[SE] Pero cada que no estabas, lo arreglabas con rosas

Kaisel

The rain is a light drizzle today. The sort that doesn't make you feel wet until it seeps into your clothes and starts to drip from your hair, which takes some time, so you almost forget until it's too late. It collects on every bit of hair and bedazzles it, turning women's upper lips into an external grill to be envious of. It's not enough to be worthy of Kaisel's bright yellow rain jacket, but he does have on his violet windbreaker and thick enough pants that he won't mind. He expected a little bit of weather out here.

First things first though, he's got his carefully drawn up plans unrolling on the table in front of Mateo, pencil set in his mouth like a bit as his hands finish smoothing out the document. "Mmkay," he mutters around the wood, tapping his sketch with a finger and glancing up. "Sho, ight here, iam dinking vasil," his voice puffs out muffled around the pencil. He retrieves it in the next breath, bringing the now saliva-shiny tool down onto the paper where he taps the point and circles. "And overrrr here, some oregano and parsley."

There's darkness in the distance
I'm beggin' for forgiveness
But I know I might resist it

Mateo

Mateo, having grown up between the Greatwood and Stormbreak, has never minded the rain and its various flavours, and so as Kai unrolls his plans he stands quite contently opposite him, his hands buried in the pockets of a clear raincoat decorated with vibrant rubber ducks. (He'd thought of Melita when he'd made the purchase, but he's yet to be able to show it to her). "That seems good to me," he agrees, glancing over his shoulder to the small cart of seedlings he'd brought along with him from his shop up in the Plaza.

"I also have some rosemary, thyme and mint," he explains, turning to check on the baby herbs as if they might need tending to beyond his already careful assistance in their sprouting. "I would recommend not planting the mint with the others. It has a tendency to take over every part of the soil, so unless you would like a herb garden that consists entirely of mint, keep it to a separate pot."

I'm a scholar and a gentleman
And I don't usually fall when I try to stand

Kaisel

His sketch of the little planned herb garden is a far cry better from the rendition he made of Charlie. The technicality and the angles of it all falls in line with all studied battle plans and training he's had over the years, and while nowhere close to an architect's skill, the raised planting beds and the pattern of the sun are all clear on the paper.

That Mateo agrees with his outline so far brings no small amount of satisfaction to him, although it remains to be seen if the garden will survive the planting. Perhaps a green-thumbed spirit will help watch over it too. Glancing up from the paper towards the cart as Mateo mentions other additions, Kaisel nods. "Got it," he says brightly, leaning over to draw out the other additions. "So mint is too slutty and stays over heeere," he scribbles the garden's red light district into place.

"What about dill?" He taps his pencil thoughtfully along the paper. "I don't cook with it too much, but might be nice to have?" He looks up at Mateo for confirmation, a grin breaking out again at the man's raincoat. "Say, that's not one of those new lowkey demigod lines is it? Y'know the ones that make the pattern like a secret instead of a brand?" Less his style, but it does look nice.

Rising up from his knees with a hop only youth can provide, he pulls his hood up and yanks the strings tight around his face. "Guess we should plant before it starts dumping on us. Ready to get dirty?"

There's darkness in the distance
I'm beggin' for forgiveness
But I know I might resist it

Mateo

Mateo likes to think of himself as the green-thumbed spirit in question, and so as Kai marks out an appropriate place to segregate the mint from the other herbs (for safety, not racism, to be clear) he's already nodding his ready agreement. "Dill is pretty easy to grow," he agrees. "I do not have any seedlings of it with me, but let me check the seed packs I brought." He ducks beneath the cart to rummage in a little box, eventually emerging with a small paper bag of seeds with Dill written upon them in pleasant cursive.

"Mm...? I do not think so, but I was going to show it to Mel when I got a chance. You do not see her name on it anywhere, do you?" Name or moniker, he ought to say, twisting around to give Kai a good look at the raincoat to see if he can spot any honeybees hidden among the rubber duckies. Once the inspection is complete, Mateo offers a dimpled grin and a firm nod to his friend. "Oh, always," he trills, grabbing the cart and gesturing for Kaisel to lead the way to his soon-to-be herb garden.

"So," he says conversationally as they walk through the drizzle. "I hear we are going to be hosting a family dinner soon, with you as the guest of honour?"

