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theoldguardkinkmeme) wrote2021-03-07 01:19 pm
theoldguardkinkmeme) wrote2021-03-07 01:19 pm
Fills Post #2
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Fills can but don't need to be anonymous.
Start a new comment for each fill. Don't use threaded comments for new fills. Threaded comments are for fills that take up more than one comment field, or for feedback/squee/praise.
In your fill, please mention the prompt you are responding to, and provide a link to your prompt in the body of the text.
Please use a header with your character(s)/pairing and a title and/or keyword or short phrase. (For example: "Just you and me: Andy/Quynh, Make-up sex" or "Between a Rock and A Hard Place: Nicky/Joe/Booker, first time DP").
Please also comment with a link to your fill in the prompt post, under the prompt you are responding to. Your comment header should include the word "Fill" or "Filled", so that those checking out the thread can find your fic/art more easily (For example: "FILL: Re: Any/Quynh, Make-up sex").
If you end up cleaning up your fill and posting it elsewhere (AO3, your personal journal), feel free to link the posted fic/art here as well.
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Books for Booker 1/7
(Anonymous) 2021-07-12 03:46 am (UTC)(link)*
A/N: i've been trying to only post completed fills, but i am shamelessly posting this here in hopes of receiving comments/encouragement because i know a team gen fic isn't going to get as much of that.
0. prologue
He has one hundred years of penance, and he wastes the initial part of it drunk as a fish. This is unfunny according to Quỳnh.
“You had what I wanted and you wasted it,” she says in disappointment.
And Jesus, he hadn’t even known her long, and she’s already laying on the guilt. “You think if I could, I wouldn’t have swapped places with you?”
“You say that, but you wouldn’t. You just want to be miserable, instead of living the one life you’ve been given.”
“One life?”
She shrugs in her fine clothing. Despite being away for so long, she dresses better than he does. “So it’s a long one.”
Later, as he downs a different vintage, a different appellation, he asks, “Why are you here, and not with them?”
Her face grows pensive, lost. She takes a sip of her mint tea, then says, “Because you and I have both been set adrift. I don’t know if I am ready to …” She shakes her head, sets her tea down, and then throws him into the bathtub.
From then on, every time he drinks, she douses him in water: dumps water on him, shoots very accurately with a water gun, water balloons, and of course, the damn bathtub. It also has the unexpected result of him finally taking off his shoes inside the house, since wet shoes are miserable.
“Haven’t you have enough?” he shouts in the tepid shower.
“Haven’t you?” she says in turn, and then returns to reading her book out loud to him from where she’s perched on the counter.
“Jesus, woman, couldn’t you just… monologue at me instead of ignoring me by reading?”
Quỳnh fucking chortles. “You think I would give a villainous speech?”
Yes, yes he did. “How do you even know about those?” He needs a shower anyway, so he turns the knob for more hot water, and strips his clothes.
“You,” she replies. “I’ve had nothing but water, and your memories for years.” She takes a sip of her chrysanthemum tea. “And now the woman too. Andy,” the name still sits funny in her mouth, “likes her.”
“Nile shot her.”
“Good,” Quỳnh smiles. “Keep her on her toes, since I’m not there.”
“Not good. Andy doesn’t heal anymore.”
Quynh draws figures in the fogged up mirror. “Hmm.”
Booker stills, looking at her in her matching pajamas. “Do you... do you know if she can become immortal again?”
“The same way fairy tales solve problems: kindness, blood, and true love’s kiss.”
And Booker knows then she’s fucking with him. He picks up his wet shirt and throws it at her. She catches it, and tosses it to the floor. “Then why are you here and not with her?” he grouses.
She closes her book, and looks at him. “You and I are alike, drowning. I need time to ... reconnect with the world, and you need time to come to your senses.”
“I’ve come to my fucking senses. I fucked up. I fucked up. And now they’re all… I’m all...”
“Alone. Yes. You think so little of family,” she says a little sadly. “We will be alone together until we find our land legs.”
*
He and Quỳnh stay in Paris. When you’re lost, you’re supposed to wait where you are, right?
His apartment grows furnished now that Quỳnh’s here. Since she’s filling his (their?) apartment with things, cutlery that matches, an organizer for the closet, a shoe rack by the door, he figures he can fill the bookshelf that’s been serving as an over-sized recycle bin for his empty bottles. Eventually he starts reading again. It’s unoriginal, he knows.
His shelves fill with books he loved, books he hopes to read, and books he’s finished. He often thinks of the team (“The family,” Quỳnh corrects), who would like what book. What they would talk about. He has these books, and he can’t send them to them, because it would be intrusive. They exiled him, they don’t want his gifts. But he collects books, a shelf for each of them, books he wants to share with them, say I thought of you when I read this or I think you’d like this.
His shelves are full of unspoken wishes, regrets. And even as he misses them fiercely, wondering what they are doing, how are Andy’s joints doing, is she still insisting on going in first despite her mortality? What stupid bets are Joe and Nicky making? Who does Joe watch football with now? How is Nile settling into her new life? So he keeps reading, dreaming of them in his own way, and fills his shelves.
Re: Books for Booker 1/7
(Anonymous) 2021-07-13 08:36 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Books for Booker 1/7
(Anonymous) 2021-07-27 04:37 am (UTC)(link)Re: Books for Booker 1/7
(Anonymous) 2021-07-14 07:56 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Books for Booker 1/7
(Anonymous) 2021-07-27 04:37 am (UTC)(link)Re: Books for Booker 1/7
(Anonymous) 2021-07-14 09:32 pm (UTC)(link)Beautiful prologue. I love Quynh’s way of helping with the water. Very annoying sister vibes and it works just like annoying siblings do ❤️
Re: Books for Booker 1/7
(Anonymous) 2021-07-27 04:40 am (UTC)(link)Also thanks for commenting OP!!
Re: Books for Booker 1/7
(Anonymous) 2021-07-15 06:50 am (UTC)(link)Re: Books for Booker 1/7
(Anonymous) 2021-07-27 04:43 am (UTC)(link)(Then again it has historically taken me forever to x-post to ao3 so, uh, no promises 😬😅 but knowing someone wants to bookmark it is definitely motivation!!)
Re: Books for Booker 1/7
(Anonymous) 2021-07-15 12:53 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Books for Booker 1/7
(Anonymous) 2021-07-27 04:44 am (UTC)(link)Books for Booker 2/7
(Anonymous) 2021-07-27 04:35 am (UTC)(link)*
1. Andy
As it turns out, Booker should’ve had more faith in Andy, because a phone arrives in his mail one day, along with a note reading:
You left this behind. -Boss
Quỳnh peers over Booker’s shoulder. “Did you finally find a job?” she asks.
He shakes his head and turns the phone on and thumbs through the address book. He recognizes the four sets of numbers, and texts the one ending in -1341, the year King Tut was born (“You’re older than King Tut,” they’d often snicker. “So are you!” Andy’d yell at Joe and Nicky.)
👋 he types. Immediately, his phone buzzes, and a 👍 appears over his text, followed by a message consisting solely of 🖕.
He doesn’t dislodge Quỳnh. This must be the first time she’s seen Andy even as indirectly as a live text message. “Would you like to talk to her?” he offers.
She shakes her head. “No. But, ask her what her favorite brand of fish sauce is. I want to know if she still has a taste for anything other than the baklava I saw in your dreams.”
*
It takes him a week to decide to text Andy, and then another to finally do it. In the meanwhile, Quỳnh proceeds to try Andy’s fish sauce of choice and declares that it passes muster.
“You’re as nervous as if you’re asking out your first girlfriend,” Quỳnh notes.
“Close enough,” Booker mumbles.
“Are you going to do it, or am I going to have to do it for you?”
And so he finally does, sending Andy a cover of the book he’s reading. Thought of you when I read this, tough broad who survives her world ending multiple times. Quỳnh pats him on the head, and they have Indian food in celebration.
It becomes easier. He sends her another picture of a book, this one’s about a lesbian destroying the empire that crushed her people, except she uses economics as her weapon. Quỳnh thinks that sounds promising, so she picks the book up when Booker’s done. She gets its sequel before him, and pesters him until he reads about it as well.
(“I relate to Tain Hu,” Quỳnh brazenly declares. “My presence was felt even while I was a ghost.”
