaps his fingers. "Except when you threw her to the ground, I remember that. Interesting declaration of love."

"is this funny to you?" he asks, his voice taking on a distinct edge. This guy can throw shade on him all he wants, but it almost feels like he's making a mockery of the pain Adia went through, and he won't stand for that.

But before he can build momentum to his ire, Reynard lands a solid blow. His breath catches and he drops his gaze instantly. All too easily, he's taken back to that moment, to the look on Adia's face when he pushed her away. All that hope in her eyes crumbling into dust. "I was a coward," he admits. "A coward and a liar. But I couldn't put her at risk. I couldn't."

He takes a sip of his coffee; the brew tastes bitter on his tongue. "What I did to her on The Chiron... I was only thinking of myself. I wasn't any less selfish on New Caprica, but better me than a different Cylon."

The retort is on the tip of his tongue, but he has things he wants to hear answers for, information to seek out. Whether or not his amusement is genuine, luckily, is forgotten as he presses on. Caspar's apparent regret doesn't faze him in the slightest. It's too easily faked, and too often means too little, something he knows all too well as a man with so many regrets.

His hands clasp together loosely again and he nods with a thoughtful rumble. Lifting his head, he smiles again. "You were a coward, but you're better now? A 'new man'?"

Is he? He doesn't consider himself a coward anymore, but how can one be cowardly when one has nothing left to lose.

Except Adia.

The thought drags him out of his shame. He really doesn't like this guy. Doesn't like the way he's poking at the situation like a cat with a ball of string. Like it's a game. What kind of a friend to Adia is he?

"I won't hurt her again." He draws back his shoulders and fixes the other man with intense stare. "And I won't let anyone else hurt her either." He pauses a moment to tap the side of his mug, a corner of his mouth turning up slightly. "You realize, Loup, that I'm going to ask Adia all about you when I get back home. So if there's anything you'd like to share with me, you should do that by the time I'm done with my coffee."

"Oh no, I didn't expect you'd run back to Adia like a child tattling to his teacher," Reynard drawls back drily, finding it difficult to keep the amusement out of the sarcastic retort. After a deep breath in, he sighs at Caspar. "I trust Adia. I have no doubt that you will tell her, and that when you do she will groan and apologise for not being able to bubblewrap your feelings, and then have a few choice words with me when we next meet. But." He pauses to take a sip of his coffee. "You're not going to hold it against Adia, or else you're not going to show it, because you are the 'prodigal boyfriend', returned from the dead. Again." He scrunches up his face and shrugs. "And, I'll be honest, I'm willing to risk getting on your bad side."

The small cup clanks against the saucer as he sets it down and levels Caspar with a sober, stern stare. Every word out of his mouth drops like a stone, each one heavier, falling lower than the last. "Because while you were carving horror into her memory, poisoning her slowly with uncertainty and false hope, tearing her apart over and over again, I was here for her. I was here trying to make the worst pain she's ever gone through even the slightest bit more bearable. An entire war filled with mass slaughter and you -you!- managed to hurt her even more. You took a beautiful, sweet, innocent woman and broke her again and again and called it 'love'. I have seen torture, but you?" He inhales sharply. "You have cruelty down to a fine practice."

His voice lifts just enough to make it almost casual. "So you'll forgive me if I'm unafraid of what I might do to her, and more concerned about what you'll think up next to make her life a living nightmare."

Edited (HTML x_x) 2017-12-09 20:59 (UTC)

That sarcastic retort doesn't faze him in the slightest. Of course he'll tell her everything -- that's what she's already asked him to do. But then the other man finally drops his pretentious act and tells him in no small measure what he truly thinks, and it takes everything in Caspar's nature to not lose his poker face, his trembling hands the only tell that the stream of invective is having an impact on him at all.

It's not that this man is creating new wounds. It's more that he's pouring frozen water into old ones, tracts that Caspar has only barely begun to heal with the grace of Adia's forgiveness. It's like a frost that creeps into his heart, insidious, reminding him of all the pain he has caused her, all the damage he has done.

He breathes through the tightness in his chest. Focuses on the man across from him again. And realizes that he knows exactly who he is.

"You're Reynard, aren't you?"

