Chapter 525: 525. Just When I Arrived At Apollo’s House. Two Women I Want To Max Out Are Here

They walked in the direction of the residential district without either of them making it into a formal decision, the way people walk together when the destination is understood and the journey is the thing with space in it.

"Apollo talks about you differently from how he talks about most people," Cassius said, after half a block. "It seems like you really are his good friend..."

"Even though back then when we first met... I hadn’t talked that much to you."

Rex waited.

"He talks about most people like they’re pieces of a situation he’s navigating," Cassius said. "He’s a good person, and I’m not saying otherwise."

"But... he has been the center of his own story long enough that people become scenery without him noticing." He glanced at Rex. "He doesn’t do that with you."

"He talks about you like you’re someone he’s trying to understand."

"He probably should," Rex said.

Cassius looked at him with the expression of a man who has said something intended to compliment and received something unexpected in return and found it more interesting than the expected response would have been.

"He thinks you held back in that canyon," Cassius said. "He didn’t say it directly, but I know how he phrases things when he’s working around a conclusion he’s not ready to say out loud."

"Apollo has good instincts," Rex said.

"He does," Cassius said.

"He inherited them from his mother." A pause that was more comfortable than formal. "What I inherited him was the jaw structure and the tendency to walk into conversations without checking how deep the water is first."

’What the fuck does that even mean...? That’s actually sad...’

"That’s not entirely a liability," Rex said.

"No," Cassius agreed.

"It’s gotten me into useful places." He said it with the self-awareness of someone who had been living with a personality trait long enough to understand its full range. "My wife has been asking about you."

’Oh boy~! Here we go... I’m so fucking ready to break a high priestess into becoming my bitch.’

"Amelia?" Rex said.

"Yep! She said you two had a good conversation a few weeks ago," Cassius said. "Before the expedition."

"She’s been following what the academy was doing with the intelligence review, and she heard you’re involved in the recovery analysis now."

’Huh...? Did Valentina or Elizabeth tell that to everyone...?’

’What are they doing...?’

"She’d like to catch up, I think," Cassius said. "She thinks highly of you, and she’s been in a quieter mood since the Legion incident."

"Having something productive to discuss usually helps her."

’Nah... pretty sure she missed me, especially that kind of thing.’

"What kind of quieter mood are we talking about here?" Rex said.

Cassius was quiet for a moment, the specific quiet of someone deciding how accurate to be.

"She worries about Apollo more than she lets him see," Cassius said. "The extraction ring incident, being unconscious for most of the operation, came back with gaps in what he knew had happened."

"She handles it the way she handles most things, which is by finding something she can actually do." He paused. "The intelligence review is something she can follow."

"You’re someone she considers worth talking to. Both of those things are useful to her right now."

’Worth talking to...? What a fucking joke.’

Rex looked at the street ahead of them. "Well..."

"I understand that," he said.

"I thought you might," Cassius said, without elaborating on what he meant by it, which was its own kind of communication.

"You know where we live," Cassius tapped his shoulder. "Come by now if you’re not occupied."

"She’s home."

Rex looked at him. The specific alignment of circumstances had the quality of something that had arranged itself rather than something he had arranged.

He noted this without surprise. ’An invitation that will lead you to your family’s demise...’

"I’m not occupied," Rex said.

"Good," Cassius said, and the warmth in it was genuine. "I have a council obligation in an hour, so I’ll need to be out, but she’ll want the company."

"For sure... don’t worry."

"Thank you, Rex."

...

They walked the rest of the way in easy silence, like people who have expressed everything that needed to be said and are comfortable leaving the rest alone.

The Brightsoul household was situated on a quiet street in the residential district, a comfortable but not ostentatious space that had the specific quality of a home that had been lived in for a long time by people who valued function over display.

The front steps had been swept recently, and the door was slightly weathered in the specific way of a door that saw regular use, the kind of house where people actually came and went rather than arrive for occasions.

Apollo was in the front room when they arrived.

’He’s here...?’ Rex was surprised at first, but then he smiled. ’Good shit.’

He looked up from the book he was reading, and his expression did what it always did when Rex appeared, the uncomplicated warmth of someone who had decided Rex was a person he was glad existed. It was an expression Rex found practical without finding it sentimental.

Beside him on the sofa, at a careful distance that suggested the afternoon had been arranged specifically as the kind of quiet, domestic company that signified a relationship moving toward a comfortable register, was Mireya Snowlith.

’HOLY SHIT! ANOTHER JACKPOT!’ Rex screamed in his mind. ’Both women that I wanted to max out are right here...’

’Oh yeah... we’re so close to fucking everything up in the Underlayer.’

She saw Rex at approximately the same moment that he saw her.

The expression that crossed her face was one she had increasingly shown in Rex’s presence since the canyon incident and the events that followed, reflecting a complex mix of recognition and the cautious demeanor of someone who had chosen to uphold a stance established under considerable pressure.

She looked away immediately, studying a point on the opposite wall with intense focus.

Rex noted her reaction without expression. ’Heh... looks like someone still remembers that night.’

"Rex," Apollo said as he stood with the easy movement of someone whose body had completely healed from the extraction ring’s effects and who was genuinely happy. "I didn’t know you were coming."

"I ran into your father," Rex said. "He suggested I stop by."

"Oh," Apollo said.

He glanced at Cassius with the expression of someone working out a sequence of events, and something in it communicated that the meeting in the street had perhaps been less coincidental than it appeared.

Cassius said to Rex, "Amelia should be in the back."

"She finished her temple correspondence an hour ago, so she’ll be settled." He put a hand on Rex’s shoulder briefly. "I’ll leave you in good hands."

’Don’t worry, dear husband... Your wife is going to be in good hands indeed...’

He went to find his coat, and the quality of his exit was specific. The specific quality of a man who had provided the introduction and was satisfied with the arrangement.

Apollo said, "How is the analysis work going?"

"It’s still a work in progress," Rex said. "There are things in the fragment structure that require methodology I haven’t found on the surface."

"Elizabeth seems focused on it," Apollo said.

’Again... he know it as well.’ Rex thought. "The hell’s going on here?’

"She is," Rex said. "It suits her as the professor, of course."

"She’s like that with most things that actually interest her," Apollo said. "She taught one of my foundation courses at the Academy two years ago."

"She spent twenty minutes on a question another instructor would have answered in two because she wanted to make sure everyone in the room understood why the answer was true rather than just what the answer was."

"That sounds like her," Rex said.

"She’s good," Apollo said.

He spoke with the sincerity of someone who does not give compliments lightly to those they truly respect. "Whatever you two are working on, she’s the right person to be working it with."

From the sofa, Mireya was not looking at him. She was still focused on the wall, but the slight tension in her hands resting in her lap indicated that she was listening carefully to a conversation while pretending not to.

Apollo said, "We were going to have a quiet afternoon," and the way he said it communicated that the afternoon had been Mireya’s suggestion and that he was content with it but not particularly invested in it.

He glanced briefly at Mireya, as someone does when checking in on a person they are paying attention to. Mireya did not look up.

"Have fun then," Rex said. "Don’t let me interrupt both of you lovebirds."

Apollo looked at him with the expression of someone who has just registered that the room has a specific texture he hadn’t noticed when Rex arrived. "Hahaha..."

"You’re not interrupting," Apollo said, and it came out a beat slower than his usual speed. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Rex held his gaze for a moment. Long enough to let Apollo do whatever calculation he was doing, and short enough that it could have been nothing.

Then he looked toward the back of the house.

"I’ll go meet up with your mother," Rex said. "We’re going to talk, okay?"

"Yeah, sure."