a n a l y z e .

i have given myself permission to be a monster in little ways .

[byreticence]

byreticence .       dependent blog for @kronosfm​, portrayed by bear.

                    intro .         connections .         pinterest .

[withpains]

"doesn't it get tiring suspecting me of treachery all the time?" she blows vapor at cecil, a petty move to mask the genuine frustration burning. he's not wrong --- of course he isn't --- but something about the statement unearths the cage of their childhood.

how often were insinuations of blame placed on her shoulders when she had done nothing? and how, no matter her protests, the leash around her neck simply pulled tighter?

from her parents to cecil and benjamin--- she cannot escape the claws of her family.

"you know nero's network is wide; he's smart enough to slot pieces together. buchanan's gala coverup was pointless; nero was always going to get his hands on our serum information --- even if that involved heavily relying on trix." a flicker of a smile crosses her face at the thought of the ex-employee; a wonderful mind wasted on getting caught. but trix was lucky too, for having such reliable friends still employed at kronos.

"i'm sure samael won't be your only headache soon enough." another smile draws on her face, wider, sharper. "if you snag somebody that took nero's serum --- dead or alive --- i could easily inform you of the differences. and how those differences influence the creation of powers."

[byreticence]

cecil doesn’t bother answering her question. they both know the answer: no. were it a yes, cecil wouldn’t have bothered maintaining a finger to the pulse of delphine’s career - and life - for as long as he has. he thinks she, in a way, should be flattered to hold his interest. it means she’s not as dull as many of the people in their lives, the ones who hold only anecdotal markings in cecil’s expansive journal collection. he doesn’t care about protecting the family name, of sweeping mistakes under rugs, so much as he cares about examining people so thoroughly that he knows them better than they know themselves.

he inhales another lungful, skin hollowing over sharp cheekbones and he resembles the very moniker plenty of supers have come wary of. the skull man doesn’t get out quite as much as he used to. it might be worthwhile to do so, if only to put a pin in the activities of trix.

“how’s our brother?” cecil asks, overlooking her prior comments. if delphine thinks cecil doesn’t trust her, she ought to find relief in the fact that the person cecil trusts least is benjamin. intelligence suggests benjamin, a kronos executive, played a role in nero and trix getting their hands on the serum. he wouldn’t put it past their brother. “see him much about at kronos?”

[withpains]

the urge to roll her eyes practically possesses her; a habit born from years of listening to cecil's dry, never-changing tone. whether behind his back or in front of him, she's surprised her eyes haven't stuck to the back of her head yet.

but outright truth sounds the same as convincing lies coming from cecil. she cannot drop her guard around him; the moment she does, he'll corner her again, tighten the boundaries in which he ensnares her.

she mentally notes to bribe the staff later for which patrons scuffled to the back rooms. he'll do the same for her, she's certain, and it's a petulant battle to withhold names he'll discover anyways.

then again, she's never existed to make his life easier.

"i was merely securing my position career-wise. making our parents proud and whatnot. can't have you breathing down my neck forever."

unclasping her small purse, she withdraws her vape pen. "you don't mind, do you?" more statement than question, as delphine immediately lifts the pen to her mouth. sugary sweet vapor soon joins cecil's cigarette smoke.

"so --- am i to expect a recently dead hero to land on the dissection table, or have you not recovered the body yet?"

[byreticence]

if he were the type to smile, he’d crack a wry one at her comment. they both know the only way she’ll be free of him is if he’s dead and, even then, she’s intelligent enough to know his death couldn’t possibly be the end of things. he’s the type whose contingencies have contingencies.

“no one can say you ever rest on your laurels,” he comments around his cigarette. it keeps the saccharine scent of her vape from penetrating too close to him; he’ll never understand the allure of them, as if smelling like artificial fruit is somehow more tasteful than old fashioned nicotine and tobacco.

cecil glances her way, plucks his cigarette from his lips. “the body’s recovered. it’ll be yours soon enough.” smoke curls from his lips. he’s never cared for the eagerness she displays when he brings supers to their black site labs but finding someone as skilled as his sister would be borderline impossible. “i hear rumors about the role kronos may have played in samael’s newfound powers. is that you or is that nero?”

