Saying that Ciara Brady was angry was like saying the Sahara Desert was hot. She glared at her phone instead of her niece. For most, it would be odd that Claire Brady was the same age as her aunt Ciara, but in a town like Salem it was just the tip of the iceberg of weird.
"Theo said that South Africa is gorgeous. He can only see it from the windows of the clinic, but still. And he really misses me. I miss him, too."
Ciara really was trying her damnedest to not eavesdrop on Claire's conversation with their roommate Tripp, but Claire's voice was so high and shrill that any dog in the area would wince in pain.
For his part, Tripp looked just as miserable as Ciara felt. She had no sympathy for the man: it was his own damn fault that he wasn't happy. Everyone knew he was in love with Claire, even the dumbass herself, but he was not making his move. Theo Carver, Claire's boyfriend and the love of Ciara's life, was on another continent and Tripp was still being polite and respecting Claire and Theo's relationship. It made Ciara sick.
As she tried not to watch Claire and Tripp, as she tried not to listen to Claire talk about Theo, Ciara had an idea. It was horrible. It could very well be the most despicable thing that Ciara could do to another person. It would destroy that bitch Claire and Tripp's sappy ass the same way Ciara was destroyed when she came back to town and Theo outright rejected her.
It was perfect. The only problem was that Ciara couldn't do it alone. She needed help. She needed someone who would understand what she was doing and why she would do it. It would have to be someone as bitter and broken as Ciara herself: someone who would be able to get what she needed without being traced by cops or private investigators. And she had the perfect person in mind.
Grinning, Ciara looked up from her cell phone and watched her niece flirt with Tripp while talking about Theo. She was going to make them pay: they were never going to see it coming and they deserved every bit of suffering they were going to get.
DOOL
Sometimes, when it rained, Paul Narita's shoulder hurt. It had been years since his surgery, since he had retired from baseball and left behind the life he had put decades of work into. But the days when his shoulder ached were nothing compared to the way his heart hurt every time he saw Sonny Kiriakis.
The love of Paul's life was Sonny: it had had always been Sonny. Even when they weren't together and Paul was on the road, sleeping his closeted way through the men of America, he always woke up hoping the stranger in his hotel room bed was the Kiriakis man. Once, Paul and Sonny had even almost been married. Then Sonny's husband upended everything.
As much as Paul loved Sonny, Sonny loved Will Horton. Will was who Sonny wanted by his side, even after the multiple infidelities and a two year-long stint where everyone thought he was dead. Sonny didn't want Paul. Ironically, Will didn't want Sonny.
Hell, Will didn't even remember Sonny. Whatever happened to him during those missing years had erased Will's memories of everyone who loved him. All he knew was what people told him. And Will knew about how his marriage with Sonny wasn't the fairy tale that Sonny had promised him. Will knew of the affairs. And one of those affairs was with Paul himself.
When Will had asked Paul about the affair, Paul had been honest. He had told Will all about it, something Sonny refused to do. An because of that, Will didn't want Sonny. He wanted Paul. After all, they'd had a relationship of sorts before, why not again? And because of that, because of Will, Sonny now hated Paul. He only looked at his ex-fiance with contempt. That hurt.
So, Paul tried to move on. He tried dating other men, even sleeping with a few of them. It didn't work. Just like when he had been on the road, Paul woke up hoping the stranger was Sonny. The only difference was that he was out this time, so he wasn't buying silence after. It was an emphatically unhappy time in Paul's life.
He kept at it, anyway. Waiting for Sonny was pointless, and it was never going to happen with Will. Sooner or later, there would be a man who would change Paul's life. And he would change it for the better. He had to believe it.
And with that thought, Paul grabbed his coat and headed out for a night on the town.
DOOL
There were days when Tripp Dalton wondered why he stayed in Salem. He had no friends, not really. There was just Claire. Though, to him, she was far more than a friend. But that's all she would let him be and she let him know it by making a point of mentioning her boyfriend Theo whenever possible.
