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Octavio hated smoking.
He’d quit for a reason; it burned his lungs, sending him into a coughing fit with every new cigarette no matter how many times he’d done it before. It had happened so often that he used to wonder if he’d suddenly developed asthma in his teen years, but after those initial hits every drag after was okay. Maybe he was just really bad at smoking. People like Ramya and Fuse made it look so easy.
Anyway, Octavio had only smoked through two packs of cigarettes before quitting entirely. Three months of coughing and putting cigarettes out on his own arms just to see what it would feel like. Three months of meeting Ajay and high school friends he couldn't even remember the names of anymore behind the bleachers, getting ashes on their fancy private school uniforms until he'd grown sick of the burn. It didn't provide enough of a buzz to justify the feeling he got in his lungs, especially as a member of the track team, so after two packs he'd quit, and hadn't picked one up since.
Until now, at least.
Octavio could hear the voices of the other Legends coming from inside the Paradise Lounge. Everyone was, against their better judgment, attending the end-season party that Elliott threw every couple of months. He usually shut the whole place down and reserved it for the Legends only, and it was well past midnight already—meaning that nobody would be walking down this dingy back-alley, and nobody would find Octavio sitting outside Elliott’s bar, smoking a cigarette after he had supposedly left the party three hours ago.
To be fair to himself, he had left. Took a cab home and all that. He was just...back, now. For reasons. And if he was being honest with himself, he wouldn't be here if it weren't for the fact that he had nowhere else to go, because god this place was such a shithole.
His lips quirked around the cigarette in his mouth as he remembered he and Ajay’s first time here; it had smelled so strongly of musty boots that they’d immediately turned around and left, finding a much better club only a few blocks from here. He could remember the exact look of disgust on his best friend's face as the smell hit the both of them at once.
Octavio usually tried to be nice (or as nice as he could be) to Elliott whenever he got invited over to his bar, and hell, most of the time he didn’t even think it was that bad, but something about the Paradise Lounge tonight had Octavio finding every fault with it. He could see dark spots in the dimly-lit lamps above him on the patio, the inch-thick layer of dirt and mud on the welcome mat, the smell of sewage from a clogged drain only a couple buildings away...
He definitely wouldn’t be here unless he had nowhere else to go. He just hoped that nobody would come out and see him curled up on this chair, bruises blooming on his skin as he drunkenly smoked a cigarette just to feel the burn in his lungs. He was pretty sure everyone inside that building hated him now, too, and he didn't want to see the obvious contempt in their faces as they faced him.
Almost as if responding to his thoughts, the front door opened, hinges creaking so loudly that they echoed down the empty street. He heard a sigh, and saw a familiar shadow against the concrete before he saw her—her buns forming a Mickey Mouse-esque silhouette amidst the yellow light coming from inside the bar.
Of fucking course. Because tonight just couldn't get any better.
Octavio placed his palms against his knees, cigarette held between two of his fingers as he blew out a cloud of smoke. It burned his lungs, an acid-like feeling in his throat and against the roof of his mouth as he did it. The door swung back shut, dousing him in darkness once again as smoke furled up to the lamp-light hanging overhead.
Ajay was rubbing the back of her neck, muttering in an annoyed voice beneath her breath as she ordered an Uber on her phone. She hadn’t noticed him yet, which was fine, but he was counting down the seconds in his head until she sat down to wait and noticed him, or at least smelled the tobacco.
Treinta y cuatro...treinta y cinco...treinta y...
Her head suddenly jerked towards him, eyes wide, like she thought she was being watched by a total stranger. She flipped her phone in his direction, the lamp above the patio not bright enough to make out Octavio’s features in the darkness—and as soon as she realized it was him, her face immediately had an ugly look to it.
“Is that a cigarette?” she demanded, voice loud in the night. Octavio brought the cigarette up to his lips again, inhaling. This action made her nostrils flare with either annoyance or anger or some mixture of both.
“Hey, chica,” he eventually said, not answering her. He turned his head to the side, blowing smoke in the opposite direction of the woman across from him.
“I thought ya quit.”