Booker chokes on his juice, both because she’s joking about her imprisonment and because he expected her to relate to Baru and her dreams of burning it all down.)
Andy doesn’t reply, but Booker doesn’t worry about that. He’s texted her; she’ll either reply or she won’t, but it’s out of his hands now.
*
One day, Booker opens the door, and Andy is on the other side.
“The fuck,” he says.
“Hello the fuck to you too, Book,” she declares and then she comes inside.
He’s suddenly glad he’s come out the worst of his bender, because Andy sees an apartment that’s actually in habitable if not outright-homey condition. He clears the cups from the kitchen table and shuffles the newspapers to one side.
“Company?” she asks with an amused arch of her eyebrow.
“You have no idea,” he mutters.
Her gaze softens, her imagination on a totally different page than hers. “Company’s good, Book. Just because you’re away from the group doesn’t mean you have to be devoid of all human connection.” He waves his hand in agreement as he puts the kettle on.
“So, what brings you here, boss?”
Andy pulls a chair out for herself, but doesn’t sit. “I came because I wanted to check on you after you sent me those two books.” And of course, she wouldn’t leave it to second-hand reports from Copley, she’d come to see him herself. That’s the kind of leader she is, why they all orbit her like the sun.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m drinking less, reading more.”
“That’s good. Gotta say, the apartment, and you, are in better shape than I thought. I take it the company’s good?” she teases.
“You’ve no idea,” he says dryly.
She laughs, then asks, “So, what do you have to drink?” She opens the fridge and raises her eye at the kombucha. “Really?”
“Gotta be good to my stomach; maybe my liver too?” They laugh.
“So,” Booker ventures, “you read them?”
“Of course I did, I have nothing but time on my hands now that the rest of them bench me for the fun stuff. They won’t let me pull a London 2019.” She sounds miffed, but he knows she’s not really. “Book, those are both books about people living through terrible things outside of their control. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a cry for help.”
“I admit, Baru does make some poor choices…”
“Poor girl would be in a better mood if she just fucked around some more.”
“Is that a hint?”
“I’m not fucking you,” Andy quips. “I can’t risk anymore injuries.”
“That’s a terrible joke, and you know it. Besides I was the who get injured.”
She rolls her eyes. “Just go to the south of France, look at the sea, read a book. Relax, Book, because I would not call The Fifth Season or The Traitor Baru Cormorant a beach read.”
The kettle whistles, and he pours two cups of hojicha. They both take a seat at the small two-seater kitchen table. As the tea steeps, he stares at the water slowly changing color. “I wasn’t looking to relax,” he says. “I figured… I figured if I was going to be alone, then finding all of you in books was as good a way as any to be less alone. In Essun, I see a woman who’s lived many lives and survived them all, like you. And in Baru, I see a woman determined to make the world a better place, even if she cuts herself in the doing.”
Andy sets the tea strainer to the side. “Are you sure they’re not books about living and dying?” Booker tenses. He wouldn’t have said it like that, but… “What you said is true,” Andy continues, “but I’m trying to believe in something more. I meant it when I said we were doing a shit job of living. Baru finds that out in the second book, and for all the strife Essun goes through, there are still beautiful moments. We can’t stop living just because the bad is easier to remember.
“Books help keep our minds open to different things, see things differently. I think we both need that. Is Essun’s magic and Baru’s genius a curse or a gift? Is their dogged survival a curse or a gift? It’s what they do with it that matters. Things grow after death. We don’t have to let all the years stop us from living, or from tasting its joys. Take it from me,” she adds dryly, “drinking feels different when you can get hung over. I drink less, so I can remember everything else: Nile finding her footing, and Nicky insisting Joe be little spoon, and Joe talking back at the movies we watch.
“So, reread the books, or their sequels, and we can talk about the good in them too. Let me know when you do. I can come by again, and you can have baklava for me along with the tea.”
Booker’s heart squeezes. “It’s a plan, Andy.”
They drink their tea, kicking their feet against one another, comfortable in the silence. At last, Andy quietly says, “I thought of Quỳnh when I read Baru. She would do something like this, hone herself so sharp to destroy something she cuts herself.”
“I thought so too, but maybe we think too little of her,” Booker ventures. “Since we’re trying to imagine something better, we can imagine better for her too.”
Andy is pensive. “You’re right. That also brings me to the other reason I came here: Nile says Quỳnh’s out. She hasn’t come to any of us, and I wasn’t sure if you’d had the same dreams or if you…”
“...were drinking it all away? Yes, I am aware she’s on land these days.”
“Good,” is all she says. “One last thing before I go then.”
“You don’t have to go,” he says quickly, not caring how that sounds.
“Don’t worry, Book, I’ll be back.” She leaves her dishes on the table and shrugs her jacket back on. “I think you should text the others; I put their numbers in there for a reason. I hear books are a good conversation starter.”
“Not football?”
She rolls her eyes. “You want to mend fences, not bash them.”
“It’s not my fault Joe has shit taste in football teams.” It’s a rote response, really. He and Joe flip a coin to decide what teams they’ll root for every season.
“You tell him that, then,” Andy snorts.
*
“Andy was here,” Booker says when Quỳnh returns. Unphased, she continues hanging up her scarf. “I thought you’d be more…” she does not fill in the rest of the sentence for him “...excited?”
“I knew she was coming,” Quỳnh notes. “Why do you think I moved my house slippers to under the bed?”
Booker is thankful Andy didn’t snoop in his (their?) bedroom. It’s a one bedroom apartment, and once he realized Quỳnh had moved in, he’d suggested getting a two bedroom. She’d refused. “I like the small space,” she’d said, “it feels more familiar for now.”
Their sleeping arrangements are chaotic. Sometimes they share the bed, sometimes one of them will sleep on the pull-out couch, and other times they share the pull-out couch. This is the longest he’s shared his literal bed with someone in a long time. Something about it feels right though: what is family, even the estranged ones, for if not sticking together through hard times?
“She also knows you’re no longer underwater,” Booker ventures.
“Good.”
Booker waits for her to say more on the topic of her return: if they know, why haven’t they searched for her? Why had they given up searching for her? Quỳnh hasn’t asked any of those questions to Booker, instead asking about wi-fi, the events that had passed, the memories she’d missed. Booker knows better than to ask what Quỳnh’s plans are. She’s grown used to the palace of her own thoughts, and will share them when she’s ready.
What Quỳnh does ask is, “So, tell me about your little book club. What did you talk about? What did Andy think of the books? Did she see me in Tain Hu?”
“Ah… we didn’t get to discussing the minutiae of the plot really…”
“What! Tain Hu is glorious and magnificent! And Baru so smart and yet dumb!”
“We mostly talked about the big themes…”
“Empire?”
“Uh… death…”
“Ugh, the titular Fifth Season. Well, did you at least talk about all the miniature deaths people go through in that book...”
And so they talked long into the night, about the books, about what Andy had said, and what new thoughts came after.
Re: Books for Booker 2/7
(Anonymous) 2021-08-03 11:47 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Books for Booker 2/7
(Anonymous) 2021-09-08 05:59 am (UTC)(link)Books for Booker 3/7
(Anonymous) 2021-09-08 06:08 am (UTC)(link)A/N: Quỳnh’s line about the fishes are a nod to this fanfic (https://archiveofourown.org/works/27076831) .
*
2. Quỳnh
He knows Andy’s right, that even though he’s doing penance, he can try to stay connected with the others. But he doesn’t know where to start: he’s said I’m sorry and it wasn’t enough and I’m learning my lesson sounds juvenile – then again, he is in a time-out of one hundred years.
While he goes back and forth about who to reach out to first (he is not doing a group chat), he turns to who he knows the least: Quỳnh. Without the years of inside jokes, regrets, and memories, it should be easier; and low stakes is good practice right?
“Can I… practice with you?” he asks as she works a Rubik’s cube and he a Sudoku.
“I’m sure Andy trained you well, but no,” Quỳnh says primly.
Booker lightly punches her. “No, I mean getting to know you through the books you like. You’ve been reading stuff I haven’t read.”
(Quỳnh is not working. While Booker had forged some papers for her, she doesn’t need to work, she had come to him rich. She’d said, “Learning to live is a full-time job, thank you.” She takes it seriously, going out, trying new foods, reading alone in the sun – joins a salsa dancing class even.)