[amarcnthined]

“i don’t think you care about that.” there’s a blitheness to her observation, said as easily as one might state the weather. flattery, for her, comes easily; she only needs to add sugar to sincerity to get what she wants. of course, it doesn’t always work—she’s half resigned herself to knowing she’ll never quite figure him out, so she doesn’t bother with a honeyed touch. “i’ll still give you a compliment for free, though. just ‘cause you love them so much.” but it isn’t his capability or his intelligence that she praises; he doesn’t need the ego boost. “my mom can’t stand you, and doesn’t even bother to hide it—that’s impressive when all she does is try to play perfect.” 

he asks about her workplace next, and she takes another hit. “it’s so high-stress right now. and definitely not. they’ve got her working super late nights, too. they want to know what went wrong and what went wrong now, they all want it to be foolproof, they act like fucking with people’s genetics should be easy.” should she be telling him all this? probably not. but it’s too late—his question has given her irritation an outlet, and the glasses of champagne certainly don’t help keep her quiet.

[byreticence]

“sounds more of a fact than a compliment.” odessa’s mother and he have never seen eye to eye. he’d say they’ve never been fond of each other, but he has fondness for no one. not for his family, not for his pseudo-goddaughter.

he lets her rant about kronos because he may glean something useful from her word vomiting. he can’t treat this like an interrogation because he doesn’t need odessa on the defensive, doesn’t need her worrying over whether or not she can tell him something rather than just blurting it out unchecked. cecil rests his elbows on his knees, stares at the gravel a little longer before he looks over to her. “you don’t have to answer.” a non answer will be an answer all the same. she may not even be able to answer though he highly doubts that. “was it ready for an exhibition of that nature?”

[stpeters]

this is it, they think. all the time and work they've put into this, the work they've been able to do, it's all over. the logical step would be to apologize and try to find some sort of excuse as to why they were lurking around in the data room when they're very clearly not supposed to be.

but elijah finds that when they open their mouth to speak, they can't lie to cecil. a shaky breath leaves them as they finally lift their gaze from the floor to meet cecil's eyes.

"no one was telling us about the -- the serum. i mean, one of us -- one of us died." last word, whispered like a dark secret; there's a lump in their throat just thinking about it. "i thought i'd find something here. maybe. i don't -- i don't really know what i was looking for."

[byreticence]

cecil runs a mental checklist on what he knows about elijah: thirty, paragon, healer. the type who believes in being a hero for noble reasons rather than like the rest of the lot cecil spends his days mopping up after. elijah hasn’t let the so-called stardom of being a super go to their head.

it’s only a matter of time, in cecil’s opinion, before that happens.

he clasps his hands behind his back. “answers, i’d imagine.” it’s dry, but it’s also the closest to sarcasm cecil ever comes. while elijah is more than likely being sincere in their reasons for being here, cecilcan’t count on that to be true. saint peter could very well have ulterior motives and be hoping no one would think they would do something shady or criminal. “what do you want to know?”

[withpains]

a smile carves across her face as she slips through the back door. a fruitful meeting always leaves a buzz thrumming through her veins. trading information under intense scrutiny is never easy, but the usual steps are all she needs to place power into her another's hands. and if she catches a few drops that slip through---as she always does---all the better.

then a familiar, acrid taste coats her tongue. she recognizes the owner before the smoke clears, and her smile ticks from victorious to poisonous.

"was going great, actually. and then i saw you."

she edges closer to her sibling, arms crossing as she leans toward him. "what's up your sleeve tonight, cee-cee?"

[byreticence]

cecil’s cheeks hollow out beneath the sharp lines of his cheekbones when he takes a drag of his cigarette without looking away from his baby sister. the change in expression, from her brand of happy - likely at the expense of someone else’s demise - to contempt for him, makes her look a bit more like herself, something akin to an actor stripping away stage makeup and prosthetics to reveal the real person beneath.

“the usual - global domination over michelin star dining.” the dryness with which cecil speaks could very well be his own brand of sincerity. whether it is or it isn’t, he’d never clarify - not even to delphine. especially not to delphine. she’s proven, time and again, over the years to be formidable in her own ways and cecil prefers to keep her well leashed and muzzled.

her delight moments ago has his focus completely removed from his dining company to whatever she’s got up her sleeve. “and you? you’re quite reminiscent of the cat that ate the canary, fee-fee.”

[stpeters]

location: somewhere in the nsa that elijah shouldn't be! closed to @byreticence !

every bone in their body is telling them to turn around and leave. they’re not meant to be here — heroes are not meant to be sneaking around the nsa like this, and certainly are not supposed to be going directly against the orders that they've been given.

still, even they can sense something is off; no one is telling them the truth, and all their publicist has told them so far is to not talk about the serum as much as possible, to stick to the script and say their heart goes out to the late hero's family.

but why?

there has to be a reason they're not sending the others after samael straightaway, they can feel it.

they're reaching for one of the cabinets in the dark file room, and just when their fingertips brush against the handle, there's a footstep behind them. they whip around just as quickly, feeling their heartbeat in their ears, now.