"You used to smoke too, you know."
"And I didn't used to have an asthma attack whenever I did. That's the difference between you and I."
Octavio gave a dry, forced laugh at the sound of her hostile tone, trying to forcibly lighten the mood. “Hey, remember when we used to say hola to each other?”
She was glaring at him as he raised the cigarette to his lips again, fighting back his own disgusted expression at the taste of it, but it was worth it for the temporary buzz he got. Blowing out smoke, he finally answered,
“I did quit.”
“What’s that, then? A lollipop?” Ajay sneered.
Octavio shrugged, wondering how long until she noticed that he was drunk. “Stole one from the old man.”
Torres was a chainsmoker. The effects of his specialized stim meant he could smoke a pack a day without worry of trouble with his lungs—a luxury Octavio didn’t have. He hated being in his office while the older man was smoking, the air thick as Octavio fought back a cough. Man, he should probably get that checked out.
He watched her turn her phone light to the chair opposite of him, her nose crinkling at the sight of leaves and dirt on it. She brushed the dirt away before sitting down, though her body was still tensed, as though ready to spring back up again at a moment's notice.
After a stretch of silence, Ajay fished something out from her jacket pocket and pulled out a familiar carton. Octavio raised his eyebrows, watching her light up her own cigarette.
“Wow."
“Maggie smokes,” Ajay said by way of explanation, before putting it in her mouth. Octavio felt a hint of jealousy when she didn’t immediately devolve into a coughing fit. “They don’t let her keep any in her cell, so I carry a pack for her.”
“What, is she like...your best friend, now?” Octavio asked, leaning back further into his chair and crossing his legs, one over the other. The pungent smell of tobacco was now much stronger between the two of them.
“Are you drunk?” It was Ajay’s turn not to answer him, deflecting a question onto him instead—though her tone sounded accusatory, much more like a statement than an inquiry.
Octavio giggled against his will at her sharp words. Fuck, he knew he wouldn’t be able to hide it from her. Some part of him had hoped that their broken friendship would eliminate her ability to always tell what was wrong with him, but that didn't seem to be the case.
“Maybe.”
“How? Ya left three hours ago. Witt said you barely drank anything before slippin' out."
“I drank at my place.” Well, his and Torres’s place. Ever since the campaign, Torres had started living at home again. Octavio still wasn’t used to it; even before he had turned eighteen, his fat-...grandfather had never been home much. “And then I came back here."
“Why?”
“Is this an interrogation, Che? God damn, maybe I just wanted to hang out. Is that illegal now?”
“What, ya came back just to sit outside by yourself and smoke a pity cigarette?” Ajay scoffed. She sat back in her chair too, finally relaxing as she took another drag from her own. “I know you, Silva. Something's up.”
“Why do you even care?” Octavio retorted. The lamp above them flickered, temporarily dousing them even further in darkness as they glared at each other across the patio.
“I don’t.” Her words were blunt, and he expected them, but they stung all the same, reminding him that their friendship really was dead and buried. “I’m just makin’ sure you’re not up to evil business on behalf of that impostor. Everyone here's havin’ a good time. They don’t need you ruinin’ it.”
There was a long pause. Octavio flicked ashes onto the concrete, now looking away from her as he tried to think of a response. The best he could come up with was,
"He’s not evil.”
“He gave the Corps to my ma," Ajay said dryly.
"You can still work for them, y'know."
"With her at the helm? All her humanitarian aid would just be acts of war in disguise, Silva."
“Whatever," he responded tiredly, leaning his head back to glare at the starless, polluted sky. "Besides, you guys were un..."
Ah, fuck. He suddenly couldn't remember the fancy English word for 'didn't have enough money'. After an uncomfortable pause, he finally continued,
"It wasn't like you guys were doing shit anyways. ”
“Ya think Cherisse is gonna do much better?” Ajay’s voice was sharper, more seething. Months of anger that she’d kept beneath her surface, that Octavio could always sense whenever she revived him in the Games—and now it was bubbling up top. Hadn’t exploded, but it was only a matter of time. "Guarantee it—in six months she'll be standin' before a judge for war crimes."