“Yes,” she says slowly, “let’s. Give me a book you think I’d like, and then I will give you one that shows you a different side of me.”
So, he hands her a book with a cover like a playing card. “It’s about gangsters of color in the U.S. trying to do the right thing with their magic.”
Quỳnh gives him an unimpressed look. “Between this and your books with Andy, I’m sensing a theme.”
“That’s not why I picked it for you.” She snatches the book from him, and two days later, announces she’s finished it.
“I don’t like sad books,” she declares.
“I thought you’d like Dev’s letter at the end.”
Quỳnh flips through the book until she finds it. Once she rereads it, she says, “Yes, I believe justice will come for everyone, and that I will be lucky to live long enough to see it. There are times Andromache and I have made the wheel of justice move faster, but there are other ways to make it right. Even the small things I do now will ripple with time.”
“You saw Copley’s wall of miracles, I take it?”
“What? No, I just had a lot of time to think, and a captive audience.”
“Me?”
She waves him off. “No, the fishes. They like being told stories.
“I already know the world seeks to grind away women like us. It is true, yes. And I also want to imagine something better than spending my life righting wrongs and lopping off the heads of each man who condemned me, and women like me, to die. I want to live.” There is a fierceness in her eyes, the determined set of her mouth. If she declared she was going to sail the world from south to north, he’d follow her. Instead, she suggests, “Speaking of better, why don’t we take a weekend trip? It’s cold here, and we could be warm at the beach.”
*
The town Quỳnh drives them to, is indeed warmer than Paris. She books a villa that reminds her of one of Nicky’s because of its blue and white tiling. Booker’s never seen that home, and he wonders if it hurt too much to bring someone new there when Nicky could remember her so clearly in this space – a space they could summon the memory of Quỳnh, since neither of them dreamt of her.
They go shopping, and Booker’s surprised when she insists he buy a swimsuit as well. She tosses a tiny Speedo at him. “You’ll complete my look,” she jokes. “You can look like my kept man.” Booker doesn’t fully get the jest himself, but he knows Andy would’ve loved it.
The next day, they go to the beach. They read on their blankets, and she indulges him when he insists they both use sunscreen. When she smooths her hair to the front, allowing him to rub the sunscreen onto her back, he realizes how little he’s touched her. Bare skin has an intimacy all its own. It’s not sexual per se; he and the others have wiped shit, blood, and other muck off one another. But he’s never touched Quỳnh after violence, only in these domestic moments.
Eventually, she bookmarks her page and steps to the shore. He watches carefully, and when she lets the waves lap her knees, he follows her.
“Are you…” he’s not sure if there’s a good way to say this, “going in?”
“Yes,” she says, with a pinched look to her face.
“Did you… It’s okay to be afraid. I died by hanging, and it took me a long time to look at rope without that flash of fear.”
The corner of her mouth twitches up, and the wind blows her hair. “I can hold my breath a long, long time. Don’t worry if I take awhile to come back. I will, you know.” Despite her pensive look, she winks at him. And then she dives in.
He waits for her in the ankle-deep water. She takes long enough he begins to worry, but he sees her surface far in the distance, then plunge back under. When she at last emerges close to shore, standing in the waist-deep surf, he goes out to meet her.
She wraps wet arms around him. “I wanted to know if I could love the sea again, having hated it so long.”
“Ah,” he replies. “Can you?”
“Yes,” she says, “yes.”
They walk home, and once they shower, they throw a towel over the couch in the living room and sit there. Together and naked, they look out at the clear sea and blue water.
She stretches her arms along the back of the couch and asks, “Why do you keep casting me in the role of avenger?”
He thinks back to the book he gave her. “We left you; you should be angry.”
She shakes her head. “That’s your guilt. You and Andy have painted yourselves in it long enough. I don’t need it and I don’t need to. I gave all of mine back to the sea. You need to find someway to let go of that. Have you tried sex?”
Booker groans. “That’s what Andy said. Did she learn it from you?”
“Works for Andy,” she shrugs. “Joe has his art, Nicky cooks. Does he still over salt things?”
“Over salt? He under salts it!” Quỳnh’s mouth crimps in a way that suggests she thinks he’s full of shit.
“They call you Booker because you like to read. So read. Not just what you think you should to be better, but read about things that feel good. Read things that show you not just who you are, but who you want to be.”
“I’m not even sure where to begin,” he admits. “How do I find my way out?”
“I have a book about that. Would you like to read it?”
“Yes, please.”
She pads to the bedroom, and brings back a slender book for him. He opens it, and she opens a yoga video on Youtube. “I used to be limber,” she says poker-faced. “You never know when being flexible is handy.” He’s not sure if she means for sex, fighting, or crime, so he turns the page and reads.
*
The rest of the week is a blur of sand, salt, and trying different foods. Quỳnh manages to touch her toes, and Booker finishes the little book.
“I get it,” he states. “I can choose to love in a different way. I can love something other than my misery. Like Andy’s trying.” Quỳnh waits out his silence, stirring her bouillabaisse, so he lets his question trip off his tongue. “That’s the way out. Is… that what you thought of, all those years?”
Quỳnh is silent for a moment. “Did I think these exact thoughts while I was gone? No. But I read this, and I knew it was true. It helped me understand the shape of my thoughts. Andy promised me we would be together until the end, and she –” Quỳnh hugs herself, and Booker thinks she would not welcome his touch, so he does not offer it. “Andy was just as lost as I was. We are two halves of a kite; it is a choice we made; so when we drown, or when we love, we do that together too.”
“It still feels like love, even after all this time?”
Quỳnh huffs. “I have a memory of love. Who both of us are now are different. We are strangers now, people in love with a ghost. It is easy to love a ghost. It’s harder to love a person. When we meet again, we can decide if now is when we part ways, or if we will go together once again, and learn to live together again too.
“But before that, I need to learn to breathe again.”
“Me, too,” he admits. Quỳnh might not want to be touched, but he does. He stands to her side, and nudges her hand with his. She takes it, holds him loosely, as she stirs in the salt. Needing to lighten the mood, he asks one more question, “Hey, can I taste it to make sure you salted it right?”
Her eyes gleam, and it turns out it’s not the salt he needs to worry about, but the heat.
Books for Booker 4/8
(Anonymous) 2021-12-01 05:04 am (UTC)(link)*
3. Nicky
Booker hits send on his drafted text to Nicky: would you like to read a book together?
As in a bedtime story?
Booker rolls his eyes. like a book club
yes. What did you have in mind?
Booker did not expect such a speedy reply, so he hadn’t decided which of his books to suggest. He scans the pile of books on the TV tray near him, and finds a romance – Nicky’s always loved a good romance. He takes a picture, along with the name of the book and author.
Nicky’s reply is a mere 👍.
The socializing ball now out of his court, he sets his phone aside and cracks the book open. He doesn’t want to fall behind – the last time they had done this was by letter, and Nicky had spoiled that the Admiral was the murderer.
It takes Nicky a few days to start live texting him, but when he does, he wakes up to a slew of fourteen text messages ranging from ah yes, the classic marriage of convenience; Malta 1649 to I am glad to see historicals about bisexuals 🏳🌈. It certainly motivates Booker to keep reading ahead of Nicky.
“I like watching you race each other,” Quỳnh notes with bemusement, as Booker tries to live text his own reading experience. Something he struggles with, since he gets swept up in the book entirely. Quỳnh has to remind him the tea kettle is ready, so would he set the book down so he can stop the kettle’s shrieking?
When at last they both finish the book (Booker first, likely because he has nothing else going on in his life), they text more. Nicky types, I would call, but that’s not an option right now. Why did you pick this book? Ah, so Nicky’s probably up to trouble with everyone else; Booker’s surprised by how he both by how he misses being part of a group doesn’t miss feeling alone within it.
Booker is honest. It was next to me and you like romances.
Can we read this one next? I can visit you for IRL book club 😊 Nicky sends a photo of a green and gold book cover comes in.
Booker replies, yes, of course! 😁
😊 then I will save all my comments for then
In reality, Booker feels a prickle of sweat. He wants to make a good impression on Nicky. And … shit, that means he’ll need to cook something spectacular.
*
Gods of Jade and Shadow is not what Booker expects, and yet he devours the thing in one go. When he closes the book at last, he stares at the wall, still under its spell. Quỳnh slinks into the kitchen for a midnight snack, and says through a mouthful of expensive cheese, “That good?”