Aside from Claire, the only other person who seemed to like Tripp was his father Steve Johnson. Tripp hadn't been in Steve's life long, however, and Tripp hadn't exactly been a good son when he moved to town. But Steve was trying. It was just hard to determine what was genuine affection and what was just guilt. It definitely didn't help that Tripp's stepmother Kayla clearly didn't like him, though he couldn't blame her. He had come to town with the intention of ruining Kayla and nearly succeeded in doing just that.
Knowing nobody liked Tripp was why he decided to try spending a night in a place where nobody knew his name or his face. Doug's Place was out of the question, so he managed to bluff his way past the bouncer and into a club called Unicorn Highway.
It was five minutes before someone bought Tripp his first drink, and five more before he realized there were no women in the bar. A few gentlemen engaged him in conversation and Tripp acquiesced for more free booze. He even flirted with the good-looking ones because he liked the morale boost. A handful tried to get him to dance but he would just laugh and tell them he had two left feet. One even whispered lurid promises in his ear alongside an invitation for nightly companionship, but he awkwardly turned the guy down.
By the time Midnight rolled around, Tripp was drunk enough and loose enough to be on the dance floor with other hard-bodied men. He enjoyed that nobody was actively looking away from him. If anything, he had become the centre of attention. Then someone ruined everything. Some random blond twink grabbed Tripp's ass and gave it a hard squeeze. If he had been sober, Tripp probably would have let it go. But he wasn't, so he whirled around and punched the guy in the face.
The dance floor began to clear as everyone backed away from Tripp. It took some blinking for Tripp to realize he recognized the man on the floor, though he couldn't place how.
"WILL!" A man with dark hair broke through the crowd and knelt down next to the twink. He began fussing over the blond guy, but was rebuffed, so he turned his attention to Tripp. The second man also seemed familiar, but Tripp didn't know how. "What the fuck did you do?"
"He wouldn't keep his hands to himself," Tripp answered, as though it was all the explanation anyone needed.
The man responded by standing up and getting into Tripp's face. "If you ever touch my husband again, I will kill you."
Tripp laughed.
Before things could go any further, the man on the floor finally spoke. "Sonny, what are you even doing here? Did you follow me? Seriously? Just leave me alone already."
"I was worried about you, Will!" Sonny exclaimed before pointing a finger in Tripp's face. "And I was right to worry! This low class thug attacked you!"
Annoyed, Tripp smacked Sonny's hand away. "Never refer to me as a thug again."
"You aren't even a real person," Sonny challenged while Will used a nearby bear to pull himself up. "You won't mean a thing to me or my husband in another fifteen minutes. You're that insignificant. Now go away before I have to make you."
Even though he didn't feel threatened, just annoyed, Tripp rolled his eyes and walked away. The sea of men between him and the exit parted, but it was still blocked. Standing in the doorway way Paul Narita. Tripp remembered him from when he watched followed baseball, but he also knew that Paul worked at Black Patch, the private investigation firm that Tripp's dad ran with Paul's dad.
Paul's focus was not on Tripp. Tripp followed his line of sight and saw that Paul was staring right at the douche named Sonny. Sonny glared hatefully at Paul for a few seconds, it was so chilling that Tripp shivered, then began to fuss over Will again tried to make it clear he wanted to be left alone.
Deciding it wasn't his business anymore, Tripp tried to squeeze past Paul. "Excuse me."
A hand grabbed his arm.
"You're Tripp, right? Steve's son?" Paul was still looking at Sonny, even as he spoke to Tripp. "What happened? How did you even get in here? Last I knew, you weren't old enough to drink."
After jerking free, Tripp stepped up to Paul so that he couldn't see Sonny anymore. It seemed to break whatever spell Paul had been under because he blinked and actually looked into Tripp's eyes.
That was when Tripp felt it. It was a heat in his face, just below the skin. He couldn't name it, just feel it, but it was there. And Tripp knew that if he let himself continue to feel whatever he was feeling, if he didn't walk away from Paul Narita and never look back, he would regret it for the rest of his life.
"I can tell you all about it over breakfast," Tripp whispered as he leaned in so close he could feel Paul's breath on his lips. Paul nervously licked those lips but never broke the eye contact with Tripp. "The only question is whether we're having it at your place or mine."
