Sugar, Secrets and Upheaval

Chapter 150 - Ethically Sourced Fungi and Full-Scale Evangelization Campaign (1.3)

"Ew, Raph! Don't say that!" Finn exclaimed, a grimace contorting his features. "Now I can't unsee it. But... yeah, okay, a little bit. Especially when it was all white and gloopy. Still tastes surprisingly good though," he conceded, finishing his haphazard attempt.Finn and I were no longer just tipsy; a pleasant wave of relaxation had washed over us. Meanwhile, our host remained frustratingly sober, not having touched a single drop of his own concoction.

He needed to partake in his own truth serum!

"Levi!" I bellowed towards the living room. The instant the sound left my lips, Finn clapped his hands over his ears, wincing. "My god, Raph," he groaned, his words slightly muffled, "shut down that bloody foghorn!"

Was I really that loud? The room felt… echoey all of a sudden. And Finn’s being awfully sensitive. Maybe the kava is kicking in. Relaxing, Levi said. Well, mission accomplished on that front. He’s just sitting in there, probably smirking, watching us slowly unravel. Like some kind of… benevolent but still creepy scientist observing his lab rats.

"Finn," I insisted, "Levi needs to partake in his own little truth potion. It's only fair, wouldn't you say?"

"Nah, man. Levi being completely, unfilteredly honest? Are you even remotely prepared? Because I, for one, am not."

He has a point. Levi's newfound honesty makes me flinch every time he offers his unvarnished opinions on his fellow humans. And gods, I know the labyrinthine depths of his imagination. That 'living marionettes' thing? It has taken root in the darkest, dampest corners of my mind. Also… what if, under the influence of his own truth serum, I were to hear something truly… horrible? Something that would forever taint my perception of him, of us? No wait, I'm being a complete and utter bitch. There's nothing inherently wrong with the act of imagining, is there? As long as those thoughts remain confined to the realm of fantasy, as long as you don't actually act upon them… Right?

"So, your grand strategy, as always, is to remain cocooned in a blissful state of denial, utterly ignorant of whatever horrors churn beneath Levi's enigmatic facade?" I pressed, my curiosity, despite the mounting evidence suggesting it was a terrible idea, stubbornly outweighing my increasingly feeble self-preservation instincts. Again.

"No, man, you're completely missing the point," Finn countered, a look of earnest conviction on his features. "Don't you know that saying? 'Never meet your heroes'?"

"What hero? The hell are you talking about, Finn?" I asked, genuinely bewildered.

"He is my hero, man," Finn declared, his voice thick with a sincerity that cut through the alcoholic haze. What? Wait a damn minute… This is sparking a faint memory, a half-forgotten conversation from the periphery of my awareness… Ah, yes! That's right. Finn harbored a deep respect for Levi, stemming from Levi's widely publicized role as the Saint of Ascaria.

"The hell, man," I scoffed, knowing Levi's cynical streak and the rather self-serving motivations. "He doesn't even pretend to see himself as some kind of savior."

"So what?" Finn countered, his voice gaining a passionate edge. "It's about the impact, man, not just the intent. His reasoning might be as twisted as a pretzel, but the fact remains: no one goes out and single-handedly pushes through legislation legalizing gay marriage, or funds landmark bills regarding fair alimony, or champions inheritance rights for same-sex couples for anything less than a fundamental, albeit perhaps self-serving, belief in equality."

Self-serving altruism. Is that even a thing? But Finn's right about the impact. Can't really argue with the results, even if the guy's motivations are as murky as the bottom of that kava bowl before the butterfly pea flower magic happened. Still… hero? Seems a bit strong. More like a… highly effective, albeit morally ambiguous, agent of societal change.

Apparently, I am woefully unprepared for this particular tangent of the conversation. Because, damn it, nobody in their right mind can deny Levi's impact, especially not me. His foundation provided me with shelter when I first arrived in Ascaria. And it was his legislation that streamlined the path to citizenship, allowing me to navigate the bureaucratic labyrinth with relative ease and speed. If it weren't for his tireless efforts, I might still be languishing in legal limbo, a decade or more away from even daring to dream of full citizenship.

Oh, shit. Here it comes. That unmistakable loosening of the mental floodgates. Words are bubbling up, demanding to be spoken, regardless of my conscious intent.