“Yeah,” Booker says, “yeah.”
“Can I read it?”
Booker wordlessly hands it to her, and she settles in against his side, beginning. They fall asleep pressed against one another, the half-finished book still open in Quỳnh’s lap.
*
The day Nicky is set to arrive, Quỳnh decides to help Booker cook.
“You’re not worried he’ll see you?”
“Nicolò would find it rude to show up eight hours early, even if he did likely arrive last night just in case of unforeseen circumstance.” She’s right, of course. “And he once cooked me a marvelous loaf of bread. We ate it with honey… My memories are not all that they were, the order of them especially, but I remember the taste of it, and laughing with him. He gave me the leftover honey – for Andromache, he said, with a wink.”
Booker likes hearing Quỳnh reminisce. Andy didn’t do it much because it hurt, and Nicky and Joe’s memories of her and Quỳnh only go so far back. Quỳnh remembers Andy unsuccessfully trying to ride a water buffalo along with the requisite embarrassingly bawdy sex tales (“She claimed she was sore from riding the shepherd, but I knew it was the water buffalo”). It’s a side of Andy no one’s seen for many years. He hopes, if he’s lucky, he’ll see it for himself.
They work together, Quỳnh on her bread and Booker on minestrone soup he decides to throw vegan Parmesan in, just to see if Nicky will notice. Then he makes a galette; rolling out the filo dough keeps his mind off of how nervous he is. He still has a little time before Quỳnh’s bread is done in the oven, so he also makes garlic and herb butter.
Eventually, there’s a full spread of food, more than just he and Nicky can eat, and Quỳnh’s loaf of bread comes out of the oven. The whole apartment smells delicious and lived-in, like someone with a life worth living lives here.
Quỳnh takes her leave, and half an hour later, Nicky knocks on their door.
*
Over an early dinner, they talk about Gods of Jade and Shadow. “I thought this was going to be a romance,” Booker admits sheepishly.
Nicky smiles. “The back of the book fooled you, saying it was a fairy tale?” Booker nods. “Why do you think I love it?”
“It’s… mythic?”
“Because Casiopea does what she must to set the world back in tune,” he corrects. “She’s just an ordinary young woman trying to find her way and do the right thing. And isn’t that what we’re doing?”
Booker feels awkward assuming Nicky would be defined only by his love for Joe, but Nicky is gracious. “And it does make me grateful my star crossed lover and I get to be together. Not all are so fortunate. The right thing isn’t always about what we want to do, although I have been lucky the two have been the same in my life.” He sips his soup. “It’s our responsibility to make a life worth living for ourselves and everyone else too.”
Booker sighs. “I don’t know if I have that much heart left in me.”
“That’s why you’re here,” Nicky says, placing his hand on Booker’s shoulder. Booker feels grateful for the touch. “To take the time to figure out how to live. Watching me and Joe wasn’t helping.”
“That’s a polite way of putting it.”
“Ratting us out didn’t help, either.”
“Are you trying to make me feel better or worse?”
“The truth will set you free,” Nicky nods very sagely.
Booker laughs, a short thing, but a laugh nonetheless. “You little shit.”
“You wouldn’t have it any other way. Now, what is the secret ingredient you put in the soup? I can’t tell what it is.”
“Vegan Parmesan.”
Nicky sets his spoon down. “I am glad people have options, but a good wheel of Parmesan is an art, Booker.”
Booker’s heard this line of thought before, so he quickly exclaims, “Dessert!” They’d been so wrapped up in talking with one another, he’d forgotten to serve Quỳnh’s bread with the soup. He’d promised her he’d give Nicky a slice, so he grabs the loaf along with the honey Quỳnh casually left out. Nicky roots through drawers until he finds fresh plates and utensils.
Nicky raises his eye at the loaf. “You didn’t oversalt it did you?”
Booker chuckles. “No.”
“Well, let’s see.”
They cut into it, and after the first bite, Nicky says pensively, “Pass the honey.”
As they munch once more, Booker thinks to himself Quỳnh must’ve done this deliberately, and Nicky confirms it when he murmurs, “I know the taste of these hands.” He stares at the bite of bread left in his hands, shoves it in his mouth, eyes growing wet, but reaches for a second slice anyway.
*
At the end of their night, Nicky pulls Booker into a long embrace, wool-coat scratchy against him. “Tell her I miss her,” Nicky says, “and pass the hug along.” Booker merely nods, unsure how much he should say. Nicky lets him go, but then hugs him once more.
“Am I passing this one along too?”
Nicky chuckles. “No, that one’s for you.” Booker’s eyes water, but Nicky says nothing of it.
Books for Booker 5/8
(Anonymous) 2022-01-06 05:02 am (UTC)(link)Joe shows up six months later with a bag of Vietnamese takeout. To his surprise, Booker already has the relevant condiments in his pantry. Booker shrugs; Quỳnh always is absent whenever one of the family visits. He’s not going to push it.
“I wasn’t sure I’d see you,” Booker says.
“I wasn’t either.”
And they both say, “Nicky was,” and laugh.
“He got me to come by betting me it’d take me nine months to work up the nerve,” Joe admits.
“So you’re visiting me just to win?”
“Absolutely,” Joe agrees amiably. Booker thinks he’ll have to thank Nicky somehow. Maybe a knitted scarf? He picked up the hobby a century ago and hasn’t touched a set of knitting needles in years, but Nicky had sent a photo of a knit sweater with a goose on it recently saying he loved how whimsical knitting had become. “So I hear you have a book club going.”
“Uh, yes?”
“Great, here’s your next book.” Joe plops a book on the kitchen counter, a romance judging by the illustrated cover. “I’ll be back in three weeks! I’ve sent you a calendar invite. Gotta go!” And then he’s gone.
It’s a bit of a whirlwind, but Booker doesn’t mind the brevity of Joe’s visit. Joe was probably gauging how much he still wanted to punch him.
*
After Joe’s impromptu visit, Booker asks Quỳnh what exactly her plans are on seeing the rest of the group. “I know you’re taking it slow,” he says, “but if they’re going to drop by unannounced…?”
She waves her hand. “James already knows about me. We’ve talked.”
“You talked,” he repeats faintly. He imagines Quỳnh shocking the poor man, and once she leaves, Copley researching all the seeds of goodwill Quỳnh sewed long before photographs were in use.
“We’ve an arrangement, just like you and I. I will introduce myself when I am ready. Don’t worry, I can stay ahead of them; I was always the best at hide and seek.” Booker isn’t sure if that’s a joke or not, but she takes mercy on him and winks. “If they already know and mention me, it’s alright, but…” she details what she’s comfortable with him mentioning. Not much more than that she’s here, alive, and will come back when she’s ready. “They know this already,” she says. “So, let me read this book of Joe’s, since I know you’re going to wait until the last week…”
*
With two weeks until his phone call with Joe, Booker tears through the romance novel, and immediately suspects the book is a message for him. “A woman with a bucket list of things to make her life worthwhile?” he asks when Joe appears on his computer screen. “A little heavy handed don’t you think?”
Joe chuckles. “Since when did you do subtle? Andy all but fell onto your dick before you…”
Booker covers his face. “Enough, enough, you’ve made your point!”
Joe shakes his head. “Mostly I just wanted to know what you thought of the book. The additional life coaching was a bonus.” He leans back in his chair, and then adds, “Andy and Nicky told me they each did a second book as a getting to know you thing. So I brought another book.” He holds up his copy to the camera. This book has a pink cover, also illustrated, although the characters look decidedly young.
Booker takes it. “Three weeks again?”
“Sure, but I don’t think you’ll need that much. I’m here for another two days.”
When Booker grabs a copy from the bookstore, he realizes he won’t even need a full day; it’s a comic book.
*
When Quỳnh comes home from the gym (“I have a lot of conditioning to catch up on,” she says primly, “although being kept in salt water was great for my skin”), Booker asks her a long overdue question. “Does it bother you that Andy and I have slept together?”
“No.” She putters into the kitchen with bare feet, deciding what to eat from the fridge. “She is not a painting to be possessed. She’s had a long list of lovers over the years, but it is I she returns to in the end.” She shrugs. “Are you worried I’m jealous?”
“A bit?”