Octavio shrugged. “They did an aid thingy somewhere. Doesn't sound like a crime to me, chica."
“Stop pretendin’ like you know what you’re talking about all of a sudden, just ‘cuz your dad’s head honcho of the Syndicate. They didn’t aid nothing. They made the Boreas situation worse.”
Octavio cocked his head to the side. He didn’t know anything about that. He’d just heard Torres talking about their successes, so far. The old man might have been too distracted by PR stunts regarding that giant lobster on Storm Point to pay much attention to what Mrs. Che was doing on Boreas.
It wasn't like it concerned Octavio, anyways. Octavio's job was simply to get up on a podium from time to time and say that he endorsed Duardo Silva for the head of the Syndicate. He was little more than a young, popular celebrity to reel in the young demographic of voters that Torres just didn't appeal to otherwise.
So it had been explained to him by Torres's PR team, at least—he didn't really know what the fuck all that meant. Octavio wasn't exactly a politics guy.
He brought his cigarette up to his lips again. Blew out a burning puff of smoke, a sting of pain to prevent his mind from wandering. Ajay was waiting for a response, he could tell, but he didn't really have anything to say.
“Did they?” he finally asked, disinterested.
“Do ya watch the news, Silva?”
“Nope.” Torres hated the news, and never wanted it on; he thought they treated him unfairly. Octavio hated the news too, but only because he thought it was boring.
Ajay let out a short, humorless laugh at his response, shaking her head as she did so. When she next spoke, bitterness was tinging her every vowel:
“Of course you don’t. That would break the illusion, wouldn’t it, Silva?"
She was waving her hands around now, agitated and not caring that she was getting ashes onto her own clothes.
"Pretendin' that man’s doin’ good and actually cares about you, about the Outlands. Pretendin' ya know what you’re talkin’ about, pretendin' that the Corps are being put to good use because it'll all shatter if you get a taste of reality, won't it? Because you need to pretend. That's all you're good at."
It felt like bait. It was so definitely bait, and Octavio didn’t want to take it. But she was right; he was drunk, and he’d never been able to resist an argument, anyway.
"You're not making any sense, Che." He pointed his cigarette at her. "You sound like a crazy person."
"You're the crazy one. Givin' up, turnin' your back on everyone and handin' the Outlands over to your 'dad' so you can convince yourself he loves you all of the sudden." Ajay snorted, hitting her cigarette again. "Maybe you and Wraith can be basket-cases together. I found ya a new best friend, O."
Annoyance suddenly clawed its way through his body, traversing through his hot lungs and burning throat. Uncrossing his legs to instead stretch them across the patio, he demanded,
“Why can’t you just let me be happy for once? Why can't you feel happy for me? He’s not perfect, but he’s trying. He’s actually doing something about all the shit that goes on around here instead of sitting around like the Syndicate did!"
“What should I feel happy for, O? That you’re delusional and you’re putting all your trust in some imposter? That you’re recitin’ exactly what he’s indoctrinated ya to say?” She put her cigarette out into the ashtray, not even smoked halfway. “You don’t know what he’s doing. You don't even know a damn thing about the Syndicate. Your brain ain’t used to grown-up business, Silva, so don’t start tryin’ to keep up now.”
Man, fuck this. He hadn’t come back here to be berated for whatever Torres was doing. He hadn’t come here for politics talk—he’d come to escape it, but Ajay was hellbent on reminding him of how stupid and useless he was. He opened his mouth to retort, but she wasn’t done. Fired up now, she sat up straighter in her chair, narrowed eyes glinting eerily from the yellow light overhead.
“Ya don’t care what goes on around here either. Ya don’t care about what that terrorist is doin’. Ya don’t care about the people he’s helping or not helping. The only thing that matters to you is yourself—all you care about is your own comfort, O. You only want your daddy’s approval. The Outlands can burn, for all you care. Just as long as Duardo pats your shoulder and tells ya a job well done, right?”