"cecil," they swallow, "you're . . . here late."

[byreticence]

there’s a world where, when cecil opens this door and sees a paragon hero caught with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar, he does so with the raise of an eyebrow and a questioning look on his face. it’s a world where elijah has something to gauge what their reaction should be. it’s a world which only exists in cecil’s mind because when he opens the door and finds one of antonia’s heroes sneaking about in the dark, cecil’s permanent neutral expression is as ever unyielding to the thoughts in his head.

he gives elijah a silent once over with a slow slide of pale blue eyes before returning to his nervous wide eyes.“so i am.” the lilt of an irish accent softens his deep tone as cecil remains in the doorway, a slight but formidable blockade to the only exit of the darkened file room. he turns on the light, only blinking once at the sudden brightness. “what secrets are you hunting for that you can’t find elsewhere?”

[pcrennial]

"I am loving this enthusiasm." She drops the takeout box on his desk, undeterred, unfazed. Plops down on an empty chair with a long exhale. No reaction, bad reaction, all the same. She can roll with that. Her strategy when faced with less-than-amicable response (or none) is to simply keep on pressing, keep on drilling. The world is not her oyster. It doesn't just part its jaw, obediant on her palm ―- she must wriggle in a prybar and force that shit open herself.

Cutting straight to the chase as always. There is a certain refreshing clarity in conversing with him, an odd sort of transparency about where she stands―a stark contrast to her own ways of beating around the bush, embellishments and all, sniffing for a good opening like a fox. Partly because, call it instinct or strategy, that's just who Antonia is. And partly because she is neither white nor a man; the world does not like to see her be forthright in communicating her desires.

Andy holds up a finger as she chews through the mouthful of her food (a bowl of poke) before replying. "I was," she admits, growing somber. "But I don't have the money shot, if that's what you're looking for. I was too busy trying not to barf to worry about recording. Did someone from Kronos come and try to talk to you?" There's a loud cackle as she pictures how that encounter would've gone down. "What else did they say?"

[byreticence]

what good is it to have the ability to record anything and everything and then not get what could be the most important moment of their lives? luckily for antonia, cecil’s expression never wavers. there’s no flash of annoyance, no viable frustration, no lip curling in disgust for her ineffectiveness. whatever he’s thinking remains hidden behind his usual neutral facade. whatever he feels comes and goes quickly; luckily for cecil, he doesn’t get bogged down in a myriad of emotions. 

he, like antonia, moves forward in a relentless manner.

“it’s better than nothing.” he turns the tray of takeout she’s brought for him about and opens it to take a bite, little mind paid to what it actually is. most of the nsa’s employees have long since come to realize cecil cannot be bought or have favor curried with. who he appears to like or dislike and how they find themselves on one list or the other is unknown. that is the way he prefers it.

blue eyes flick over to antonia, waiting until she’s had her fill of laughing before he speaks. “robert buchanan would rather eat nails than offer information as to how his company shit the bed royally.” he takes another bite, wipes his mouth. “i let officer savoya handle meeting with their biotech team. they stand by the fact that it wasn’t their error, but that they were misled by the twins. i find it hard to believe that a multimillion dollar science fair project could be thwarted by two twenty-somethings.” a pause. “not impossible though. your thoughts?”

[byreticence]

where: outside of amalfi who: open!

cecil steps through the back door of amalfi and into the damp cold of the alleyway. the door closes after him, kills the sounds and smells of the restaurant. peace and quiet. never mind that he doesn’t sit with the public, never mind that his meal has been relegated to a back room with security officers from across the globe desperate to garner an understanding of where things stand after the buchanan fiasco a few weeks back. the unfortunate bit is that cecil can’t offer much information, much to his own chagrin. he lights his cigarette and inhales deeply, lungs expanding until they might burst with smoke before he exhales a cloud of nicotine and catches sight of someone else stumbling into the sanctity of the dingy alley. never much of one for initiating conversation, he takes another drag before speaking, “rough night?”

[lostsolace]

tommy shelby

peaky blinders | 1.03

[emmysavoya]

There: guilt settles like a thick paste in the bottom of her stomach, solidified by the trust Cecil gives in her insistence. "I did nap. Twice," she insists without much conviction, but it's too late. He trusts that she's taking care of herself, if not for herself but for the duty she has upon others. Slowly she pushes the papers off to the side, instead choosing to focus on the dinner and the man in front of her.