She looks at him out the side of her eye. “If I slept with you, would it even the score?”
Booker turns red. “Uh…”
“Men aren’t normally who I seek out, but we used to joke sex was part of the welcome to being immortal package,” she notes nonchalantly. “It wouldn’t be romantic love between us; it would be an activity between friends.” She plucks the smoothie he made this morning out.
He remembers the affront on Andy’s face when he turned her down the first time, so he tries to strike the right tone in his careful reply. “Thank you, but no.”
Quỳnh laughs. “If you could see your face!”
*
When Joe arrives for their in person book club, the first thing he says is, “So, did you cry?” before he’s even removed his sunglasses.
“I gave a manly sniffle.”
“Liar.”
“I’m not the one wearing sunglasses to hide their red eyes.”
“It’s from jet lag!”
“Uh-huh…”
They settle onto the couch, and work their way through the charcuterie board. Joe demolishes the brie while Booker starts with the salami. They rally back and forth about teenage awkwardness, the use of empty space, and monkhood as a time-honored method of avoiding one’s problems.
Booker also asks a question for Quỳnh, “What did you think of the fashion?” Joe’s gives him a meaningful look, rubbing a hand over his beard. “If only we could all be that daring in our fashion choices. Quỳnh would love a dress that made her look like the devil’s wench, or to make people faint with her provocative choices.”
Booker has a reply on the tip of his tongue about the extremely expensive lingerie and atelier catalogs she’s looked through, one of which is titled Riot! Designs. But he bites another bullet instead. “I assumed Nicky and you would pick romances. But neither of you picked romances. Where’d I go wrong?”
Joe leans into the couch, arms spread across the back. With the city behind him, he looks like he belongs in one of Quỳnh’s fashion magazines. “I do love a good romance,” Joe says, “but what could compare to real life with Nicky? Besides, with the work we do, we see the cruelty of the world.” He taps the book against his knee. “This book is a good reminder that no matter how much the world changes, there is sweetness and kindness, and that is worthwhile.”
Booker nods, throat thick.
“Please tell Quỳnh that too, ok?” Hearing her name at last from one of the others still takes Book by surprise. “When Nicky came back from visiting you and started baking that bread he always talked about with Quỳnh, but only when Andy wasn’t around, I knew. So I asked Nile. I know Quỳnh’s gotta do her own thing, but tell her that for me, okay?” Joe’s voice is insistent, a bit of a quaver sneaking in.
“I will,” he promises. “Can I also ask you… how did you believe there would be good things, not just with Quỳnh, but everything?”
Joe gives a deep sigh. “It took practice. To see the good in small things, then in the long scheme of things. And honestly, sometimes it is only bearable because I believe no matter how terrible it gets, there will always be honey.” He takes a deep breath. “And no matter the mistakes our family makes, they’re still family.”
“I’m sorry,” Booker says, knowing it’s not enough, and won’t be for many years. But perhaps, one day in another century, they’ll find a way to laugh about this, even if it seems impossible now.
“Love is never safe, but it is worth it,” Joe says calling back to their first book. “We’ve had plenty of good times too, and there will be in the future if I let you and let myself. And I want that, I just need some time to work through my own anger, and I think you need time to work through your shit too.”
Booker nods. “Therapy is a lot easier these days with the Internet.”
“No shit.” They spend a moment in silence.
“Speaking of family, she wanted me to give you this.” Booker hands Joe a beautifully wrapped chartreuse package, topped with a red bow. He’d helped her tie it just so, so it looked like the kind in commercials.
Joe carefully unwraps it, pocketing the ribbon too, and shakes out a silk scarf the color of the sea off of Malta. “For my hair! I always complained how hard all the travel we did was on it.” He presses it to his face, as if he can smell her. “Tell her thank you, and that I miss her, and I understand. And I’ll be waiting with a great big hug when she is ready. I’ll even do fishtail braids for her like I used to.”
Booker tells Quỳnh this later, and she replies, “Soon enough, we will.”
Books for Booker 6/8
(Anonymous) 2022-02-02 06:21 am (UTC)(link)Links/credit:
• if i can find the macaron recipe i like, i will post it when this goes on ao3
• Alyssa Cole’s Don’t Call Princess Stories "Frivolous" – for Women and Femmes of Color, They’re Crucial (https://www.bustle.com/p/dont-call-princess-stories-frivolous-for-women-femmes-of-color-theyre-crucial-8704409)
• I think I first heard about bulletproof black superheros in conversations about the Luke Cage Netflix show
• Credit to nevermindirah for pointing out Booker and Nile’s parallels in dying in imperialistic wars (https://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/post/629627160953552896/ive-been-drafting-and-redrafting-this-meta-post)
• Listened to Utada Hikaru’s Somewhere Near Marseilles while writing this
• Thanks to the BoN Discord server for taking a look at a section I was waffling about. :)
*
5. Nile
I heard you have a book club, Nile texts. Sounds like you saved the best for last. She includes her available dates and a link to the book of her choice.
“A woman who takes charge,” Quỳnh says peering over his shoulder, “I like it.”
“Maybe she’ll be more amenable to the welcome-to-immortality-fuck,” he grumbles. Quỳnh merely hums.
“What do you think she likes?” Quỳnh muses. Booker’s cheeks go hot, and Quỳnh pinches them.
*
Nile comes in person. I’ve always wanted to see Paris, do the whole sit at a cafe and people watch thing, she writes. He makes her passionfruit and salted caramel macarons, and then Quỳnh wants to learn as well, so he shows her a vegan chocolate raspberry one. He also makes sure to get a large charcuterie board. He sets it all out near the windows overlooking the block. He’s given her enough trouble, he might as well try to give her a better memory of being up high in a building.
Oh yeah, she’ll tell the future new immortal, Book made me jump out a building! But then he made sure I stayed inside the building the next time.
The small effort is worth her wide eyes when she takes a brief look out the window. She doesn’t comment on it, and instead settles in for book club business. He wonders if she’s saving the awe for when she’s in private; still, he insists she take the seat that gives her a better view.
“So,” Booker starts, “which one of us is Sword Bae?”
Nile chuckles. “Unless one of y’all is secretly a Duke, I think none of you.”
“Where there was that one time in Beaune…”
“Seriously!”
“Technically a Baron, but close enough...”
“Barely a Baron would make a good title,” Nile muses. “Or Bearly a Baron.”
“A werebear Baron?”
“You get what I mean!” Her smile is wide, and he’s seen it so rarely it feels like a treasure.
He gives a small grin in return, and they talk about the first book in the series Booker skipped, being hot messes, and weapon forges. Eventually Booker admits, “I’m pleasantly surprised this book isn’t a didactic lesson for me.”
Nile scoops up more of the triple cream brie with her cracker. “You’ve had centuries to perfect your self-shame game; you don’t need me for that. I have other things to do.”
He lifts his glass in concession. “Like finally see Paris.” She mentions some of her plans, and he makes suggestions on how to make the best of her trip.
They do circle back to the book when they start nibbling on the macarons. “I have to admit I was relieved you picked a romance. I tried that with Nicky and Joe, but I got it wrong. So I’m not going to assume I know why you picked this one.”
“I’ll send you Alyssa’s article about Black girls getting to be princesses, but I also love that in Cinderella – the one with Brandy, the best Cinderella – by the time the Prince finds her, she’s already decided to seize her happiness. And Portia’s the same way; even before she and Tavish fall in love, she’s determined to seize her life. I reread it after I became immortal and it reminded me –
“Immortality is great, but long before Andy found me, I had already decided I was going to live. And now I’m going to outlive all the small-minded racists. I’m literally bullet-proof – if we didn’t have to be a secret, can you imagine what that would be like, for my family, for other Black kids? You think it’s a curse, I think it’s a reparation of time. When these racists are long dead, I will still be laughing and loving, and living beneath this sun, on this earth. And until my time comes, I’m going to do everything I can to live and live well, and make sure it’s better for those coming after me.”
Booker thinks of the war that took his life, the new war that took Nile’s life; there will be years to discuss things like what each of them think of empires. But for now, her faith that this is a gift, not just given but owed to her?
“I feel I see you better now.”
“See that you do.”
When their lunch is at last through, Booker presses a container of leftovers into her hands, Nile says, “Please tell your friend I hope to meet her when she’s ready.”
