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The Catapult’s open bar serves some of the strongest martinis Grand Magnificent has ever drank. Grand Magnificent hates martinis. But it feels cosmically correct to indulge this way: half in celebration and half in self-loathing, staring at the top shelf liquor he can suddenly afford and thinking viciously of Fourteen Fifteen. They won’t understand why he had to make the decisions he made. And he won’t get the chance to explain. Even if he sees them again somehow — and even as he thinks it, he knows when; the upcoming holiday’s date squirms in the back of his mind — he won’t get the chance to explain. They’ll be angry, which makes him recoil long before it’s happened, and he drums his fingers on the bar.
Sips his drink. It’s gross.
The worst part of him wishes that he could’ve just left Fourteen on the ground, sparking, dented, unable to move, at the mercy of Kitcha Kanna and Kentucky’s Corona and gotten out. That he would’ve been able to just leave, the way he wanted, the way he knew he needed. If he could do a terrible thing and see it done, he would have. He needed out like he needed air. And still — Fourteen was his friend, or colleague, or acquaintance. He didn’t want their blood on his hands, even indirectly. Or rather: he panicked. He needed the money and their life. In the process he sacrificed their good standing with one another, which, if Grand is being honest with himself, was never going to make it out of that rescue mission.
He drains his drink. It’s gone quicker than he expected. Grand flags down the bartender, pushes the glass forward. “I’ll do another. What’s the vermouth?”
The bartender frowns. For a moment, Grand wonders if he’s going to be cut off, then chases the thought away. He is drinking an inconspicuous number of drinks at a reasonable pace: for all anyone knows, he could be enjoying himself. Which he is. In a sense. “It’s a good vermouth,” the bartender says, and they tell him a brand he does not recognize. That thought is dizzying. It’s been well over a year since Grand Magnificent has thought about drinking top shelf vermouth he doesn’t want on someone else’s dime. Not because he wasn’t sulking, but because he was a trucker. He should’ve stayed a fucking trucker. That’s one way not to blow the second chance he never deserved.
“That’s… that’s fine,” he says, listlessly, the pretention temporarily stolen from his sails as the bartender waits for his reply. “I have a tab.”
Fourteen’s face swims in his mind’s eye. His hand goes to his neck, and he feels an almost stricken pang when he doesn’t reach the familiar locket tucked under his shirt — not out of guilt, not really, but a sense of misplaced panic that his photograph is missing. If Fourteen were here they’d tell him his priorities were in the wrong place. Grand gave up the plans for Independence’s body — his stupid, imperfect, shoddy plans that didn’t work the first time — and everyone’s going to be angry with him for that.
They shouldn’t be. Those plans were a keepsake and a memory and if he were to make them operable, the new model would be almost unrecognizable. It would be better. It would be perfect. If Grand still did that kind of thing, it would be perfect. Fourteen doesn’t know that Grand gave up a picture of himself with some of the only people he could solidly say he could trust, and no one will care if he says that, they’ll just stay mad about the Independence thing.
This martini is disgusting. Grand remembers how difficult it is for him to get properly wasted off of martinis, just because he associates them solely with bad memories and the taste of window cleaner. He turns and makes conversation with people who are insufferable, thinks about Fourteen, and orders another drink. Then he repeats the process, and he knows that he’s gradually becoming more intoxicated, because the next person he talks to seems less insufferable in conversation even though they’re wearing a tacky bejeweled hat with a feather in it, a poor imitation of early equestrian spectating gear without any understanding or appreciation of the style. Grand gives a five minute monologue about equestrian subgenres, wishing he had a notebook to display his examples in shimmering light. But he left it all behind in his room. He can get another notebook somewhere else. Now that he’s gone.