She's read the files, the reports, a dozen times by now. Nothing has become any clearer.

"Olivia used to make this one soup when I'd get stressed with schoolwork," Emerald admits, opting to use her adoptive mother's first name instead of calling her what she is. Easier, really, even ten years later. "Though I never got the recipe. I'm sure if I asked now, my brother would say he didn't keep the paper." She shrugs one shoulder, turning to watch the television. "I'm glad he never wound up going to the gala. I thought for sure I'd see him trying to rub noses with Buchanan."

[byreticence]

there is always a way to get everyone to do what you want them to do. however easy or difficult, it’s but a matter of getting to know someone. emerald, cecil learned very early on, would do as he asks if he makes it clear it’s not only something he wants of her but also that he trusts her to see it accomplished.

he takes a bite of his food, chewing slowly, and cuts blue eyes over to emerald as she talks about her brother. “brothers have a way of being the bane of your existence.” his own is a case study in that. he’d be somewhat impressive if he had half as much discipline as he does hedonistic impulsivity. “hobnobbing must not have been high on his priority list that night. surprisingly enough, as you said, for him. what do you think he found more important?

[byreticence]

amarcnthined​:

the cloying scent of artificial mango bothers him. there’s a small sense of satisfaction in knowing so, though not because she necessarily means to irritate him ( even if she doesn’t go out of her way to avoid doing so ), but because she’s actually able to pick up on the shift in his normally impassive expression, no matter how imperceptible. yet despite how long she’s known him, she’s still never been quite able to figure him out.

she imagines if that makes him feel anything, it’d likely be amusement. “you know why.” odessa feigns petulance, taking another hit. “but since you asked, for you, definitely determination.” she leans back on one hand. “if there’s something you want to do, i don’t think you’ve ever not done it. rob, though?” head tilts, curls spilling down her right shoulder. “definitely bullheadedness. that’s why he wanted to speed it up—well, you probably guessed that, right? well, either way, all he wants are results, no matter the cost. and now he acts like it never happened.”

.

“when most people say things of that nature, it tends to sounds like flattery.” cecil exhales a cloud of nicotine without looking her way - attention given, primarily, to watching his family and their guests through the window. he doesn’t bother finishing his thought by pointing out the obvious. odessa’s never, in his experience, been one to give him flattery. he’s never needed it; never sought it out either. flattery means attention and cecil’s made avoiding as much something of an art in his lifetime.

thumb brushing against his bottom lip, cecil drops his gaze to the ground. gravel dusts speckles his black shoes. noted and moved on from. “we’ve met a lot of opposition because of robert’s denial of fault.” he thumps ash from his cigarette, watches it flutter into disappearance. “what’s the mood internally on that? i imagine your friend on the r&d team isn’t thrilled about how the night ended.”

[byreticence]

amarcnthined​:

deciding whether or not to come to these sort of things usually happens on a whim, her family’s circles not exactly her first choice of company. more often than not, the answer is no. still, she makes an appearance every now and then, mostly because the alcohol is always expensive. but she’s not here tonight just for the fancy bottle of scotch—her mother’s also in attendance, and if odessa wants to figure out how deep her involvement in covering up kronos’ mistakes go, she should start by getting into her good graces again.

it’s all so terribly dull, though, so when cecil asks her to join him outside, odessa does without protest. maybe he wants to catch up with his almost goddaughter. or more likely, he wants something from her. she doesn’t dwell on the reason too much; she’ll find out soon enough. 

“it’s mango,” she says in lieu of a proper answer, grinning as she holds up the vape she’s pulled out from her jumpsuit pocket. “what’s the point? i’d just forget them if i did. you can change yourself any time of the year, anyway.” she takes a hit, exhaling smoke out into the night. “i know you called them silly, but i bet if you set some, you’d stick to it.”

.

though cecil’s expression doesn’t actually twist into one of disgust at the sight of her mango flavored vape, it comes across in a sniff before he takes a drag of his cigarette. the cherry end glows bright, unnecessary with the light coming from the gargantuan windows of his parents’ sprawling property. what use this amount of property actually has now that all of their children are grown and with no grandchildren in sight is beyond him.