Ah, of course she knew. “Have you been playing matchmaker?”
“No. I just asked Joe because I wasn’t sure if I should tell Andy or not.”
“What did he say?”
“To do what I thought was right, which was to let Quỳnh tell her when she’s ready. The dreams I have of her now are nice… cozy even. The two of you cooking, sitting in the tub watching the water drain away and smiling, her sunbathing, trying new food… I’m glad neither of you are alone.” Nile reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a roll of Sixlets candy. “I wasn’t sure what to get her. This was my favorite candy as a kid. I thought she’d want to know about me too, and she can’t see my past.”
Later, as Quỳnh lets the candy melt in her mouth, she closes her eyes and sways to the music thumping from the speaker. She slides her way over to Booker, and taps out some candy into his palm.
“I want to get to know her,” she says. “Don’t you?”
He nods. She pats his head, and they sway to the beat, sugar in their mouths.
*
The day after visits, Booker putters around the house, a social hangover of sorts from missing one’s family. This time though, Quỳnh triumphantly returns home, drops her many shopping bags on the floor, and declares, “Quit your moping, I brought company.”
Quỳnh has people she regularly sees, like the Auntie on the metro who’s always knitting, but no one she’s brought home, so he makes an inquisitive noise.
“Look who I found, Booker!” Quỳnh exclaims with the bravado of a stage actor, holding Nile’s shoulders.
“Hey, Book,” Nile says with raised hand.
Booker raises his hand mutely, and then Quỳnh and Nile start speaking in a language he doesn’t know. He watches in fascination as Nile stumbles along, and Quỳnh patiently corrects her. Quỳnh eventually looks at him and says, “I guess I’ll have to teach you too.”
Nile says something in reply, and the two of them laugh.
“I was going to do some sightseeing while I was here, and she just swept me up,” Nile says.
“I know the feeling,” he says dryly.
“I hope you don’t mind me coming by again.”
“Not at all.”
Quỳnh keeps glancing between the two of them, then tells Booker, “Going shopping with a girlfriend was on my bucket list. I decided I needed one after that Get a Life, Chloe Brown!”
“What else did you put in it?” She must keep track of it in the notebooks she keeps on her side of the bed.
Quỳnh gives a small, private smile. “This and that.”
Nile says something in that language again, and Quỳnh playfully shoves at her shoulder.
“Did you ladies want to help me finish this puzzle?” He’s working on one of three cats riding a tricycle with a puppy in the basket.
Nile turns out to have a competitive streak with puzzles, and is determined to see it finished. By the time the picture’s complete, it’s time for dinner. And when that’s done, Quỳnh persuades Nile to stay the night so they can do a sleepover full of girltalk, another of her bucket list items.
Booker offers to sleep on the couch so they can have the bed. (When Quỳnh showed Nile her wardrobe, Nile must’ve noticed she and Booker share a bedroom, but Nile politely doesn’t comment on it.) But Nile insists he stay, so they move the coffee table in the living room and camp out there. Booker digs out his old makeup, Nile makes a quick run for nail polish, and Quỳnh picks a movie.
Quỳnh is the first to fall asleep. “She usually does with movies,” Booker says quietly.
“She has a lot of sleep to catch up on,” Nile replies. “This was nice,” she continues. “I haven’t done this since… well, before I was deployed.
“Hey, Quỳnh was saying she wants to see what the world is like now, and I haven’t done much international travel. So, do you wanna go with us sometime? You already know you get along with Quỳnh, and we could get to know each other better.”
“I would like that. If you’re sure?”
“I have all the time in the world,” she says, and he believes it may be a good thing after all. There will be plenty of time to make better memories, to learn new things, to see the world and himself anew.
In the morning, Nile leaves, but a duffle bag of her clothes stays in their closet. It’s a reminder of the trust she has in them, that this is a place she can turn to for safety. Booker lets himself remember that he too, has a home to return to.
Books for Booker 7/8
(Anonymous) 2022-02-15 06:46 am (UTC)(link)The fluffy book Booker reads is Ilona Andrews’ Clean Sweep, and Quỳnh N.K. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Nile’s shirt from Harriett’s Bookshop (https://conversationswithharriett.bigcartel.com/)
*
6. Booker
“She left a sticky note pointing at two quotes,” Booker says, baffled. A package had arrived in today’s mail, with a sticker saying Black Girls Read that could only be from Nile.
He flips back and forth between the two bookmarked pages. Quỳnh taps her finger against the quote about drowning. “It could be for me,” she notes.
“I don’t think so.”
“Me, too.” He shoots her a dirty look, and she chuckles. “The gift of God one is you though. It’s like that conversation you had with Andy.”
“Maybe it’s for both of us.”
“Can we read it together then?”
“That sounds good to me.” Booker feels a soft fondness in his heart when she smiles at his reply.
“We could read it out loud to each other. Oh, should we send her something in return?”
“Are you going to send her a book now?”
“No. The book club’s your thing. She and I will travel.” A devilish smile graces her face. “Although I could send her a collar for you, as a gift from her Auntie Quỳnh.”
Booker really can’t tell if Quỳnh is fucking with him or not. To be on the safe side, when he texts his thanks to Nile, he also asks her to ignore any strange gifts she may receive from any of his friends.
To which she replies, Oh, I know about asshole friends lol. You love them anyway right?
Booker looks over at Quỳnh, napping in the sun.
yeah, he says. I’m glad the two of you finally met.
Me, too. Then, Just tell me when, and I’ll make plans to come by. Or you can come visit me.
*
Quỳnh reads out loud while Booker does the household chores, Booker when Quỳnh’s in the bathtub, and they alternate when cooking. He can’t remember the last time he read a book aloud, and there’s something intimate about it – sometimes, it’s even frightening given the near future the book describes. They each take to having a lighter book to read; Booker a book with magical inns, alien despots, and werewolves;, and Quỳnh another N.K. Jemisin book. “This one’s from a much less bleak series,” she says, “plus the reviews says it has cosmic sex. I could use some pointers on that.”
“Go with God,” he replies straight-faced.
*
The meaning of the quotes Nile chose becomes clear as he reads. He texts her, I think Lauren calls Earthseed the books of the “Living” for a reason. Andy was right, I’ve been doing a shit job of living. I’m trying to do better.
He sees her typing for a long time. Then nothing. He tells himself she’s busy doing something else that’s important. I’m proud of you Book.
Quỳnh peaks at the texts over his shoulder. “Awww, she thinks you’re a good boy.” She pats his head.
He playfully swats her hand away, but doesn’t stop her when she tries practicing braiding it.
*
He texts Andy next, Nile has me reading this book. It made me think of our conversation about the Fifth Season and living. Have you read it?
Late at night, Andy replies, I have a copy on my phone. Sounds like she’s planning a group book club. ?
Do you think everyone would come?
🤷🏻♂️ Only way to find out is to ask.
You’re no help.
Maybe a vid call if you’re worried a brawl will break out.
*
“If I did a video call with everyone, would you like to be in it?” Booker asks.
Quỳnh continues practicing walking in high heels across the living room, touching the sofa every now and then for balance. “Thank you, but not yet. Can I be off screen though, listening?”
“If you promise not to make me laugh too much. They’ll ask who’s with me.”
“Why your pet cat of course.”
“I don’t have a cat.”
“Yet.”
She carefully walks to him. “You can use me as support you know,” he murmurs, offering his arm.
She places her hand on top of his forearm. “I know. Do you?” He makes a quizzical noise. “These books, these conversations, are all a lifeline to you Sébastien. You can hold on, and let them pull you to shore.”
Ah, the other quote Nile had highlighted about drowning people. “What if it’s all different though?”
Quỳnh huffs. “That’s also in the book too: the only lasting truth is Change. I’ve learned that too. No matter how slow, time wears away every structure men have tried to cage me in. You can break free of your cage too; we can let them pull us to shore.”
*
The next time we meet, I want my hands to be ready, he writes Nile. He and Quỳnh are at the beach again, watching the waves roll in.
Speaking of hands, I don’t want the only thing in my hand to be a gun for a milennium. I’m trying to think of other ways I can make change, she replies. What’s a good hobby for an immortal n00b? He gives a couple of suggestions, ranging from knitting to moonshine. What if I learn to fly? I mean, I can’t die, so I can do wild shit like hangglide, parachute, base jump…
I haven’t tried base jumping. Let me know if you do, or if you want to learn to fly a plane.
