moodswing whiskey / aodhán & ignacio.

moodswing whiskey / aodhán & ignacio. Jun 6, 2024 16:13:27 GMT -5

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Post by d8 : vera jeon 🎀 sucy on Jun 6, 2024 16:13:27 GMT -5

As their meeting draws to a close, Aodhán looks out at all the attendees. Karl, bright and heating up the room by presence alone. Little Heidi Verbrecher, who worried him more every passing day. A handful of his coworkers from pediatrics. Familiar faces from across Six, ones he can't quite place. There's also ones that he can -- former patients, all grown up. He catches one of them in his gaze. Ignacio? Is that his name? Aodhán's only about halfway sure, which is better than most things these days.

It hadn't been him on a stretcher that day. A sibling, Aodhán thought. It hadn't been an unusual case in itself, just a fracture. Fionn did something similar to each of his limbs in the next handful of years, and Aodhán had to set those too. What was unusual was the kid's method of payment: cigars that he left in his mailbox. His wife saw him drop them off from the kitchen window. She was still angry with him, because he kept taking on cases pro bono, sometimes paying out of his (their) own pocket. But she softened up after that. They didn't fight again for nearly three weeks. A new record.

How long has it been? Twelve years now? Maybe less, maybe more. He can't quite remember. Either way, Aodhán still has most of those cigars in his desk drawer. Fionn was only small back then, and all of those years had long since blended together. Not much in his life worthy of breaking out a cigar had happened. He usually only smoked cigarettes he rolled himself and kept tucked behind his ear when he was doing paperwork. He hadn't even looked in the box for years, but if memory served, there should only be one missing. He smoked one when his daughter was born. He'd gotten a verbal lashing for it too.

Aodhán sucks in a breath, watches the congregation filing out. He doesn't want to go back to his house yet. It's no home, not even a place he can relax at. It's a formality, an address. There's only one place for him now: the bottom of a glass, next door to a companion. Drinking alone is an even lonelier feeling than an empty bed.

"Ignacio?" Aodhán saunters up to him, hands in his big coat pockets. He slips one of them out, holds it out as if to be shaken, then changes his mind. He smacks Ignacio on the arm instead, a brotherly quarter hug. "I might sound crazy, but do you recognise me? There's some cigars in my office that I ought to thank you for."

ELEGANT

moodswing whiskey / aodhán & ignacio. Jun 11, 2024 21:53:42 GMT -5

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Post by nori halliday 🌻 d11a [Bella] on Jun 11, 2024 21:53:42 GMT -5

IGNACIO AGUILA-REYES

By the end of the meeting, we’ve established a plan for a protest at the mayor’s opening ceremony for the new wing. Sure, I’m including myself in “we” even though my most pressing concerns before today were our stagnant wages and the shortages of small parts at the ambulance garage. But while sitting here, hearing others complain, I realize that it’s all connected. It’s starting to feel like one of those scenes in detective movies with red strings connecting photos and notes on a bulletin board. The way Karl and the doctor talked, each and every one of us are pushpins in the cork.

There’s a spring in my step as I stand to leave. A hundred ideas have started cooking in my brain about what the future could be like if we actually do this. Or, more like, what the future will not be like if we do this. Underneath it all, there’s this queasy feeling about what might happen if I’m caught, but I choose to ignore it for now. It’s just one meeting.

I’m almost out the door when I hear my name being called, the long version. In this place, it almost startles me, but surely there’s only one person here who could know me. Swiveling on my heel, I see the doctor coming towards me with a handshake that morphs into a friendly slap on the bicep.

"I might sound crazy, but do you recognise me? There's some cigars in my office that I ought to thank you for."

I feel my face go blank for a minute or so before it occurs to me what he’s referring to, and when it does, a burst of laughter floats out.

”You can call me Nacho,” I offer him grinning, returning the smack just above his elbow.

The memory starts to play back to me, filling in piece by piece: Mati fracturing his shinbone in a football game, I had remembered, but I’d almost forgotten the way I’d “paid” the doctor back. I hadn’t known what set a good cigar apart from a bad one, only that they might as well have been made of gold the way my dad used to keep them locked up. Judging by that look of respect other people gave him when he sat there puffing his smoke rings, and since he only lit them on special occasions, I thought they had to be some kind of magic that only real men got to experience. All I knew was they were valuable. So I’d thought, maybe this could pay our debts. I smuggled them into the doctor’s mailbox, one by one every month that year, hoping my dad wouldn’t notice. And for a while kid-me had been wondering if he’d picked the wrong address.

”You know, I felt a lot more sneaky as a kid,” I confess with a laugh. ”I was worried if I left a note, you might return them and my dad would tan my hide. Guess I got found out anyway.”

There’s a goofy grin frozen on my face– my mood is still floating on the meeting’s big talk. I think I could bullshit for a few more hours; going back home now would only pull me down from this high-on-life feeling. I hate to waste a good mood. I glance sideways at the organizers, who are starting to put away the chairs. ”I think that means they’re kicking us out. Are you going anywhere? There’s a shady-looking dive bar around the corner and I’m sure I’d feel a lot more classy with you there.” I hold out a handshake, inviting him to seal the deal.