As he nears the end of his drinks, the same fears start to rise: the attack. Fourteen Fifteen. And with the panic, guilt bubbles in his chest. He assuages himself the only way he can: I didn’t know. I couldn’t know. I didn’t have any other choices. I had to save them. I saved them. He talks himself into thinking that no one could be angry with him. Without him they wouldn’t have Fourteen. And how was he supposed to know? He delivered a hundred packages. A thousand. Any one of them could’ve been a bomb. Maybe they were. No one could’ve been angry at him for that.
He wants to find them. Fourteen. He wants to find them and fall at their feet and grovel. Grand wants—
Eventually, he excuses himself to a bathroom. His face is red. He always gets red when he drinks, which is one of the reasons he doesn’t do it all that much, and also a reason why he limits himself to drinks he hates. He’s flushed a rosy pink down to his neck, and as he splashes water on his face, a random older woman pats him on the shoulder. “You’re nervous about leaving?”
No. God no. The leaving might be the only thing he’s sure about. Grand is not a hero. He’s not even an okay person. He’s a coward who can’t get this interplanetary force-for-good thing right: he can’t even stop doing it without fucking up something in the process. He needs to find a place to be a trucker. His last piece of art should be burning his ability to do it. He should light up his archives and send the video recording to Gig.
“It’s whatever,” Grand says out loud. It’s not whatever to Fourteen, who looked at him like they were surprised to see him go. Grand can’t seem to get over the possibility of Fourteen hating him. He can’t seem to get their metal face out of his head.
He orders another drink. He’s the drunkest he’s ever been off martinis.
When they dance, Grand hopes that Fourteen cannot feel his reactions in this body the way they would in others. He has never been much for subtlety in conversation; it’s an art he never mastered. He feels obvious, now, and clumsy. He swings between desperation to make things right, to make Fourteen understand, and the understanding that they are exposed and open to attack. It is all he can do to keep the apologies from spilling out of him: every breathless plea for forgiveness he imagined in the depths of those sleepless nights after it became clear that “out” was no longer a possibility, the urgent need to prove that he is genuine, that he is trying again, that he is good.
What happens is that Grand Magnificent sees Fourteen and immediately sets down his still-disgusting, still-Advent brand martini and excuses himself from the horrible conversation in which he is embroiled. He has dreamt of this. It is a nightmare. They could be killed at a stupid Advent social event, and Grand has done too much at this point for Fourteen to be killed at a stupid Advent social event.
“Grand,” Fourteen says, before they part, their tone guarded but closer to friendly than it has been all night, “are you alright?”
“You need to go,” Grand hisses, and Fourteen touches his arm briefly before returning their hand to his hip. Grand rather distinctly skips a beat, which he will blame, as always, on the martinis.
“Believe me,” Fourteen says, with their wry humor, “I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here.” Grand is unsure whether they are naming his blatant and almost needy attraction in coy terms, or whether they think he is genuinely displeased to see them. “But I need to make sure we’re on the same page. This body— it sees differently?”
“Oh?” Grand keeps his voice neutrally intrigued. This is likely a pointless endeavor if Fourteen is implying that they can track his heart rate or something else synthetics use to collect and synthesize the profiles of organic beings.
They shrug with Carcanet Ironclad’s big metal shoulders. “You’re just pinging some sensors,” Fourteen says.
“I’m sorry.” It’s a stupid thing to apologize for. Grand is trying not to come up with a thousand more things until Fourteen of all people — Fourteen!! — sighs and tells him he’s done well. It’ll never happen. Perhaps that’s why he wants it so badly.
If the mask could frown, it would frown. “Are you drinking?”
“No,” says Grand.
“That’s a lie,” says Fourteen; Grand forgot they could do that.
“Okay,” he says, “yes, a bit, but not now. I had a couple martinis. There’s not a ton else to do when I’m not—” he pauses deliberately. “Working.” Fourteen can’t physically raise a skeptical eyebrow, but Grand feels like they are anyway. He caves almost immediately. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about it.”
“You so rarely are,” says Fourteen. The words slip out, almost under their breath. Grand feels, at once, very small, and it has nothing to do with Fourteen being a giant robot. His shoulders hunch despite himself, and Fourteen makes a noise very adjacent to a sigh. “Grand— you don’t get to do that.”
