Meanwhile, On The Sidelines

Sadiq did not know what was bothering him more, the fact that he and Marcus kept getting into arguments or the fact that whenever he saw Yao's kid the boy was simply staring at him from above, unblinkingly.

At least with Marcus he knew what that stemmed from. Unless Yao was the type to suddenly tell tales about things that the four of them had sworn secret... Maddox's actions were much stranger. Creepier. Sadiq tried hard to ignore him. From everything he had heard about Maddox this was probably just him trying to be creepy. Well, he was succeeding.

"Did you know people write their own wedding vows now?" Marcus suddenly asked him. Sadiq rose an eyebrow.

"Uh... yeah. Yeah I did. It's surprise to ya?"

"The world has certainly gone three sixty," Marcus commented, not responding. Probably because it was true. Sadiq ground his teeth together and tried to ignore him. But he could not seem to keep his own damn mouth shut.

"Wish you could have done that yourself? At least then your women would have been warned that it wasn't goin' to last long..." Marcus' eyes flickered over to him, though his head did not move. His jaw was clenched, so Sadiq knew he had struck a good blow. Then Ludovicus had to speak and ruin everything.

"Your son is here."

"What the–" Sadiq hissed. Not that he had to turn to check, that was not the point, he grabbed Ludovicus by the shoulder, fingers clenched tightly. "I told you. Never say that."

Ludovicus did not respond, but he could hear Marcus chuckling. Scowling, Sadiq let go, pulling his hat further down on his face before he turned around. "What'cha doing here, Heracles?"

"Just..." Heracles shrugged, glancing about the place. Sadiq did not know whether he wished that Heracles would actually compliment his work or that he would not say anything so that Sadiq would not have to hear more insults. "Gupta's still mad."

"Imagine that," Sadiq shook his head, trying not to sound as sarcastic as he felt by saying those words. They were both quickly distracted by Lovino screaming "I want a divorce!" up front.

They watched that in silence and after Lovino ran out, Feliciano on his heels, Marcus slid something back into his pocket and walked down the isle after them.

Here I thought this would be the one Vargas wedding that wouldn't end in shreds, Sadiq thought. It was rather ironic, really. "Gupta's still mad, huh?"

"Yeah," Heracles responded, staring after Marcus' retreating back. Ludovicus looked rather amused and Sadiq could barely stop himself from groaning. Ludovicus amused was never a good sign. Hopefully his grandchildren did not take after him like that.

"He must have inherited that straight from Nefertiti," Ludovicus commented. "They are more alike than I previously thought."

"Nefe was like that?" Heracles asked, interest suddenly penetrating his otherwise calm and quiet voice. It was basically Heracles asking 'you knew Nefertiti?' Sadiq wanted to punch Ludovicus in the face, but knew that would not help anything. Plus, Sadiq's style was more of paying people to shut up. He just knew that would not work with Ludovicus. It had never worked with Ludovicus.

"She did not often anger," Ludovicus nodded, his amusement now properly reigned, "but when she did it would be for days. Often having locked herself away from everyone. Except for Helene. She was the only one who could ever calm Nefertiti during those times."

The flash in those brown eyes. The usually passive face and full lips now with bared white teeth as a contrast to her tanned skin... All of this time and she died from a fire? Sadiq shook himself out of it, tilting his hat down forward once more.

"And it took a lot to push her over the edge," he mentioned stiffly, hoping that Ludovicus would shut his face. Ludovicus noticed, although whether he was now quiet because he had nothing more to say or because he thought he had said enough to rile Sadiq was in question. "He'll burn himself out eventually, so just leave him be."

Heracles stared between the two of them and when Sadiq noticed that he stopped looking at the Grecian. "I... I told him what happened."

Sadiq hesitated. "...oh?"

"I think he's just mad at me now." Sadiq turned and stared at him. Heracles stared back. Then Heracles glared. "I didn't do it for you. I did it because it was the truth. I'm not going to lie to Gupta. Unlike you."

"I didn't think you had," Sadiq retorted, now wanting an out. But he could not leave Ludo with Heracles. No, no, no.

There was not much more to worry about. Heracles left within the next minute and Ludovicus seemed now occupied with something else. Sadiq stood there, the most tired he had been in years.

Damn, I'm old.


Notes:

As we all know, Maddox does not need to have a reason to stare unblinkingly at someone.

I would go into Sadiq's history here, but that would take a while. Plus I am planning on going on about it later, so I suppose you will all have to wait.

For the record, I do try to answer people's questions when I can. If I ignore your question, feel free to assume you have hit very close to a plot point that I do not want to disclose yet.