"Yeah…" I admitted. "It's… incredibly hard to reconcile. We're married, Levi and I, legally, thanks to his tireless campaigning… and I'm a citizen of this country, with all the rights and protections that entails, because of him. For some reason, my brain seems to have an incredibly efficient self-deletion protocol for that particular set of facts… Maybe it's because I'm so acutely aware of his underlying misanthropy, the almost disdainful way he views humanity. Or maybe it's the weight of feeling indebted, a sensation my fiercely independent nature instinctively rejects. I really don't know. Or maybe," I added with a self-deprecating laugh, "I'm just so profoundly stupid that I can't wrap my head around a simple, objective truth staring me right in the face."

He nodded slowly, processing the information. "Okay, so you're married to a saint who secretly hates everyone, and he's the reason you have legal status here, but your brain just goes 'nope!' Got it. That's... a very Raphael situation, if I'm being honest."

"Yeah…" I murmured. "Yeah, that about sums it up. It's so much easier, isn't it? So much more comfortable to paint him as the Devil incarnate. The man who toppled a centuries-old monarchy, who dissolved nobility… It's far simpler to focus on the things he ruthlessly turned to dust, the established order he shattered, rather than acknowledging the tangible structures he built in their place. A functioning democracy. Sweeping societal changes aimed at equality and progress…"

Finn, savored the last of his magenta-tinged drink. "Villains," he mused, his gaze distant, "they're often so straightforward in their motivations. There's hate, a burning rage, the ache of regret, maybe the ghost of something they lost that fuels their desire to watch the world burn. The mark of a truly well-crafted villain, the kind that lingers in the shadows of your mind long after the story ends, is the capacity for empathy. If you can understand their pain, you understand their darkness. But heroes?" He scoffed softly. "Most of the time, they're these overpowered, plot-armored, self-righteous pricks, conveniently immune to the consequences of their actions. Real heroes, though? They're messy. They're tangled up in difficult decisions, forced to take actions with unforeseen consequences, and yet, they still manage to enact genuine, lasting change. And that inherent complexity, that lack of simplistic morality, is what makes them so much harder to truly comprehend."

Damn, Finn's hitting a little too close to home with this villain/hero breakdown. The 'easy to hate' versus 'hard to understand' thing… yeah, that resonates. The empathy for a villain thing… gods, I’ve spent more time trying to understand Levi’s twisted logic than I have my own sometimes.

"So, the fact that I often find myself dissecting Levi's machinations rather than, say, confronting my own rather substantial emotional baggage doesn't necessarily qualify me as a terrible human being? Perhaps merely someone attempting to comprehend a particularly… multifaceted individual?" I ventured, seeking a sliver of validation.

Finn scoffed. "What are you even talking about, Raph? What exactly did he do, in your estimation? Beyond intimidating people with his mere presence and orchestrating elaborate manipulations? I was here after you left, remember? We spent weeks holed up in this very house, in the immediate aftermath of the monarchy's abolition, trying to weave the fragile threads of democracy into five centuries of archaic, deeply ingrained laws. Do you even begin to grasp the sheer power he wielded in that moment? Do you even begin to comprehend the temptation, the irresistible urge, that I would have succumbed to if I possessed his level of power in that volatile situation? I'd probably have deployed military troops to every corner of the nation, maybe even found some 'patriotic' justification for silencing dissenting voices. Instead, because he cultivated this image of himself as the progressive 'Saint,' the populace largely and happily obliged with the transition. Nobody even batted an eye at the late King's funeral, myself included. That's not just influence, Raph. That's a level of control that borders on the terrifying, all achieved without a single drop of spilled blood.”

Control without spilled blood... he's got a point. Finn sees a hero. I see a puppeteer pulling invisible strings. And the fact that it all happened so smoothly, so seamlessly... that's what's truly unsettling. A bloody revolution, you can fight. But this? This is like being caught in a current you don't even realize is pulling you under.

"It's the silence of it all that gets me. No riots, no widespread dissent. Just a smooth transition orchestrated by the 'Saint.' It's like the whole nation was subtly mind-controlled. And you're calling that heroic?" I reiterated, taking another sip of the concontion.