I'm a scholar and a gentleman
And I don't usually fall when I try to stand

Kaisel

You'd think Mateo just pulled out a baggie of cocaine gummy worms with the way Kaisel lights up in true appreciation for the man's endless talents of procurement and preparedness. "Oh perfect!" he applauds vocally, grabbing the bag and folding it into his pocket to keep the pack of seeds as dry as possible while Mateo mans the cart of what's already been sprouted.

Before heading outdoors he pauses to give the duck-patterned raincoat an in-depth once over. "Mmm, no," he agrees after scouring the pattern for some hidden sign of a sneaky label. There's no disappointment to his tone though, because all things considered, while he's a collector of the demi and lead clothing lines, he's also down for any clothes that are fun. Can't always be wearing the collectibles, reduces their value. "You just lucked out. I bet Mel will love it when you do show it to her though. Speaking of, did you know her magic makes her punch herself and take naps though??" He shakes his head with wonder over the ability still, not having quite puzzled out its use.

Moving ahead to open up the doors into the back yard while Mateo wrestles the cart outside, Kaisel heads through the heavy mist towards the area he'd charted out for the flower beds. He'd already built the wooden bases, and has a few bags of potting mix at the ready nearby. "Oh, yeah," he says easily in response to the dinner, chuckling faintly at the idea of being the guest of honor though. "I guess that's what you could call it. Feels more like I might be the one getting grilled instead of any meats." He glances at Mateo as if beseeching confirmation for otherwise. It's one thing to have met them all individually, but the energy changes once it's a group, and there's no escaping the fact he's going to try his best not to be a disappointment.

"I waited to put in the soil, didn't want it getting too soaked," he explains as he wrestles the bags closer, tearing off a corner and tilting the dirt into the box. He figures if the rain continues the rate it has been he'll need to be covering some of these beds to keep the seeds and sprouts from drowning. "You're coming, right?" He means of the dinner again, needing someone a little easier than just her fathers for company.

There's darkness in the distance
I'm beggin' for forgiveness
But I know I might resist it

Mateo

Always pleased to be called such, whether it's perfection in his actions or his appearance, Mateo waits patiently for Kai to finish his scrutinising of the duck coat before it's confirmed that he can rest easy - no hidden honeybees here. Not that he'd have minded either way, but if it turns out he's got hold of a rare piece of merch, he's got a feeling that Melita fans are going to try to chew his legs off to get it. About to trundle outside with his cart of seedlings, the botanist is forced to halt at Kai's did you know, because no, he absolutely did not fucking know.

"...What?" Laughing breathlessly and having to remind himself to step forward again, Mateo shakes his head. "That is an unusual demigod ability," he admits, biting the inside of his cheek to keep his smile contained. "Though I suppose it does fit with Ludo..." Especially if it might accidentally kill her, he supposes.

Trundling outside with the cart through the mist, he loses his battle with his grin as talk turns to dinner and grilling, Mateo shrugging his shoulders. "I do not think it will be that bad. Then again, the last time Flora brought a boyfriend to dinner, it was a shit show that I do not think anyone could top. So you are probably in with a good chance."

Nodding his approval at Kai's decisions with the soil, Mateo tugs on a pair of gardening gloves and reaches in to help line the flowerbeds with it, ensuring there are no large stones or clumps in the mix that might cause problems. "Me? But of course. I will never pass up the chance to be an audience member."

I'm a scholar and a gentleman
And I don't usually fall when I try to stand

Kaisel

Unusual is certainly a word for it, but he supposes Ludo is the best indicator of all. Biting back his own laugh about his friend, he clears his throat instead and asks, "did Remi used to do shit like that too, y'know, when he worked for Ludo?" He's admittedly rusty on old demi skills, not much needing to bother keeping track of things a channel could no longer do, but it doesn't keep his curiosity at bay about what the hell Ludo gets up to and if it's worth calling on Mel again sometime.

A glance is cast back at Mateo at the mention of a disastrous version of this dinner in the past. "Oh?" he mumbles, aiming for more nonchalance than is true. "What went so wrong with that one? Would hate to repeat the same blunders." If he's using Mateo like last year's test he can copy off, what of it? He still plans to study, but any extra edge is sure to help.