You got it. 👍
*
After they finish reading the novel, Booker feels emotionally hungover. Meanwhile, Quỳnh immediately starts the sequel. As Booker knits a mermaid themed shawl for Quỳnh, he says, “You didn’t have to be as kind to me as you did. I did shoot Andy once she was mortal.”
“And you didn’t have to let me stay with you. We’re together in this, and I’ve found…” Her gaze goes distant, and she falls out of the handstand she was practicing against the wall. “When someone hands me my metro pass I dropped, or pays for my coffee, when someone meets my gaze and smiles. Those small things; those small, kind things; they help.”
“It’s hard to remember them,” Booker admits. “Maybe if I wrote them down I could look back at them when things are hard.”
“I like that idea.” She tries for another handstand, following along with the video on her phone.
Their kitchen fridge is unadorned, no photos or flyer clippings. Booker gets a small whiteboard for it, and he writes one good thing on it at the end of the week, a blessing of sort for the coming one. Quỳnh adds hers underneath. It’s a small touch, but it feels homey.
*
It takes three months to get everyone together, due to logistics and an impassioned request from Andy to include the sequel in the book club. But they’re all on the video call, and while it’s not the same as being physically together, but it’s so much better than being apart. Andy and Nile are together on one screen, Joe and Nicky on separate ones, Booker on the couch, and Quỳnh out of sight and listening in from the kitchen.
“Thanks for coming,” Booker says.
“Of course we were gonna come,” Joe retorts. Nicky nods.
“I did not expect a group book club when I sent Booker Parable of the Sower,” Nile says bemused. “So, had you guys read Octavia before?” She’s wearing a shirt reading ZORA OCTAVIA ALICE TONI.
It’s a good night. There is eye-rolling, long-standing jokes along with the occasional backstory for Nile, a debate about the usefulness of religion, and even new jokes (“I said cargo cults, not cargo pants!”).
“So, since this was Nile’s idea,” Andy declares, “can I pick a movie next? I’ve always wanted to watch The Fast and the Furious.”
“That dumb movie?” Booker says dumb-founded.
“It’s not dumb!” Nicky cuts in. “It’s a masterpiece!”
“The whole Rock and Vin Diesel thing is pretty funny…” Nile tells Andy.
“What about a documentary?” Joe offers.
In the end, Andy wins, as she always does.
*
The next morning, as Booker and Quỳnh make crêpes, he says, “After the movie night, I’m thinking I could invite everyone to lunch.” Dinner seems too big an ask right now.
“That sounds good.”
“Will you be there?”
She kisses his scruffy cheek. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. But I have one thing to do first; would you mind letting me have the house to myself for two days?”
“Of course, just let me know.” He’s curious what she wants it for, but he’ll find out eventually. Time is on his side.
“I will.”
He sends Nile his copy of Parable of the Talents, scribbled through with his notes. On a lime green sticky note, he writes, this one is my favorite, and places it beside the one about kindness and love.
Andy, Joe, and Nicky; and now Quỳnh and Nile too; theirs is a love worth fighting for. There are still days he wonders if this long life of his a curse, but it would be even more of one if he had no one to share it with. One day soon, he will invite them all to dinner, and together they will eat and laugh, and tell stories. They will do this in other places he can’t even imagine yet, maybe even in outer space and under new suns one day, but they will do it together until they can no more. And even then – outliving them all, still keeping them together – there will still be the stories.
*
This concludes Booker's story! The epilogue will tie up some loose ends with Quynh. :)
Re: Books for Booker 7/8
(Anonymous) 2022-03-01 01:30 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Books for Booker 7/8
(Anonymous) 2022-03-02 06:34 am (UTC)(link)the slow build towards a reunion was a happy surprise to me too!
also, if you've read N.K. Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy, you might extra appreciate the closing quote for the Quynh epilogue. :) the epilogue is mostly done; i'm hoping it'll be up within a week.
Books for Booker 8/8
(Anonymous) 2022-03-03 06:38 am (UTC)(link)A/N: Quỳnh speaking to Andy in Scythian was inspired by Goldheartedsky’s thoughts about Andy teaching the rest of the Guard dead languages. Also, I do not speak Vietnamese; I took my cues from the Aliette de Bodard’s books I’ve read, so I am open to corrections.
*
*
And it's done! Thank you so so much to everyone who commented. I will be doing some edits before I post this to ao3, so watch out for that! If anyone has title, summary, or tag suggestions lemme know...
While she is underwater, memory, dream, and fantasy are hard to tease apart. But the world turns nonetheless, and the dreams became easier to identify – the world becomes something she could never have dreamed of even while high on the questionable mushrooms Yusuf had once foraged.
When the hinges of her coffin finally rust away, and she eventually makes her way back to land, she pours out all she remembers into countless journals. Even with a whole world before her, she knows she cannot go back to the others, not with all their memories of her, until she knows for herself who she is.
So she rides a cruise ship into Paris, because Booker is the safest of the bunch. He knows and expects nothing of her. Much like her, he is rebuilding his sense of self. And neither of them feel so alone when they are together.
He teases her for reading so many fantastical books – but really, where else is she to see herself? Who better to understand what is to be both yourself and a past beloved ghost than Yeine Darr? What better way to understand the way she loves Andromache – Andy, she reminds herself – than chasing the woman you love through time itself, and bending the world until it relents at last, and the two of you are together?
Closing This Is How You Lose the Time War, she searches her pile of books for what to read next. Meanwhile, Booker is watching Tokyo Drift. Opening The Kingdom of Gods, she smiles to herself. The time is almost right. All the pieces are almost ready for her grand entrance.
*
The idea begins when Quỳnh meets Nile.
She sneaks up on Nile, but it is Quỳnh who is surprised when Nile says passably in Quỳnh’s first language, “Hey Big Sis.”
“Who taught you the language?” Quỳnh asks, truly pleased to hear it.
In English, Nile says, “I asked Joe and Nicky, once I dreamed you were back.”
“My Lil Sis is so polite to make me feel at home,” she notes.
“That’s Andy. Joe said they all kept up with it so you would always have a piece of home, no matter how long it took for you to come back.”
Quỳnh’s heart – gone rather soft and prune-y after soaking in salt water all those years – feels as thundering and swift as it had in her youth. She didn’t know this – she’d thought it a way to hold conversations without Booker understanding.
So Quỳnh replies in an equally old language, “And this one? Did she teach this to you too?”
“No, I don’t know that one.”
And Quỳnh has her idea.
*
But first: While she and Booker will have centuries together, she and Andy do not, and she does not want Booker to feel abandoned while she focuses on Andy. Given Nile’s questions when they went shopping together, she doesn’t think Nile’ll mind some nudging along.
“He’s kinda hot in a sad white boy way,” Nile mused. “Is he like that when you live with him?”
“Eh, he’s definitely sad sometimes, but he’s working on himself.” Quỳnh snapped another shrimp head off and sucked on it. “I keep trying to get him to unwind by having some sweaty sex, but he turned me down.”
Nile snorted. “He probably heard about the wild sex you and Andy used to have and got worried he couldn’t keep up.”
“It was sweet too, sometimes. Can’t always be athletic; you need recovery time,” Quỳnh replied sagely.
Nile nodded. “Do you think he’d treat me kindly though, even if I ask him to be nasty sometimes?”
Quỳnh was glad to see vetting one’s bedmates hasn’t gone out of style. “People can be different in sex than in other parts of their lives. But I don’t think you can go wrong in being honest and clear about what you want.”
Nile sighed, poking at her crab. “You’re right. Guess this is a conversation for me and him.”
Licking her fingers, Quỳnh quipped, “You can always ask Andy how best to handle him, from what I gather.”
“Oh?” And Nile seemed very interested in that. Quỳnh didn’t blame her, Andy was very dashing.
“Mm,” Quỳnh replied.
So, when Booker starts bingeing BDSM romances, Quỳnh makes some purchases to troll him with. He’s half way through Truly Helpless when Quỳnh’s package arrives. She waits until he’s settled in for his nightly reading to unbox the wide leather collar and leash, soft and supple.
Holding them up, she asks, “What do you think, Book?”
He glances over, and then turns back to his book. “No thanks, Quỳnh.”
