Everyone knows the feeling of when you see someone and you know you've seen them before. Isn't that a part of déjà vu? But what if the connection you have with that person goes beyond the superficial recognition of familiarity? Perhaps you were connected once...in the most intimate of ways. Some religions and philosophies believe in reincarnation of souls, and it's said that souls could be reincarnated together - once again to follow out the same path they did before.
Or maybe not. Maybe it could be a second chance for fixing things that went wrong before, like the a tragedy or circumstances keeping you apart. But can you take that chance? Do you even want to?
HOW TO PLAY- Comment with your character, stating preferences and pertinent information.
- Tag around to others and roll the RNG to determine what your scenario will be.
- The first roll determines the parameters of the "past life," the second the parameters of the "present life." The meme is intended to take place in the present, but there's nothing stopping you from playing out flashbacks to the "past."
- Play out the scene!
- WARNING: There will probably be triggers here.
| | A. THE PAST- Medieval: The two of you lived in the middle ages or an equal high fantasy setting. Kings, queens, knights, wizards, your doomed love was set among the sword and shield.
- Feudal Japan: During this time, honor reigned supreme and warriors lived and died by the sword. Perhaps the two of you lived here?
- War: World War I, World War II, World War...III? Whatever the tension was, the two of you weren't living in happy times.
- Not Human: You were gods, demons, monsters, angels - or at least one of you was.
- Sci-Fi: The two of you found love in a world of science and technology...maybe a base on the moon?
- Taboo: In a past life, the two of you were related, yet still somehow fell in love. Or perhaps there was a big age gap, or different social standings. Whatever it was, your affection was "wrong," somehow.
- Intended for Someone Else: One of you was engaged, intended, or taken by someone else.
- Not Allowed: For some reason, you couldn't have your love back then.
- Tragically Cut Short: Somehow, your love ended in tragedy and one of you died.
- Living Happily Ever After: The two of you grew old together, had a family, the whole shebang, and died of old age. As a reward, you get to be with your loved one again.
- WILDCARD or CHOOSE YOUR OWN
B. THE PRESENT- (Not So) First Meeting: You could swear you've seen this person before...but where?
- Need to Be Near You: You don't know why, but you have to be close to this person, to protect them, to love them.
- Memories: You're having memories of your past life and it's freaking you out.
- The Reveal: Somehow, the truth is revealed to you about who you used to be and what you life was like with this person.
- But I'm Taken: Unfortunately, you've already moved on to someone else who doesn't fit into the picture of your past.
- You Have to Be With Me: You're determined to rejoin with your past lover...even if they're not interested.
- He Doesn't See Me: You're afraid your lover only sees the past "you" and not the you who exists now. Are they in love with a memory?
- Madness Ensues: It's getting hard for you to tell which life is the "real" one, the one you have now or the one in the past. Perhaps you only see one way of release: becoming reincarnated again.
- It All Worked Out: The battles are fought, the war is one. You've earned your happy ending in this life and the two of you can live together.
- WILDCARD or CHOOSE YOUR OWN
|
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postingmemes) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
bakerstreet2016-12-20 10:48 am
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Opening a facility in Mexico is such an unexpected idea that his liaison falls abruptly silent, staring at him like he's insane, and Alejandro--
Laughs.
Sort of a delighted laugh, actually, not unlike when Alexander had some impossible strategic epiphany and was about to spell doom for a supposedly impenetrable position. His smile is a little dangerous and more than a little infectious despite it. "Have you ever dealt with organized crime, Mr Winters?" he asks as he leans forward, forearms resting on the table, hands clasped. Also of note: in perfect English, yes, there's definitely an accent but he also speaks with a might-as-well-be-native cadence. (His translator doesn't even blink.) "I mean from the underside of it. The mechanics side of it. Not punching the results in the streets."
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He knows the answer and it's simple enough. Alexander would remember it again. Eventually.
"More than you'd probably think," he says quietly, though his tone stays even. He won't laugh at the change in language. Alexander is never for his amusement, and the moment is too fragile right now. They're speaking frankly.
"Why do you think I'd look to your expertise? Or do you think there's a better solution?"
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He inclines his head. Maybe Alejandro's sources have something on Jon's true history - but maybe they don't. Who knows.
"I think working with you one way or another is the stop-gap measure I need," he admits. The stop-gap measure he needs to keep people alive. "But there's importing, which will be dangerous and involve paramilitary security to keep it in place, sure, that's a given, but producing inside the country is a different beast. That takes the risk up to... a different stratosphere. And not just because people with guns like to show up. Your company's reputation stateside is going to go straight to hell if it gets out."
If it gets out. Because this is such an insane idea, it goes without saying - he assumes, because Jon doesn't seem like an idiot - this would be on the strictly covert side of things.