DOOL
All things considered, Sonny Kiriakis was surprised he wasn't more furious. Instead, he just sat in the dark drawing room of the Kiriakis mansion and drank his scotch. The moonlight coming through the windows was illumination enough for his darkened mood.
Why did life see fit to keep kicking him when he was down?
"Knock knock." A woman entered the drawing room and turned on a lamp. Sonny quickly covered his eyes and she softly laughed. "Don't you know it's bad to sit in the dark?"
"Ciara?" Sonny blinked until he could see, then visually confirmed that it was his cousin. He had no idea why she was at the mansion, especially so late. Or, perhaps, so early. "What do you want?"
Smirking, she sat on the sofa across from Sonny and reached out, snatching his tumbler of scotch and down it before he could react. With a self-satisfied grin, she sat the glass on the table and regarded her cousin with what he could only describe as dangerous eyes.
"I'm here to see you, believe it or not." Ciara leaned back into the sofa and her grin melted into a smirk. "How are things going?"
The whole thing was... weird. Sonny and Ciara had never had a real conversation, and now she was sitting with him at 4 in the morning like it was no big deal. He was suspicious but also intrigued.
"Not well. Why do you care?"
"We're family. We should always care about each other." Ciara ran a hand through her hair and her bangs fell loose, covering her right eye. "If there's ever anything I can do to help you, just let me know. Please."
"Can you get my husband to love me again?" Sonny began to chuckle, but it quickly turned into a low growl.
Shaking her head, Ciara looked down into her purse and produced her phone. "Will? Hmm. I don't know. Perhaps there's something I can do."
Angry, Sonny slammed a fist on the table, knocking the tumbler to the floor. Ciara was unbothered. "My life is not a joke."
"And I'm not laughing," Ciara replied, dead serious. "I've done my homework, Sonny. I know that Will won't come back to you because of your ex, Paul. He's obsessed with him."
"He's just sick is all."
"As you say. And you're his husband. His next of kin."
"Yeah. And?"
"And your marriage was never annulled. Will 'died' before the divorce was finalized. That means you have say over his medical care." Ciara bent down and picked up the tumbler. She played with it for a few seconds. "You can get Will the help he needs, whether he wants it or not. Why, if you got him the right doctor, or the right medication, he would just forget all about Paul Narita and remember only you."
"That sounds shady, Ciara. I don't know if I can do that," Sonny reasoned, even as the wheels in his brain began turning.
"Of course you can. Like I said, you're his husband."
"Okay, fine, say I go along with this." Sonny leaned forward and snatched the tumbler from Ciara, then stood and went to refill it. "Where do you come into play? You said that you could help me, but it sounds like I would be doing all the work."
"That's easy. See, in order to get Will the help he needs, he needs to be a threat to himself or others. And lusting after a hunky retired baseball player isn't exactly dangerous." Ciara crossed the room, joining Sonny and filling her own tumbler of scotch. "You need to establish a pattern of bizarre behaviour. Maybe have him rough someone up. Like, say, his teenage cousin who just graduated from high school."
Ciara threw back another scotch and all Sonny could do was watch her. "My mother is the chief of police, Sonny. All I need is one black eye and for Will to have no alibi, and he's as good as yours. That is, if you want him. Can you really sleep at night, knowing that your poor husband is roaming the streets at night in his condition? When you could have gotten him to a doctor, but didn't?"
"Okay, say I go along with this. What do you get out of it? Because I know you aren't here offering to get punched in the face just to help me." Sonny took a sip and enjoyed the burn as the liquor made its way down his throat. "What is your angle?"
"That's simple. See, you want to save someone, but me? I want to destroy someone. I want to ruin her in the worst possible way, but to do that I need help. Your help."
"And what can I possible do to help you?" Sonny wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or the late hour, but his conversation with Ciara was beginning to amuse him. "Who would I be helping you destroy?"
"Oh, see, you don't need to know who or how. Plausible deniability, my dear cousin. All I need is for you to use your Kiriakis connections to secure something for me. One little drug, and then I'll make sure you have everything you need to win Will back."
Finally, Sonny smiled. He refilled Ciara's glass, then held his up in the air. She clinked hers against his and they drank together. Again, he felt the burn, but the smile never left his lips.