Sim Fu brought Fabian something he’d never really had — peace of mind. It became a ritual; he’d meet Charles most evenings after work to work the kinks out of his body and mind.
Fabian had never been a man who saw a lot of point to the physical. The power of the human brain was astounding. Add to that the collection knowledge mankind had built up over the millennia of recorded history, and there was nothing you couldn’t do. He could sit at his computer and participate in the econopolitical upheaval in China. By comparison, pushing things around with your fists seemed sort of primitive — a throwback to our Neatherthal ancestors. Surely we’d moved past that sort of thing.
It turned out that Fabian had vastly underestimated the power of the primitive, especially inside himself. He had never felt so empowered, and by contrast, so at peace with himself.
And it didn’t hurt that he’d gotten pretty good at visualizing Malcolm Landgraab’s face on the training dummy.
Fabian stopped obsession over his promotion at work. The physical release actually helped his focus. He became a master at blocking out distractions, eliminating past and future, and letting the present become all that matters. When his resentment was nicely sealed in a box, 3D Crime Scene Modeling was pretty amazing work.
And, hell, if Malcolm wasn’t going to promote him anyway, there was no point in trying to court his favor. He stopped showering Landgraab with compliments and became his most outspoken critic in the department. After a while, he could see his boss stiffen as soon as he walked into a room, and it was perversely satisfying. Fabian was at the end of his career. What could Landgraab do to him? If he fought back, Fabian would just retire.
Then one day, the list of promotions went up in the break room, and Fabian’s name was on it.
He was a Dynamic DNA Profiler, the pinnacle of the forensics profession. By giving up his dreams, somehow he’d achieved them.
Fabian walked past Landgraab’s office as he walked out of the precinct, and his boss looked up to give him a silent, squint-eyed look. Fabian had no idea what it meant. It didn’t seem like a look of respect, but perhaps it was a sort of acknowledgement of a worthy opponent. Fabian could live with that.
That night was a night of celebration. Fabian took the whole family out for a fancy dinner on him. He drank a toast to Charles Sample, “The best sensei a geeky old wimp could find.”
Then he lured Zahra into their bedroom for some time alone.
“I want to apologize,” he said as he pulled her close.
Zahra raised her eyebrows. “Apologize?”
“I didn’t turn out to be the kind of husband I always thought I would be.”
Zahra thought about this. “That’s true,” she said. “Sometimes you’ve been kind of jerk.”
Fabian cringed. “I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t be so eager to agree.”
“What do you want me to say?” Zahra said. “I could point out that I’m not the easiest wife in the world. That’s true. But I never cheated on you. And I know about the ass you made of yourself to Michelle Yo at Willem’s birthday party.”
Fabian flushed a deep red. “How did you find out about that?” Charles had promised to never tell!
Zahra looked at him over her glasses. “Half my department was at that party, Fabian. They told me at the watercooler the very next day.”
“Oh,” Fabian said. He sighed. “I thought that if I won your heart, I’d never look at another woman. But the truth is I’ve never stopped looking. Being faithful has never come naturally, even after all these years. I hope that doesn’t make you want to leave me now.”
Zahra shook her head. “That’s not news, but thank you for telling me anyway.”
“You told me once that you were staying with me for Ada. I don’t think she needs me here anymore. I, uh, understand if you want me to leave.”
Zahra smiled a complex smile. “Thank you, but I never needed your permission. If I wanted you to leave, you’d already be gone.”
“Uh…”
“Congratulations on your promotion,” she said. “I never thought I’d ever say this, but I think it’s time to stop talking.”
And so they did.
———-
In the end, I just had to do it the hard way. I just had to get Fabian to his LTW the hard way — keep his mood high and make him Work Hard every day. So the story is sort of correct. He had to work off his stress moodlet after work, and he pretty much couldn’t do anything else other than work and soothe.
I was starting to worry that he wouldn’t live long enough, but he finally made it.
And in other news, Avalon is back on! Simsample ended up fixing it for me and giving me the files. It looks like there may be something weird with my system. I’m still experimenting. I’ll be pretty grumpy if it turns out I can’t use Create-A-World, but for now I have my Avalon, and I’ll probably move the families in tonight!