I could sense a shift in Finn's demeanor, a rising defensiveness as I continued to dissect his idol. "Raph, are you even being serious right now?" he retorted. "So what was the alternative you envisioned? Should the citizens have grabbed their pitchforks and stormed the Royal Palace? Also, hello? It's called democracy, man! Every single developed nation on this planet operates under some form of it. Ascaria was the backwards outlier, clinging to a feudal system for five centuries! As citizens, maybe we didn't feel the immediate urgency for radical change because Ascaria was already relatively liberal in its social policies, thanks in no small part to the groundwork Levi had already laid. But now? Now there's an upcoming presidential election. The first free and fair election in five centuries!"

Okay, okay, he's got a point. A valid, annoyingly logical point. Yeah, democracy... it's kind of the baseline for a functioning society in the 21st century. Ascaria was the weird country. And he did drag them kicking and screaming into modernity. Painlessly, even.

"Fine, democracy," I conceded, though a stubborn undercurrent of unease still lingered. "Happy now? But that doesn't entirely negate the whole 'subtly influencing an entire nation' thing. It's still… unsettling, Finn. Even if the end result is, by all accounts, technically a step in the right direction."

Finn began to ladle himself another serving of the truth-inducing serum. "Raph, seriously? What if it is a little creepy? What if he is incredibly powerful and strategically manipulative? The man could, by his own admission, obliterate anyone who stood in his way, reduce entire cities to ash. He even explicitly stated that he wouldn't impose fascism, not out of any moral objection, but because it simply doesn't align with his personal aesthetic. What exactly do you expect from a man wielding that kind of power? For him to be gentle, universally liked, and endlessly kind? If he possessed that disposition, he wouldn't have accomplished a damn thing, Raph. Sometimes, to cauterize a festering wound, you have to become the searing flame itself."

Dramatic much, Finn? But there's a brutal logic to it. You don't politely ask a gangrenous limb to detach itself. You amputate. And Levi? His methods might be unsettling, but the patient survived. Thrived, even. And he didn't descend into tyranny, despite having the scalpel in his hand. He chose... democracy. His reasons might be as twisted as he is, but the outcome... gods damn it, the outcome is undeniably good.

"Look, Finn, I'm not willfully blind. Objectively, Ascaria is undeniably better off than it was under the archaic monarchy. But 'good' doesn't automatically transmute into 'heroic' in my personal lexicon. Sometimes, the most profound and effective societal shifts originate from the most ethically murky and morally ambiguous individuals. Levi is practically the living embodiment of that uncomfortable truth. But… doesn't even a tiny sliver of you feel the slightest bit unsettled by the way he wields his influence? At all?" I asked, my gaze searching his face for any flicker of doubt.

Instead of answering directly, Finn took my empty glass and refilled it. "You know what I think, Raph? I don't think your fundamental issue lies with the advent of democracy in Ascaria. I think, deep down, you're just a little bit terrified of your own husband. Which, when you consider who Levi is, isn't exactly a far-fetched theory."

Terrified? Me? Of Levi? Preposterous! Well… mostly preposterous. Intrigued? Absolutely. Occasionally bewildered? Certainly. Mildly concerned for the general safety of anyone who crosses him? Perhaps. But terrified? That's… an oversimplification. Isn't it? He's… intense. Possessive. Unpredictable. But he's also… Levi. And he… cares. In his own twisted way.

"It's not exactly a fear of physical harm, Finn," I admitted, the words tumbling out. "It's more… a persistent feeling of being perpetually behind. I can't even begin to fathom the depths of his mind. His neurodivergence is undoubtedly a significant factor, a chasm of different wiring that I can only dimly perceive. But even beyond that, the reality is he's simply on a different intellectual plane – so much smarter, so much more broadly educated, so infuriatingly mature compared to my… often impulsive… nature. He's an amoral being, by his own admission, yet… paradoxically, he never judges my own flaws, always patiently allows me to articulate my thoughts, no matter how jumbled, when we're discussing something personal. I can look right at him, Finn, stand inches away, but he still feels… impossibly far away."

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Shit. That was far more vulnerable than I'd intended.

Finn took a sip of his drink, his gaze thoughtful. "Maybe the point isn't to fully fathom his depths, Raph. Maybe it's about finding your own footing on the surface and trusting that even if you can't see the bottom, he's not going to let you fall."her regions come morning? Didn't he possess even a modicum of concern for my impending urinary agony?

What? My thoughts were becoming increasingly fragmented and illogical.

With Levi's assistance, I managed to wobble back to a semblance of uprightness, and he guided me to the bar stool.