“and why’s that?” he asks as if he doesn’t know. in terms of people who know him best, he supposes odessa reid sits fairly high on that list. surprisingly, perhaps, to anyone else. she’s been around him most of her life, their families intertwined, and he knows for a fact that he frustrates her because of an inability to gauge what goes on beyond the surface. she wouldn’t be alone in that regard. “determination or bullheadedness?” cecil thumps ash to the gravel. “which would you say drove your boss to his grand farce of a debut the other night?”

[pcrennial]

TIMESTAMP: 3 days after the gala LOCATION: cecil's office, nsa hq STATUS: closed / @byreticence

Antonia knocks on the door exactly twice before entering without waiting for a reply.

"What's up, Cece. Looking as sprightly as ever," she greets, cheerily ignores the pointed glare thrown her way. Packed lunch is in her grasp, well-aware of her colleague's vehement, long-standing opposition to the cafeteria―or, more precisely, the gaggle of fellow employees that occupies it during this period. Understandable. Especially when all they seem to be interested in right now is to wheedle out details about the incident from anyone who attended. Andy herself was present, naturally, unfortunately, as deputy officer of the NSA, eyewitness to the horrors unfurled; she'd puked out the contents of her stomach after that, dazed, a hysterical sort of laughter bubbling up in her throat as she stared at the water swirling down the toilet. She still has the video on her cyberoptics, capturing the screaming and the blood and patrons scrambling to flee, having only remembered to start recording then. Doesn't know what to do with it. What a fucking souvenir.

"I was planning on joining everyone else at the cafeteria but they all wanted to interrogate me for―y'know. Pshhh." She mimics an explosion with her hands. "Speaking of. How's damage control going, hm?"

[byreticence]

emerald isn’t at her desk. otherwise andy would have been cut off before she could breach the door to cecil’s office. there’s a certain sanctity held by his office; he doesn’t take meetings in it often - regardless of how much someone tries to force their way in. and if he knew any of his usual tactics would have his fellow deputy officer turning on her heels and beating a hasty retreat, he would have utilized one already.

instead, cecil resigns himself to her presence and sits back in his chair - little attention paid to the fact she’s brought him lunch, as if he’s too well-mannered to take it and kick her out of his office without spending some so-called quality time with his coworker.

“it’s going.” flat expression, flat tone. he knows it won’t bother andy or, if it does, she won’t let it show. it unnerved the communications person who’d come up to his office earlier, looking for an official response to be given to media queries. “were you recording?” he asks. he has his own memories; his penchant from watching from far away keeping him from being injured in the madness and letting him observe. antonia had been in the thick of it. “i need a copy. the kronos damage control machine doesn’t think there’s anything we need to worry ourselves with which makes everything more difficult.”

cecil plans on terrorizing robert buchanan’s company if only because his employees have sufficiently managed to annoy him but that’s not andy’s business.

[cimness]

“It was perhaps the faintest, wannest smile that ever agitated for a moment the lower half of a human face. The eyes took no part in it. They were as vacant as saucers of milk; but one end of the mouth lifted as might the cold lip of a trout.”

— Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast

[byreticence]

where: nsa technology divison who: @couverts / eamon!

though he’s an incredible creature of habit and very strict with scheduling, sometimes cecil goes against his typical behavior for no clear cut reason. it’s why he’s decided to haunt the technology division with his presence fifteen minutes earlier than the scheduled time of his meeting with eve. he doesn’t make it a habit; it’s not his division, after all, but it’s a division that’s always intrigued him nonetheless. it speaks to his need to disassemble something and piece it back whole to learn how it works. “is that the newer model?” he asks with only a brief glance at eamon. the weapon eamon’s laid out before him holds his attention more keenly. “we arrested someone the other night carrying one similar to it.”

[byreticence]

where: family dinner party who: @amarcnthined​ / odessa !

at nearly fifty, family dinner parties are the sort of thing cecil thinks he ought not have to attend. he hates them, has always hated them. these things should be, in a sense, safer for him than events like buchanan’s gala because of the fact that it’s family and family friends. there’s a smaller number of people here. but these are worse because of that fact. these are people who aren’t intimidated away from him so easily. this, despite the fact that they know how he loathes talking to any of them. still, there are upsides to attending. namely in the form of odessa; cecil can’t trust his sister to get, or give, solid information. odessa owes him a favor or two.

he sits on the fountain outside of his parents’ dining room; they and their guests have all moved on to other areas of the house for post-dinner discussions. he’s asked odessa to join him out here, away from the continuous circle jerk of glad handing inside. “do you still smoke or do you do those silly little news years resolutions?”