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Because one of his side projects, one of his personal ones, was to find alternatives to medicines and treatments that other companies had a stranglehold on. He wasn't quite to the point where astronomical price hikes on vital medications were avoided to prevent his focus but he was hoping to be there soon.
Goals.
"And I'm assuming you came to me because of that reputation. So lets talk frankly about real solutions."
He meets the other man's eyes and he has to suppress a shiver. As well as the desire to reach across and take him into his arms.
"What can I do for you, Mr. Olin?"
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"Excuse us for a while," he says in Spanish, clearly speaking to the two women with him even though he doesn't take his eyes off Jon. They obey, and Alejandro does switch his gaze over to his translator. "Call Nadya, please? Thank you."
He doesn't say anything right away once they're alone. Just looks at him. He's intrigued, honestly; there's something going on, and whether it's good or bad he's interested-- honestly, bad ideas are sometimes more appealing. "What's your angle?" he asks. "Never in my life have I come into a negotiation like this and spoken to someone who doesn't want something. But you're just watching me."
It's obvious that Alejandro doesn't recognize Jon in any spiritual way. Does that mean he has no memory of any life before? It could. It's probably more likely, given how he's behaving. The truth is that he does remember, but that he's become so bitter and spent so much time in therapy over a broken heart that he's not looking anymore. The Circle fucked him over, and he's not going to spit on Hephaestion's memory by letting himself be used in exchange for the barest hope they'd help him find his lost love. He wouldn't be Alexander, then. He wouldn't be the man Hephaestion loved. And what the fuck would the point be, then?
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"But it's not money," he continues easily enough, leaning on his elbows across the table.
There's a moment where he stares across the way, where he wills Alejandro to see him, to know him the way he knows the other man. There are many things he can do with his powers, and there's even a part of him that's curious to know if he could do something with the connection between them with this incarnation's abilities. But not a part willing to chance it. Or even that really wants to try. Alexander should see him. Alexander should remember him. It takes time, but he'd never endanger the whole thing out of impatience.
"You ask me if I know the criminal element. I do, but I also know the rest of this business, the den of vipers and self-satisfied monsters that help run this industry purely on greed regardless of the inhumanity their practices require. I know men in crisp suits who'd let children, dealt a bad hand in a world of bad hands, die as long as it'll help their bottom line as they jack of their prices and cut their testing programs to the razor's edge."
He shakes his head.
"I want to make it perfectly clear that we can succeed without debasing ourselves to the lowest common denominator. I want to help quite literally heal the world, every way that I can, because there's someone" he swallows, "so many someones out there to heal it for." He lifts his chin and meets his eyes again. "I want to do something, Mr. Olin. And make money at it. And from my first look at you, I've been convinced that you're the one, the partner, who's going to make it happen."
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(And he's been down a road of delusion before. Alejandro shakes himself internally. Get a grip. He probably just wants to sleep with you. Which would be fine, honestly. Jon's not bad looking and he's charismatic in a way he doesn't encounter often. Nadya would tease him about finding a blond white boy in America to mess around with, but he doesn't have to tell Nadya everything. She has her privacy, too.)
Something about the way Jon talks moves him - not monumentally, because he's a little jaded in that respect, but enough. It's idealistic in a way he appreciates (even if he knows how that tends to go in practice), and he likes it. So after looking at the other man quietly for a long moment (something-- almost--), he decides: Alright. And settles in to hammer this proposal out.
Several hours later they've got something that they can start from. Several hours of hardline business, just the two of them, and not much in the way of meaningful looks, because when Alejandro is at work he is at work. There is one moment when, apparently inexplicably, he tugs one glove off and fusses with hit, seemingly absent, before pulling it back on after doing nothing with his hand. Anyway. He leans back in his chair and stretches his arms over his head. "I'd say that's a beautiful start," he sighs, in Spanish, and then catches himself when he resettles. "I said it looks good," he laughs.
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He lets his head tilt back and forth, as much to work out the cricks as anything else. Then he's rubbing at his face and finding Alejandro's eyes with something warmer and softer. He's too tired for most of the facade. But he's always been the more subtle of the two anyway.
Thankfully.
"Should I order in some dinner for us or... do you have to be going?"
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The bitter, rational voice in his head says 'Go back to your hotel', but the other voice says 'Definitely stay for dinner', and that voice is always louder and more enticing. (Does he have a shoulder angel and devil or just a shoulder pantheon of meddlers, honestly.) He abruptly remembers a conversation he had a few weeks ago: that he always knows exactly who's going to turn out to be crazy because he's incapable of sleeping with anyone dull, and yet he never learns. You know what, fuck hindsight and fuck foresight. Remembering your own death does nothing if not instill the terror of skipping an experience.