I was such an utter asshole. I had just made him physically exert himself, knowing full well that his stitches still required time and rest to properly heal. My god. I was a truly terrible person. I didn't deserve his patience, his quiet strength, his… anything, really.

What? Oh my god, would someone please just flick the off switch on the self-deprecating monologue raging inside my skull?

Levi retreated into the kitchen, the clinking of glass and the rustling of containers suggesting he was already preparing his next alchemical experiment. I wanted to sob, to curl up into a ball and disappear. Fuck, I think I already did shed a tear or two. But why? The impending fiery torment of urination tomorrow, the crushing weight of feeling utterly undeserving of someone like Levi…

Yeah… the reality was, I was nothing compared to him. In so many ways, I felt like a naive teenager next to his vast experience and intellect. I felt so small, so utterly insignificant in his orbit. What was I even doing? Oh god, was I doing it again? Comparing myself to him? Bad idea, as the wise Finn had pointed out earlier. It was a mental cul-de-sac that only led to a desperate yearning to abandon civilization, move to the deepest, darkest forest, and attempt to photosynthesize like algae and plants, since that felt like the only existence a being as insignificant as myself truly deserved. Red meat? Forget about it. Only sunlight for this pathetic excuse of a human. Red meat… Mmmh… but gods, how I loved red meat. Juicy, perfectly seared, melting in my mouth with a hint of buttery richness… perhaps a sprig of fragrant thyme? Thyme… lovely… What the actual fuck was going on in my brain?

There was a palpable shift in the atmosphere. While I was spiraling into bizarre daydreams of becoming a sentient dandelion, rooted firmly in self-pity, Finn seemed to be experiencing some profound inner peace. What the actual fuck, man? Did his mind truly lack the intricate architecture of insecurity? Or was he simply too blissfully unaware of his own shortcomings to be bothered by them? Shut up, Raphael, look at you talking. At least he managed to graduate college. What the fuck are you? Nothing. You are repeating your pattern of running away from your own family, just like you did eight years ago. Coward. Pathetic. Your homeland, or rather, I should remember my Cyrusian roots, even if the liberal Ascarian culture has effectively assimilated me – your fatherland is currently engulfed in a brutal civil war, and your family managed to escape its clutches. It's been nearly a month since they arrived in capital… and you haven't even possessed the basic human decency to inquire about their well-being. Pathetic. What's the absolute worst that could happen? They would reiterate their long-standing denial of your existence? So what? You've already repeatedly denied Levi's existence in your own mind, even deluded yourself with the absurd notion that he might be manipulating you to absolve himself of some imagined guilt. You pathetic excuse for a partner. No. Pathetic excuse for a man. Of course you don't deserve him. Not because you're an intellectual simpleton, no. But because you are consistently, unforgivably cruel to him. Asshole. A monumental, self-serving asshole.

Alcohol. Booze. Gin. Any form of potent spirit. Even that throat-scorching scotch that Levi indulged in. I needed to numb this relentless onslaught of self-awareness. This was too much. Ah… gods… the brutal truth was undeniable. I was a self-sabotaging asshole, plain and simple. I had consistently avoided any form of real confrontation, any potential conflict with Levi… all the damn time. Just like the disastrous debacle of rehab. I had abandoned a suicidal drug addict, someone I loved, and then callously severed all contact… Because I am a spineless coward. Just like I was passively abandoning my own family to their fate right now, wallowing in my self-pity instead of reaching out. Gods. Alcohol. Booze. Gin. Spirit. Anything to dull this excruciating clarity.

A fragile seed of resolve began to sprout amidst the toxic weeds of self-loathing. I would reach out to my family. Yes. I would. There was no longer any point in running, in perpetuating this cycle of avoidance. I would reach them… Maybe… maybe Mom would even make her legendary beef stew, the one simmered for hours with bay leaves and a secret blend of spices. Shit… I missed them… so damn much… So much more than my pride would ever allow me to admit. Even with the sting of their homophobia, even with the weight of their conditional love, even with the strange, isolating way they had often treated me, not quite as a son, but as some prized, fragile possession… I still missed them.

Levi returned from the kitchen, bearing a bottle of chilled vodka and a platter laden with an assortment of vibrant fruits. "Now, now," he announced, his voice smooth and even, surveying our somewhat disheveled states. "Act three of our afternoon. Tell me, gentlemen, do you wish for something to… energize you? Perhaps lift your spirits?"