In the dim light of the coffee shop, Caspar's hazel eyes look a little more green.

He sniffs. Clutches his fists once to ease the shaking. "You know," he begins, his face a mask of cold indifference. "Your words would have a lot more impact if you'd been honest with me from the start. But that doesn't come easily to you, does it?"

Wait. Stop. He's Adia's closest friend. She wouldn't want this.

Slowly, slowly, he eases the tension in his jaw. "Well. You've made your point. And since I doubt there's anything I can say that would convince you that I truly love and respect Adia, then I guess you're just going to have to keep trusting her that she's made the right decision by taking me back. Because that's what friends do, right? They trust each other. Because you're such a good friend to her."

He lifts the cup of coffee to his lips and drains the rest of it in one go.

Edited 2017-12-10 16:03 (UTC)

Cold indifference is exactly how he imagined Caspar would be, so it doesn't surprise him to see it in person. An eyebrow twitches upwards with Caspar's comment on his dishonesty, but Caspar isn't the only one holding his expression fast. It's a little more difficult when this man tries to suggest that his mistake of being reserved could possibly compare to anything Caspar did.

The muscles around his eyes tense, giving the impression that he's almost narrowing them, almost glaring. "You see, you've only gotten it partly right. I trust Adia. With all my heart I trust her. I know her. I trust her to be exactly who she is. I don't trust you." With a tilt of his head, he locks eyes with Caspar. "I know men like you. I know you're weak. I know you're selfish. I know that you'll call it 'love', say you're 'doing it for her', you're 'respecting her wishes', and make every excuse you can to get what you want, to justify your selfishness. When both you and I know that it's not kind, it's not noble, or good, or loving, to inflict your company on her any more than you already have."

This time, the insults do not seem to trigger any old traumas. He knows what he is. But he also knows that he loves Adia, and that Adia loves him. Wants him. If he thought for a second that he was hurting her by staying in her life, he'd leave it without a moment's thought. He makes her happy. Against all odds, he makes her happy, and that's all he wants, now and forever.

He knows Reynard won't believe him. And, he thinks to himself vindictively, perhaps Reynard can't believe him. He's a spirit, not a man. How many lifetimes has he already lived? How many sweet, innocent women has he already comforted?

"Well, then," he says, leaning forward slightly, not breaking eye contact. "Why don't you tell Adia that, and see how far it gets you?"

He sets down his empty coffee mug, then folds his hands in front of him. "Anything else you'd like to add to your shovel talk? Or are we done?"

This is not the first time he's sat down with a man he considers dangerous to a woman he cares about. It's not the first talk he's given, and he really should know how it goes by now. And yet despite that, despite knowing how this plays out, he still finds himself disappointed by Caspar's reaction. Just once he'd like them to agree, to reconsider, to do everyone a kindness by leaving. No such luck today.

"Just one thing." He draw closer and leans an arm on the table. "You understand what happens if you hurt her, don't you?"

Edited 2017-12-10 17:57 (UTC)

The look he gives Reynard is just shy of him rolling his eyes. This isn't the first time he's been through this song-and-dance as well. "Yes, I understand. And I'd deserve it, too. But I hope you're ready to wait in line. She has a lot of friends."

Maybe they wouldn't be quite so creative at causing him harm as a Winter spirit, but the intent is the same.

"I know this is wasted breath on my part, but I'd do the same to anyone else. And I don't make exceptions for extenuating circumstances."

Reynard tilts his head and squints at Caspar. "Even in your fancy suit the lofty protector look just doesn't fit."

With a sigh, he sits back into his seat and smiles gently. "And I'm patient. If I have to wait, I'll wait. Now. You were going to run along to Adia...?"

"There's nothing lofty about the way I protect her," he replies tightly. Which, okay, that doesn't exactly make sense, but the sentiment's there.

Standing up, he tilts his head slightly at Reynard's schoolyard taunt and smirks. "I sure am. She's expecting me back at our cabin, and I'd hate to keep her waiting." Yep, he went there. "Thanks for the coffee."

He doesn't wait for Reynard to reply before heading out the way he came.

Edited 2017-12-10 21:28 (UTC)

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+1 Cylon to the Nexus

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