“Oh, fuck off, Che,” Octavio said loudly, but immediately started coughing, because he’d said it right after taking a hit from his cigarette. When the burning feeling had subsided and he could breathe again, he glared back up at her, meeting her anger-filled eyes. “You’re such a hypocrite, chica, you think you’re soooo much better than me—”
“I am,” she snarked.
“—but you’re literally working with a terrorist right now. Maggie fuckin’ bombed people, Che.”
“She had a cause! For Salvo.”
Octavio put his own cigarette out—on his forearm, the pain cutting through the fogginess forming in his brain from the alcohol. He needed this moment of clarity to argue back, he told himself, as he ignored the brief flash of concern across his old friend’s face.
“You don’t care about Salvo, Che! You’re not working with Mags because you suddenly wanna help her do her little freedom fighting bit—you only joined up with her because the Corps got taken over! You wanna call me selfish, chica?”
He leaned forward, almost falling out of his chair as his head spun, but he clutched tightly onto the edge of his seat, keeping himself upright.
"If you cared so much about hu—humari—hurnar—if you cared so much about aid you would’ve helped Salvo after the Syndicate started fuckin’ them up. But you don’t! You don’t care! And now you're all buddy-buddy with her because it gets you what you want. You’re just as selfish as me!”
She opened her mouth, but didn’t say anything—he could tell that she was struggling to come up with a counter, which was exactly why he’d brought it up. He remembered her, months ago, venting about Maggie bombing the canyon and her annoyance with Fuse, but not a single word had been said about what was happening in Salvo. Octavio wasn’t a politics guy, he didn’t know or care about Salvo either way, but he knew that he could use that against her, and judging by the uncomfortable silence, he had succeeded.
“And—and another thing, chica, is—you’re not any better than your madre, are you? You think you’re so much better than me, than everyone else, but—but you’re using blood money just like her. You’re killing people to get money for the Corps. So shut up, okay? Stop saying I’m stupid and selfish and evil when you—”
“I didn’t call you stupid or evil,” Ajay said, but despite her rebuttal she sounded stung from his words.
“Uh, you basically did when you said my brain doesn’t—isn’t used to all that stuff.” Octavio scratched his nails down his forearm, scraping the place he’d just burnt and sending more pain crawling up his skin. “Stop acting like you’re better than everyone."
"I don't think I'm better than everyone," she argued, voice wavering in the middle just a bit. He grinned to himself in the darkness, knowing he had hit a vulnerable spot for her. "I'm the only person willin' to put my life on the line for—"
"Excuses, excuses, chica," Octavio taunted. "You're so—arrogante, you think you know better than everyone and you hate it when people tell you no and it's always your way or the highway. Just like your madre."
"And you're just like your 'padre', aren't ya?" Ajay shot back. Their voices were both loud, filled with a venom that had been brewing for much longer than the both of them wanted to admit. "He's got ya wrapped around his finger, usin' you and manipulatin' you to get exactly what he wants 'til he can throw ya away like garbage. Sound familiar, O?"
"Not really," he mumbled.
"So you might be fine, bein' used as a puppet by others to do evil, and sure, maybe I am usin' blood money because the Corps need me. I'm vital, and that's more than I can say for you."
Octavio slumped back in his seat, his only response a petulant, "Nobody needs you."
“You need me,” Ajay shouted, sitting up straighter, and Octavio only realized now that she was drunk, just like him. He could tell in the way she was keeping herself upright by pushing her elbows against the arms of her chair, posture unsteady. “Ya know who got you your damn legs? I did. Ya know who’s always there to save your ungrateful ass every time ya get hurt? Me. Ya need me to survive, Silva. You’re nothin’ without me.”
“I’m doing just fine without you,” Octavio said, but his words were less confident than they’d been before. He fished another cigarette from his shorts pocket—he’d swiped two from Torres's desk—as Ajay pounced on the brief uncertainty that had caused his voice to waver.