“Do what?” He had a feeling he won’t like this next avenue of conversation, but maybe it’ll get Fourteen off of telling him that his biomarkers are showing up weird.
They gesture, and their hand presses onto the small of his back when they return it. If he took one step forward they’d be touching chest to chest. Grand tries not to think about that and fails. “You can’t act like you’re the one getting hurt here,” Fourteen says.
He frowns. “I am!”
“Grand—” They make a frustrated noise; a pleasant flush goes through his body. They’re so close that Grand can feel the sound-producing vibrations of Fourteen’s metal body. “No, you’re not. You’re getting hurt because everyone’s getting hurt. By you.”
“I saved your life,” Grand mumbles. He wishes he hadn’t set his drink down; Fourteen matches the path of his eyes.
“Grand.”
“What?”
“Do you understand that you were wrong, or are you just saying it because you think that’s what I want to hear? After everything?”
Grand puts some more space between them. He can’t be this close to Fourteen and coherent. “I’m not good at this,” he says, and it’s maybe the most honest he’s been with any of the former Notion. “At the Feast, Signet said I was trying to be a hero. I’m not. If I wanted to be a hero I’d design a mech. I’d design the most sophisticated machine anyone could dream— beyond what anyone could dream of. And no one would be able to stop its pilot. I could. But—”
He was going to say Independence. He can’t choke the word up. “—I think we all know why I can’t be trusted. With that.”
“That’s not how that works,” says Fourteen, almost gently.
“Of course that’s how that works.” Grand tries not to sound too indignant. “Fourteen, I needed to go. Because this sucked. And I’m not good at it. And when I try to save people, I get hurt, they get hurt, people die, and Morning’s had to drag me out of getting shot by some weird priest.”
“None of us are—”
“No,” says Grand. “Not true. I don’t care. I don’t believe in this like you do. And whenever I try I fuck it up so bad that everyone hates me and there’s a cosmic threat to the entire Mirage.” He says it like those two things are equal in magnitude. “If I’d left it would’ve been better. Or if I’d never come back. I don’t— I didn’t deserve a second chance, Fourteen. Sure don’t deserve a third. And I’m sorry. I am. I was wrong. But I needed to go. I needed—”
“This isn’t a third chance,” Fourteen says. “This is about staying behind to pick up your own messes.” Then they shift again, expressing a digital displeasure, their stupid sensors picking up on the familiar wave of terror crashing over Grand’s head. “Grand, your—”
“Don’t mention it,” he mutters. He can hear his heartbeat flutter into his ears; if Fourteen were synthetic, he knows he’d be crushing their hands. They laugh softly. Maybe this is what’s coming to him. Maybe Fourteen should enjoy watching him be taken apart by actions he can’t stop justifying. He couldn’t have done anything else. He was wrong, but he couldn’t have done anything else. “I’m sorry. I am.”
Fourteen does that approximation of a sigh again. “Okay.”
“Please stay safe,” says Grand.
Even if Fourteen was not made of metal, Grand is sure he wouldn’t have been able to parse their expression. They leave shortly after. He is enveloped by the crowd in his search for the bar.
Fourteen comes to visit him on Altar. He refuses to leave: he has too much to tend to and still fears his own Midas touch more than he says. Grand weaves a tapestry of considering himself the most brilliant and most unworthy man alive, sometimes at the same time. Often at the same time. And sometimes he still gets very drunk after a terrible day and texts Fourteen, I’m sorry for everything, and they usually reply something along the lines of, You need to stop texting me that, and never I forgive you. Grand thinks about them too much and in all the wrong ways, treating their affection like a puzzle he can crack, a pattern he can build his way out of if he puts his mind to it.