"I could do dinner. If you don't mind me catching up with my staff and making a few calls while we wait."
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He pushes himself up onto his feet.
"Let me get the menus. Guest chooses."
And he heads out of the room to his office to get the menus. And perhaps, just to breathe a little.
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"I wouldn't know what to pick, hermano, I've never been to Portland before," Alejandro calls after him, almost lazily sing-songing. And then he adds: "No Mexican food!" He can't take it this far from the border and/or east coast Puerto Rican communities. He just can't.
Feeling a little restless, he pushes to his feet, flipping through his phone as he paces over to a window. What are you doing to yourself now, Ale? Internal sigh.
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"I only brought the best ones for each category. So pick out of that."
And there is, indeed, no Mexican food. He wouldn't have ever thought to add one for that even before Alejandro told him so.
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How can smiling at each other be flirting? Alejandro feels juvenile, but not enough to stop. It feels both nostalgic and new, which is ... well, probably stupid, given his track record. He forces himself to think of his highschool-- crush? paramour? whatever the hell they were-- and the years of rejection after rejection despite their chemistry. Every time you think you're into something, he reminds himself, You're just seeing what you want out of desperation.
#fml
While food is being ordered and presumably delivered, Alejandro breaks to discuss things with his handler and translator, and call his wife back finally. (He gets a little silly speaking to her, sounding very young and very genuine.) Alejandro ends up at the end of the hall by another set of windows, pacing back and forth slowly, on the phone - not speaking Spanish this time, but something very old. Something he doesn't bother censoring himself in, because no one else speaks it.
"...just need you to talk some sense into me, is all."
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You're going to have to, Winters. He's walking out after dinner. You remember how this goes at first.
-but he's a big boy with a big boy understanding of how the world works and it's not as if he isn't already settling himself to the idea that they're once again going to be maneuvering around at least one spouse. Not the first time, not going to be the last time. #fml indeed.
But the food comes and he's got it mostly laid out for the two of them when he goes to find Alejandro and it's in this moment that perhaps the reason for his wrong guess becomes clear, because Alejandro has now seen the look on Jon's face when he's listening to the lovely sounds of a foreign language he doesn't understand and what it looks like when the words are filtering in and being processed.
And there is no doubt that it is option B as he hears the ancient language down the hall. Even less when he murmurs something that sounds very like "good luck with that" right back in it before breathing in and fluttering a wave to make sure it's clear that the food is both here and ready for them.
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Then:
"I'm losing my fucking mind, Achilles."
(Woah now, who.)
"No I don't know why I'm staying for dinner! What?" A beat. "No. Yes. Probably. It would be really rude." Quiet. "You know I can't tell. That fucking-- sixth sense, whatever they want to call it, hasn't worked in decades. You saw what happened the last time, I almost-- I can't go through this again. It's going to be bullshit like it always is."
It is safe to say from the bleak tone of his Macedonian - musical and guttural at once, too ill-refined to be proper Greek - that he believes he hallucinated Jon's look of understanding and little quip, there. That he has certainly hallucinated before. Alexander was always sensitive and passionate and prone to mood swings if he wasn't kept occupied, his instability only truly revealing itself after the death of his soulmate. In this day and age, never having that grounding presence in his life and living for so many years, of course he's going to have a bumpy road with mental health.
And of course missing Hephaestion is going to be a continent-sized trigger.
So that's one bright spot for Jon, anyway: Alexander did recognize and know him, at least in a way. Alexander has just seen some shit in his life as Alejandro Olin, and his coping methods are suddenly really not helpful.
"I just want to be drunk, honestly." A beat, then in exasperated, groaning English: "What the shitting Christ are you doing in Tunisia."
The rest of the conversation is drowned out by bad acoustics as Alejandro faces another direction, but it's not too long later that he appears back in the boardroom looking - well we'll go with mostly the same. There's a bit of tiredness behind his eyes.
"That was quick."
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His 'coping' method mostly involved being diagnosed with "high functioning" anxiety, a mixed bag of life decisions that had left him always apart even though most people didn't even realize it, and a tendency to over plan anything truly important to him. It worked great for being a CEO but not so great for... pretty much anything else. He had friends and companions; he'd certainly had his share of relationships. He even had children. No, he'd reproduced. But what it came down to was that so much of his life had been around this empty space in his heart that he'd only hoped he'd be able to fill someday.
Which was why he'd determined that he absolutely wouldn't reference anything he'd overheard, because they still had trust to build and a relationship to start and listening to someone's phone conversations when they clearly didn't want to be listened to was not a good way to behave. However, that just left him with the question of whether or not he should speak Macedonian. Would that help? Would that hurt? Would it make things awkward? Would it make things worse for Alexander?