“Oh, sure ya are. That’s why you’re sitting out here all by yourself, huh?” Her voice was an unpleasant, shrill tone that dug its claws into him as he lit his new cigarette. “Because you know nobody wants to be around ya anymore. You’re a sell-out. Everyone knows the dirty deeds that impostor did, so ya went home and got drunk and then came back to sit outside and pretend everyone’s still your friend, didn’t you?”
Octavio went into a coughing fit, again. She seemed content to watch him wheeze into his fist, waving his cigarette around to discard ashes. When he could breathe again, he slumped back in his seat once more, returning the cigarette to his lips where it burned, it hurt.
Good.
“Naw," he said simply.
“Naw, what?”
“I didn’t come back ‘cuz of that.”
“What’d ya come back for, then? Duardo order ya to? Obeyin' him like a dumb puppy?"
Ajay still didn’t know that ‘Duardo’ was Torres. She didn’t know that his grandfather was alive, and almost a hundred years old. As Octavio took a drag, he thought for a moment about a different time; how she would’ve been the first person he told, back then. And he kind of wanted to tell her now. Blow her mind, and get her to stop making condescending comments long enough for him to think of another way to twist the knife into her.
But he quickly decided not to—Torres was angry enough with him as it was. He didn’t feel like inciting even further rage.
“He hit me,” he said, voice rasping. Ajay stared at him, her fingers curling into her lap. “I got drunk and started looking into his computer. For that old video. I wanted to see it again, but he...he didn’t like that.”
The darkness outside had concealed the dark bruise he could feel forming on his cheek, and on his right shoulder from where he’d fallen down after being hit. Some sick part of himself, the part angry at Ajay’s words and comments, hoped that she felt bad now for saying all that stuff about him. He hadn’t intended on weaponizing what had happened at home in this argument, but they were already spitting fire at each other. Some more heat to the flames couldn’t hurt.
Ajay looked away from him, silent for a couple of seconds, before scoffing. Then, laughing. A familiar, high-pitched, drunken sound he’d used to enjoy hearing whenever they went pub-crawling. Now, it just sounded like nails against a chalkboard.
“You deserved it.”
Octavio raised his eyebrows. He was too drunk, too buzzed, to even be shocked by her words.
“Wow,” he said.
“Ya knew what you were gettin’ yourself into, ya knew that man never gave a shit about you. He goes and hits ya again and what—you’re shocked? And now ya got nobody to turn to because you alienated ‘em all when you became a sell-out, so now you’re sittin’ out here feelin’ sorry for yourself.” A car turned the corner, illuminating Ajay from behind with bright white light, painting her figure shadowy and black. “Sorry ya got hit, Silva, but you deserved it. Welcome to facin’ the consequences of your own actions. Maybe it'll be a wake-up call."
She got up from the patio chair, kicking it aside as she went to the car—her Uber, presumably. Octavio watched her go, blowing out smoke and watching it swirl in the air, easier to see now thanks to the bright headlights. Ajay opened the door, pausing, before looking back at him. Like she wanted to say something else, talk shit even more.
But Octavio wouldn’t let her get the last word in. Bringing his cigarette up to his mouth again, he tried to think of something he knew would hurt.
“Good luck savin’ the Outlands, Che,” he said when she finally stuck her foot inside the car, about to clamber in. The roof of his mouth burned. “Maybe I’ll ask your madre to send ‘aid’ to Salvo on your behalf. That’ll make your new amiga happy, wouldn’t it?”
“Their blood would be on your hands if it goes wrong, Silva. Then you’d really be evil,” she said, before slamming the car door shut. Unfortunately for her, the backseat windows had been rolled down.
“Eh, but I'm too dumb to keep up with politics, remember? I couldn't possibly know what I’d be doing if I sent them out there.” He giggled at the twisted expression on her face. “At least the Corps would be doing something for Salvo. I mean, if they’re gonna be funded by blood money, they oughta actually help people, right?”
The car drove off. Octavio didn’t know all that much about the Corps, about how Ajay had ran them—or how her mom did, for that matter. He really didn’t pay attention to politics, despite being involved in them now as a shiny new marketing ploy. But he was satisfied with the hurt, scared expression that had crossed Ajay’s face for just a moment as she’d been driven away. It perfectly matched the way she’d made him feel.