Using a mixture of dragging his fingers to spread the soil evenly and smoothing or patting some of it around with his palm, the first bed starts to take shape between the two of them. "Good," he breathes with relief in regards to Mateo being there, even if the title of 'audience member' is telling. He'd figured as much, but the reassurance is helpful. "Glad to be a night's worth of entertainment at the very least, I guess," he huffs out a laugh. He begins to hollow out some sections of the dirt to receive the seedlings, mindful not to try and squeeze in too many too close together, although he's certain Mateo won't allow it either way. "Hopefully the first of many family dinners. I know Flora is always happy when everyone can come together. Could become a regular thing, assuming I don't botch it."

There's darkness in the distance
I'm beggin' for forgiveness
But I know I might resist it

Mateo

"Oh gods no," Mateo says readily as he continues to assemble the flowerbed with Kaisel, joining him in making small hollows for the seedlings. (And the other man is correct; he seems to have an innate sense for if the plants will end up crowding each other, and fixes any spacing he deems unworthy). "Remi was the scary side of Ludo. I suppose he could still play copycat with other demigod powers, but Ludo mostly had him kill people when it was their time to go."

Shrugging - growing up with that sort of shit gives you a lot of psychological callouses against it - and reaching for the first of the seedlings, he starts to arrange their little pots in adjacent rows; all but the mint, which he hands to Kaisel like it's a bomb in need of deactivation. "Listen," he says of the blunders that the other man wants to avoid, "unless you swagger in and start to needle my parents about their lives and blunders and..." He lets out a low whistle to stop himself.

"It was like watching predators size each other up." Lowkey hot too, from where Mateo had been relaxing and drinking and eating sandwiches, but whatever. 

"I would like that," he trills as a cheerful change of subject. "I have been trying to do better about visiting from Stormbreak. So even if this goes horribly wrong, maybe you, me and Flora can stiill get together?"

I'm a scholar and a gentleman
And I don't usually fall when I try to stand

Kaisel

His 'brows furrow at the grim reminder of Ludo being more than just a funny trickster, the side Melita gets to demonstrate it'd seem. "Guess he was the one handing out naps then," he remarks with a touch of dark humor about the long ones he delivered on behalf of the herald. Sometimes it's the only way to reckon with old tragedies, the body not meant to continually buckle under grief and pain. It doesn't diminish what has already suffered, just keeps it from reopening readily, when there's already plenty more available yet to come.

Sagely taking the mint, which is not to say that he has any sage near it, he carries it to its designated island to flourish. Patting new dirt around it in it's marooned pot, he squints through the drizzle towards Mateo's fine tuning of the main planter box. "Ah, that makes sense," he remarks, thinking of what things Flora has explained to him that have dropped his previously high estimations of her fathers. "I might have been armed with a needle were this dinner last season," he says with a shake of his head. "Some of what's in the past is...ugly." Like grief, it's best not to hang on to grudges too long either, which is easier said than done when nothing bad had been turned on him. "They keep trying though, to make amends, and that's what matters." Everyone needs some grace for blunders, even demigods.

Building more dirt around the mint, he shoots an easier smile back at Mateo. "Definitely! I heard talk of...enchanted wardrobes?"

There's darkness in the distance
I'm beggin' for forgiveness
But I know I might resist it

Mateo

"Something like that," Mateo agrees with a grin and a touch of his own dark humour, the botanist tugging his clear ducky hood up a little higher as the drizzle becomes more insistent, not that he plans to let that stop him from establishing Kai's little herb garden. He nods his approval as the mint is set up in its own little kingdom where it can't wage war on the other plans, before he stars to set the seedlings in their spots with a practiced hand, equal parts firm and gentle.

His brow furrows, though to hear Kai refer to the past - his past, not just Flora's, when it comes to their parentage - as ugly, and he cocks his head at the other man as if to either ask or dare for him to elaborate. "They are my parents too, you know," he reminds him. "I do not know if you have earned the right to come at them armed with a needle just yet - not on my sister's behalf, at least. When Jack did it, they were swinging their dicks around about their own egos."

Now if Kai wants to do that, absolutely count Mateo in for it. 

As for enchanted wardrobes, he lets out a quiet laugh at the reminder. "That is right. We were going to try to connect a wardrobe from Flora's house to my houseboat. Easier to visit, and to share clothes."

I'm a scholar and a gentleman
And I don't usually fall when I try to stand

Kaisel

The shift that happens is laid out plain in Mateo's words, and Kaisel pauses his primping of the mint to look more fully at him. "I know." It's said simply, although his expression is curious as he assess Mateo now. In his mind, that's all the more reason for Mateo's agreement. Better not to pretend the lump under the rug is anything else but ugly.