So he decided to speak English.
Which was why, like a man unsure of whether he'd left the CAPSLOCK on pressing it to make sure he hadn't only to SHOUT IN TEX, the words that came out of his mouth were Macedonian.
"Not really that quick," he says as opens a bottle of wine that he'd pulled from one of the rather nice art pieces in his office. Working late so often meant he had something of a collection here as well as at the showroom he called home. "Now I know you got red meat, but I'll ask anyway: red or white?"
Wait for it.
Waiiiit for it.
GodsDAMMIT.
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He thinks of several things at once: that Nadya was supposed to be here instead of him and how easy it would have been for someone from the Circle to hurt her to get to him, that most of those agents know better than to try and fuck with him directly, that he fucking knew this was too easy. He shuts the door behind him and moves forward, carefully not but really cautiously, more like he's just seeing what Jon will do if he notices an approaching threat.
Because he is a threat, suddenly. This is more Alejandro than Alexander; one-on-one, the Macedonian king was prone to being a little soft-hearted, often needing harsh reminders about the necessity of things like torture and execution for dissenters in his court. Alejandro has no such hesitations. He's never been a king. He's had to fight for everything he has. He's been taken advantage of and used-- not only by the Circle, but often by them.
"What exactly are you playing at?"
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"I am playing at nothing. Instead, it seems, my heart was more truthful than my mind intended."
Which is when, sucking in a breath, he lowers himself to one knee and puts down his head. Whatever his mistake might cost, he'll take it.
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In an instant, not exactly inhumanly fast but just unnerving, someone trained within an inch of his life, Jon is back on his feet because Alejandro has grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him up, slammed him back against the nearest wall. His hand is at the other man's throat, pinning him in place.
"The last person who tried this ruse with me is dead," he says, very near to the other man's face. "So is everyone who ever loved him." Alejandro presses closer, menacing, his anger tangible and his hand tighter on Jon's throat. "Dead by my hands, personally, do you understand?" (There is a significance to this Jon can't know, the way someone who masqueraded as Hephaestion to manipulate him was killed, something apparently awful.) "If there's anyone you care for you might want spared, start talking now. You don't seem to understand-- this isn't happening anymore. You can't have me as your weapon, you can't have Achilles, and this is the end of it. You had your chance to fuck off."
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But because he is not sure if Alexander could recover if he realized the truth after his death. Because he refuses to cause him pain of that magnitude. He begs for his life for Alexander's sake and Alexander's sake alone.
"You tore part of the eighth book," is what he says, his voice reedy and scraping, barely able to breathe. "The Iliad. Your favorite. You were drunk the night before. In the morning, you were livid."
He looks him in the eyes and begs.
"If you wish my death, order it and I will do it by my own hand. But I beg you not to kill me. I know what it will do to you. I would die a thousand times to prevent it."
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And then quicker than it began it's over. Like a brick dropping. What Jon's saying clicks into his head, and whatever terrible thing Alejandro almost allowed himself to be overcome by helps (practically by accident) allowing him unearthly insight.
Good call, knowing what killing Hephaestion would do to him. Alexander is horrified he's done this much. His hand falls and he staggers back and stares at him, stunned and frightened and sorry and too overwhelmed to even say anything.
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"Forgive me my foolishness?" he says quietly. "I had started to doubt I'd find you and then... there you were. It was all I could to not to reach for you that moment."
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It's clear as day that being without Hephaestion has done him harm. But no longer having any hope is what did the most damage.
With the utmost care - as though afraid the other man might simply vanish - Alejandro takes his hand. He stares at it, his grip turning almost too firm in his desperation to believe that this isn't a trick. If Jon can see the spiritual connections between people then perhaps he can see how Alejandro has tried to dampen and limit his own over the years, though the only thing he's succeeded in is making it harder for him to recognize the people around him.
no subject
He remembers his frustration, the pain of everything feeling pointless, and that damnable empty hole inside. He remembers reaching with every ounce of his ability and pulling, pulling and pulling only to feel nothing. No change. Then the frantic hacking, wishing for one terrible moment to just cut it out. But he was past that, had been for a while. He had settled to that knowledge a little, as best he could.
That's why he just stays there, silent and waiting, patient and faithful, and turns his hand to grip Alejandro in return.
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What the fuck does he do with that.
"I dreamt once that my daughter, a grown woman, led me to you. We were both old men. I took your hand and the both of us died, but we were happy for a moment."
Are they going to die now. Is that what happens. Alejandro can't conceive of finally having this; he has a wife he loves who isn't crazy and he has a child. Before he had a soulmate. He doesn't know that he believes he's blessed enough to have both without being struck down.
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