“...but if it was Nile?”
Booker flushes. Thankfully he’s saved by the doorbell ringing. He answers it with gun in hand; old habits, like the two of them, don’t die. He brings the takeout inside, and settles into the living room couch. While Quỳnh had tossed a lot of his grungy furniture when she moved in, she had to admit the ugly couch was incredibly comfortable.
While Booker eats and reads, Quỳnh pens a note to Nile to accompany the leash and collar she’ll forward to her. She’ll include a different book from the series Booker’s reading. Your own private book club, maybe? she writes.
In English, Aunties meddle don’t they? She likes meddling, and Auntie Quỳnh has a nice sound to it.
*
Next, she gets an old lady of a calico cat who snores. Cats remain the same, and Sauce is mellow, happy to be picked up, and sits on her designated pillow in the sun or near the heating vent. It takes a few weeks worth of treats, but eventually she can be persuaded to give up her throne for Quỳnh’s lap. Quỳnh happily strokes the purring beast, and knows her plan is almost ready.
She asks Nile if she could invite Booker out for a couple of days, along with Joe and Nicky’s contact information. She hasn’t spoken directly to them at all; she thought it would be too cruel if she was in regular contact with everyone except Andy. She knew they wouldn’t mind; they knew the value of patience, and more importantly, they believed in her.
She sends Nicky and Joe a text message. Hello my slow rising loaves of bread, an old joke because of how long it took them to realize they were both in love with each other, I look forward to seeing both of you very, very soon. Yusuf you owe me some hair time, so you better grow it out, and Nicolò you must tell me if beekeeping is still a hobby of yours. I must see Andromache first, though. And while I imagine she’ll throw herself into my arms and bed, I want to make sure she has your support in case it does not go well. Can we coordinate a good time for all of us?
Our swords are yours ⚔, Nicky writes back.
And our arms in case either of you need comfort, Joe says. I miss your hugs.
*
Lastly, a little bit of deception is required.
“What did you want me to say again?” Booker mutters, thumbs carefully typing.
“‘Have you read the latest Baru Cormorant book? I want to talk to someone about Tain Hu!’”
“She wrote back!” Booker yells a few minutes later. Quỳnh hurries over to lean over his shoulder.
I’m still on book 2. that’s like…. 1000 more pages to go 💀 And then the phone dings again. But I guess for you I can power through. Who needs sleep, hahahaha?
“Has she ever died from sleep exhaustion?” Book asks in all seriousness.
“Is that even a thing?” Quỳnh replies.
They set a date for their next in person book club. Quỳnh says she only needs two days, but Booker rolls his eyes. “I’ll be gone for two weeks. Just make sure you do the laundry before I get back!”
*
And now the time is here, and she is hiding in the shadows like a tiger in the trees. She has it all staged just so: the apartment is dark, except for the moody lamp a few feet from her. She’d had Booker help her figure out how far away it’d be for best effect. Sitting in a roomy red armchair, she pets a happily purring Sauce.
She hears the key in the door. Sauce’s ears prick up, and Quỳnh takes a deep breath.
“Booker, where are you?” Andy yells.
And in a language Andy has not heard in years, Quỳnh says, “Here. I am here, imuira.”
“...Quỳnh?”
“Hello, Andromache,” Quỳnh says in Scythian, the first language Andy had taught her. Andy fumbles for the light switch and stares at her, gutted. “Are you going to stand so far away, or will you come closer?” Quỳnh asks.
Andromache’s face flickers through emotions so quickly. Quỳnh wishes she had the skill Joe does with art. She comes to a stop right in front of Quỳnh. Her hands tentatively reach for Quỳnh’s face, the ends of her hair, and then she slides to her knees.
“Fuck, of course you’ve been here.” Andy lays her head against Quỳnh’s knee. Sauce peaks at Andy, sniffing at her. Andy braces herself. “You’re not mad at me? I broke our promise.”
“I’m not mad at you,” Quỳnh agrees. Andy gives her a look. “Well, not anymore. Especially not after Booker mentioned he shot you.” She reaches for Andy’s close cropped hair, pets it. That’s where Sauce draws the line; no longer first in Quỳnh’s attention, she makes for her preferred pillow.
“What’s her name?” Andy asks.
“Sauce.”
“...did you do it so you could make jokes with her name?”
“You still know me Andy,” Quỳnh laughs. “I look forward to confusing everyone at the dinner table when I ask where’s sauce.” She gestures to the coffee table, stacked with three variations of baklava and a pot of black tea. “Let’s eat while we talk.”
They move to the ugly couch. Once they’ve finish their first squares, Quỳnh admits, “I was mad. Mad enough I could’ve raised the temperature of the sea to boiling. But you are not the only one who’s learned about living. If you’d kept searching for me, you wouldn’t have lived.”
“I did a piss poor job of it.”
“It would’ve been shit poor then.” Andy snorts. “And then I saw you were mortal, and death makes thing clearer doesn’t it? I don’t have the time anymore to rage against you, kill you until my rage cools, and it’s no longer my blade I slip inside of you but my fingers. I had it all planned, how many deaths, literal and sexual you would give me in atonement.”
“I could still give you all of that still.”
“But I want your life, Andromache, what is left of it, I want to spend with you. Let’s ride these fancy all-terrain cars as well as horses, upload such pornography of us they will remember us with sighs of pleasure, and when you are gone, Andy – when you are gone, I will have memories enough to light the way for the rest of my own eternity.”
“Quỳnh,” Andy whispers.
Quỳnh cups her face. “Love of mine, let us spend the rest of our time together as gods wish, as mortals would: in love, side-by-side, together until the end.”
“You and me.” Andy leans up and presses their foreheads together.
“And Booker, and Joe, and Nicky, and Nile.”
“Yes, they’ll want to see you too.”
“We can reignite our sex rivalry with Nicky and Joe.”
Andy laughs. “They’ve had a few centuries to have gotten better than us.”
“We better brush up then.”
“God, I’ve missed you, Quỳnh.”
Quỳnh takes her hands, brings them to her lips, and kisses the back of them. “I missed you too Andy.” Quỳnh doesn’t have a nickname for this age yet, and she hopes Andy will be the one to give it to her. She’s in no hurry though; she likes being herself, just Quỳnh, again. “Won’t you stay? We have the apartment to ourselves for the next week at least.”
“You sexiled Book?”
Quỳnh is relieved Andy’s on the same page as her. “He and Nile are having their own book club.”
Andy raises an eyebrow. “You’re matchmaking.”
Quỳnh shrugs. “It worked well with Nicky and Joe, didn’t it?”
“That was my idea!” It’s an old argument of theirs, which of them argued for letting them work things out on their own, and which tried nudging them along.
“I’ve got a lot of life left,” Andy says slowly, still getting used to thinking of it that way. “It’s just got a set expiration date now.”
“I’ve got a lot of life to see,” Quỳnh replies. “I have a whole list of things I want to do in this world now, and I want to do and see as much as I can with you with the time we have left.”
The corner of Andy’s mouth kicks up. “Let’s start here then.” She sits herself in Quỳnh’s lap. Quỳnh presses her forehead into Andy’s spine, breathing.
They finish the tea and baklava first – it’s important to be well-fed and -hydrated. They feed one another until Andy sinks back to her knees for other reasons, softly bringing Quỳnh to orgasm. There are tears, and a lot of feelings, and they adjourn to the bedroom to nap it off.
When they wake, the sex is wild and ecstatic, their bodies raw and honest. In one another’s arms they are satisfied, and they laugh. It is so different from the last time; they are captive to no one but pleasure. Every kiss, every touch, each breath, is a reforging of commitments, and a promise the two of them are just beginning.
It is exactly the homecoming Quỳnh wanted.
*
A/N: And it's done! Thank you so so much to everyone who commented. I will be doing some edits before it goes up on ao3. Please let me know if you have any title, summary, and tag suggestions. (Also let me know how the book references worked for you...)
Re: Books for Booker 8/8
(Anonymous) 2022-03-14 04:41 am (UTC)(link)Yes!
Perfect ending!
Re: Books for Booker 8/8
(Anonymous) 2022-03-14 05:01 am (UTC)(link)Books for Booker AO3 link
(Anonymous) 2022-03-07 02:38 am (UTC)(link)https://archiveofourown.org/works/37568263/chapters/93772237