"I'll come armed with anything on behalf of Flora." he says with a smooth and unhesitating conviction. There's no heat or cut to it, just a fact placed down. It lingers for a moment before he yields a touch, dirty palms held up in a display of no needles to be found. "I don't plan to, I realize it'd do nothing but harm." Less to them than to Flora and him, and she's the last person he wants cut by his own hand. "Just, surprised by the difference of her childhood memories and my own, sometimes."

With this overshadowing easier ideas of magic wardrobes, Kaisel can't help but wonder aloud. "I am curious though, what earns me the right, Mateo?"

There's darkness in the distance
I'm beggin' for forgiveness
But I know I might resist it

Mateo

”Yes, well, we cannot all grow up being raised in the Stormbreak ideal,” Mateo says with a gentle huff of laughter, continuing to plant the seedlings in their designated places and ensuring that they are at home in the new flowerbed with ample space and soil to grow. All except you, mint.

”I suppose it comes with having demigods for parents, though. There is always going to be a clash of priorities, and the drama is always going to be more…” He rolls his hand in a gesture that says it all without saying a damn word, Mateo shrugging away the attempt to explain and leaving it there. 

Flora had been raised by their nonna in the Greatwood with her twin while his fathers (one much more than the other) had grappled with the quiet betrayal of their very existence. Mateo had been raised in the floating city away from all of that, sometimes with both parents present and oftentimes not, feeling very much left to fend for himself either way.

As for what earns Kai the right to show up in a suit of armour for his sister, Mateo scoffs and shrugs. ”Turn back time and actually be there for the things you want to needle the family about?” he suggests. ”There are three sides to any story, they say - mine, yours, and the truth. And the truth is messier than just calling the past ugly and picking a fight about it.”

I'm a scholar and a gentleman
And I don't usually fall when I try to stand

Kaisel

He opens his mouth as if he means to say something about how ideal growing up in Stormbreak had been, but promptly closes it after an inhale of preparation. That he has lived a rather sheltered and easy life is not wrong, but since it's the only one he's had, whatever hardships he's faced have felt plenty difficult to him. It's not a truth he has always recognized or admitted to easily, but this isn't the first time he's had to. Rather than attempt a dick measuring contest about bad times, which he would assuredly lose, he sighs with some amount of resignation. "Growing up is maybe just never easy," he admits.

With the mint situated, he rejoins Mateo at the main planter to finish off the seedlings. He listens, trying to imagine the situation as best he can. Maybe not demigods, his parents had been pulled away often for work and war as well, and to a child it feels as if all parents have some amount of godly power to them. At least, until you get older. He's sure though there's a difference between imagined divinity and the actuality of it, and the workload of a soldier compared to a commander.

"Never feels good to not be the priority." Having too many titles might mean needing to decide which one to wear at any given time, but dad is one that never goes away. "I'm guessing it's not easy when the world is on the line though. Choosing." He doesn't think being a demigod or saving the world had anything to do with Ronin refusing to let Flora join his family, but again, not needling, as promised.

Rising from the work in the soil and brushing the debris from his wet hands as best he can by wiping them off on one another, he glances away from Mateo for a moment with a mild sigh. "Good thing I opted not to pick a fight then," he asserts, leaving behind the other questions that swell on his tongue. He doesn't need to needle his friend without even knowing when he'd picked up the sharp tool. "C'mon, let's tarp these and get inside and get dry."

There's darkness in the distance
I'm beggin' for forgiveness
But I know I might resist it

Mateo

"I will drink to that," Mateo says in earnest agreement, raising an imaginary glass to toast it towards Kai before tamping down the last of the soil around the seeds and sprouts they've lovingly placed in the planters. "In fact, I might insist on it after this, especially with all of the rain." As for the difficulties their parents must have faced, the botanist can only shrug in a way that suggests the kind of acceptance that has been learned several times over.

"The world is always the right choice, objectively," he says with a half smile to his friend. "And objectively, it is easy to agree with that. At ten years old not so much." Rising to his feet as well and brushing the soil from his gloves, Mateo tugs them off and packs them away and ensures the area around the planter is left clean (or as clean as possible given the weather). "Sounds good to me," he says, grabbing for the tarp and offering one end to Kai so they can finish up the work together.

I'm a scholar and a gentleman
And I don't usually fall when I try to stand