Arbit, his penitence, demands his attention; Grand freely gives it his time, his brilliance, his care. This is his sentence. It is better than he deserves. His home is lush, and a community has grown around him, one who thinks him divine and beautiful. Grand opens the door and notices immediately that the functions of Fourteen’s mechanical body have begun to slow.
They are still, of course, Fourteen Fifteen. Their other faces reflect in the shine of the metal: some, Grand recognizes, many, he does not. “Come in,” he says, before he can stare.
He wants to prove that he is now, finally, worth something. He killed Kitcha Kanna. He built Arbit. If this is not cleaning up his messes, Grand doesn’t know what is. He lets the care and keeping of his Divine become the same thing as delivery to his overcrowded mind: the tasks are menial, and he keeps the whole thing at arm’s length.
“You’ve made something nice here,” Fourteen says, an appreciative note in their synthetic voice.
“Thanks.” Grand leads Fourteen through the house, to his back porch. “Do you— well. You don’t eat, do you?”
They chuckle softly. “No. But I appreciate the offer.”
He is Grand Magnificent, Excerpt of Arbit, the most brilliant man on Altar, and he finds himself floundering at the idea that he has not prepared a suitable substitute for food for a friend he knew was coming. Fourteen notices. “I guess there’s enough to talk about,” he says. “You’re alright?”
“Well,” says Fourteen, “I am dying.”
Grand blinks. “Right.”
“I’ve known this for a long time,” Fourteen says, calm. “This is my last body. For a lot of reasons, really. The Castlerose apparatus isn't operative the way it was—“
“I could make you another body,” Grand says.
“— and there’s not enough of me left to be uploaded into a new one anyway.”
“Oh.” Grand remains unconvinced. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” It’s hard not to think about the moment Grand gave the plans for Independence to Kitcha Kanna. About what he does when he’s desperate. Fourteen puts a metallic hand on his forearm as emphasis. “I’m not asking you to do anything. I’m telling you. I’m dying. It’s not immediate.”
Grand’s disappointment is clear on his face. He restrains it, albeit poorly. “Okay,” he says, and his eyes dip down to Fourteen’s hand. They’ve left it there. Perhaps to restrain him. He is seized with the old, familiar want to claw his way back into Fourteen’s good graces, to fall to his knees and prove himself. He can feel the prickle of their gaze on his forehead.
“Grand,” says Fourteen, with the glimmer of a laugh, “I worry I’ve had you in an unfair position.”
“I doubt it,” he says without an ounce of humility. Not that he’d mind. There were times when he’d give a lot for Fourteen to have him in an unfair position.
They tighten their grip on his forearm, and Grand’s hair stands on end, gooseflesh. Fourteen is metal, and even-keeled, and much larger than him. And Grand always knew beauty. He can see the places where Carcanet Ironclad’s metal frame has been repaired, the painstakingly re-done engravings on the welded exterior. Grand can see the lines like scars, proof of what Fourteen has endured. What they’ve survived. They could break his arm if they wanted. He would let them. He has the time.
Fourteen shakes their head. “I don’t know how you convinced Advent of anything,” they say. “You have a terrible poker face.”
“Well,” says Grand, “I’m very charming.”
“I’m sure you are.” They do laugh this time. Grand Magnificent has built enough machines to figure out how to pleasure one. Fourteen studies him. Time drips between them like pine tar, achingly slow. They brush the pad of one soft finger on the inside of Grand’s wrist, and he forces himself not to react externally. But he can feel himself sweating.
Grand wets his lips. He doesn't know what exactly comes next, or how, or if Fourteen is just playing with the neediness he has all but confirmed. They’ve come all this way. Grand doesn’t intend to ruin it and make things weird and spend the rest of the visit in separate rooms, pretending that the other doesn’t exist. But Grand is also very good at letting himself be swayed and pretending that he couldn’t predict the consequences. He wonders if this will be worth it. If Fourteen will be disappointed in him if he tries to reach out.
“I’m going to make myself a drink,” he says, because he’s fundamentally a coward. He keeps expensive liquor in his cabinets for times like these.