She'd said a lot of stuff, called him a lot of things. Delusional...a puppet...a wake-up call... but what did she know?
He tried not to think about the fact that Torres had hit him again. It had been his own fault, hadn't it? For digging into his grandfather's things, when he knew how private he was with all that stuff. He trusted Octavio with so much information, he praised him often for a job well done and considered him useful, valuable. Octavio had breached that trust. He'd fucked it up for himself, hadn't he? Just like he'd fucked up he and Ajay's friendship.
Octavio kept smoking his cigarette, though this time he didn’t finish it, stomping it out after only about halfway through. He curled up on the patio chair, wondering if he could take a nap out here, and then maybe he would forget the sting of Torres's palm and Ajay's words—before the door to the Paradise Lounge opened again, and someone stepped outside.
“God, it fucking stinks out here,” Anita grumbled, sounding irritated. Kairi’s arm was slung around the taller woman's shoulders, clearly drunk and being carried out. “You’re lucky Lo batted those eyelashes of hers and—”
She paused when she noticed Octavio, watching the two of them silently. Her brow furrowed, the door swinging shut behind her and drowning them in darkness once again. Kairi slurred out something he couldn’t understand; it sounded like broken Japanese.
Finally, Anita said,
“Silva.”
“Bangs,” he said back, voice cracking a little. Ugh.
“You’re drunk.”
It was a statement. Not a question. He curled up further into his chair, wrapping his arms around himself. “Maybe.”
He heard her sigh, before the heavy thudding of her boots sounded closer to him—and the sound of Kairi’s shoes dragging across the concrete.
“Get up,” she said, grabbing his upper arm and yanking him to his feet easily. He let himself be man-handled, stumbling into her side as she pulled him close. His forearm stung with pain as he wrapped it around her waist in order to keep himself upright. “Can’t let anyone see Duardo Silva’s son like this. PR nightmare.”
"Pretty sure I've been seen doing worse."
"Difference is, your papí's a politician now."
“I get the feeling you’re mad at me,” Octavio said, only now noticing the slur of his own voice compared to Anita’s own clear one. He hadn't been able to tell earlier, because Ajay's voice had slurred as well, drunk without him noticing for far too long.
“Shit keeps happening, Silva, and I've got enough on my plate without having to worry about you out here looking like you’ve just been disowned. Again.”
Maybe he wasn't as good at hiding his hurt facial expression as he thought he was. Octavio let Anita lead him around the bar to where her truck was parked, keeping steady despite his drunkenness thanks to his legs.
He waited patiently for Anita to strap Kairi into the passenger’s seat, her white-dyed hair falling into her eyes, passed out. He was then unceremoniously shoved into the backseat of her truck, lying across it as she tucked his legs inside so that she wouldn’t slam the door on them.
“I don’t even think there’s anyone left to disown me,” he slurred as she climbed into the driver's seat. “Che and I...my abue—my dad...”
“Think again,” Anita said, starting the engine and sounding distinctly tired. “Family’s rough, Silva. You’re stuck with them, whether you want to be or not. They’ll come around. Or you will. One of the two.”
Octavio would rather die than apologize to Ajay, or ‘come around’ to her. She was...she didn’t support him. She thought he was stupid and evil and useless and she wanted to boss him around and tell him what to do and didn’t trust him and...
There were tears in his eyes as he curled up against the seat, which he told himself was from the fact that he was laying on his bruised shoulder, and nothing more. Definitely not because he'd been hit tonight and Ajay was definitely never speaking to him again and Anita sounded really mad at him for some reason and...
Fuck. The alcohol. This had to be the alcohol's fault.
"I think I'm all alone, 'Nita," he mumbled into the seat, nails digging into that spot on his forearm again. Pain, trying to get himself to stop thinking, but only worsening the tears forming in his eyes.
Anita didn't look back at him. Didn't say words of comfort. Didn't say anything rude, either. Didn't tell him he deserved it, which he definitely did. She just said,
"I know the feeling."
and pulled out of the parking lot.