Yay, a new chapter 🙂 I'm glad that Fabian finally got his promotion – it really took him forever to get there!
Good work Fabian!
I'm glad that Avalon is finally sorted. Looks like all your hard work is paying off as well.
Go Fabian! It's so great that he found peace, got his promotion, and got lucky before he gets too old to enjoy it…
I can't wait to see Avalon! (I know, there are loads more chapters to go before we get there… but maybe a sneak peek?)
Yeah. He and Zahra were both at Level 4 when they got married. Zahra was a Mad Scientist right before she hit elder, even with all that maternity leave. Fabian just barely made it!
Yeah, to be honest, Zukutra is lovely world, but the lots I carefully mined the Intarwebs for were picked for Avalon's flavor. I'm pretty excited.
I was really glad to see Fabian make it!
And yeah, I think I'm going to treat everyone to an interlude post with the sims I'm using to test the world, so you can see a bit of it :).
It was nice to see Fabian finally getting that last promotion and achieve his LTW.
Ok, I *swear* I commented on this yesterday…or…I thought I did… :-
Anyway…what I had said was that I wonder if Landgraab finally promoted Fabian because he had grown to respect him since he wasn't kissing tail anymore, or if Landgraab just wanted to get rid of him.
I'd also said that I was pretty freaked out there for a second; it looked a little like Zahra was about to dump Fabian. I'm glad that they've managed to work through their differences all these years; they are definitely not the typical happy-lovey couple. I think I also said something about Zahra being complicated, and how much I'd grown to like her…and how much I'll miss them when they're gone.
It was worded so much better yesterday (or in my head…)…
Actually, I GOT the email notification of that other comment. Where did it go?? You're right, though, it's not on the blog. Bizzarre. Why does my blog hate you? What was happening when you tried to comment before?
So yeah, I do know what's going on in Malcolm's head. I considered having him say what he was thinking, but honestly it's better not to admit your personal motivations when you're promoting someone who is kind of your enemy. Plus Malcolm has no reason to tell him. Basically, Fabian's been damn good at his job since he gave up wasting time on getting Malcolm to like him. And the fact that Fabian's been such an outspoken critic AND been so competent means that the only reason NOT to promote him would be personal grudge, and Malcolm really is a good cop who is trying to do a good job. And even if Malcolm weren't a good guy, everyone in the department would notice and know that Fabian's lack of promotion was personal, since Fabian's has been attracting attention to himself.
It's been kind of nice writing a couple that isn't all rainbows and soap bubbles. It's entirely too easy to make all your sims couples like that. Fabian and Zahra are not a perfect match, but at this point they've been together for a long time, and they do really love each other. OTOH, it's also been nice to get the contrast with Charles and Veronica, who really are great together.
Thanks! I thought so too :).
Hm…the mystery shall never be solved…your blog hates me for no reason.
A lot of times when I try to comment, there's not option…like, the box that you fill with words isn't even there, but I *can* reply to other people (which is what I'm doing now; there's no box to start a new comment). This is on outdated Firefox; sometimes, the box will appear on outdated Explorer, though. Then, IF I manage to catch the box at all, the actual comment may or may not get accepted; it seems to do better if I stay anonymous instead of using my wordpress account…actually, that part of the problem seemed to have worked itself out when you got rid of the Captcha. Le sigh.
Have you gotten your hands on Supernatural yet? *Amazing!* I played with it a little last night, and totally thought of you when I saw all of the new skin color sliders, and the outfits, and…just everything. Actually, the skin sliders kinda made me mad; I spent an enormous amount of time trying to find the right pastel shades of skintones for a family I've got based on…erm…My Little Ponies…..anyway, the ones I finally found have always been just ok to me, so I was both aggravated and stoked to see what EA did with it in Supernatural.
OK, I am FASCINATED by My Little Pony inspired sims. Do you have pictures?
I haven't picked up Showtime yet. I tend to lag about 6 months behind. The skin tones came over in the patch, and they are GORGEOUS. I keep wishing I could pull them out and turn THEM into metallics.
Somehow I thought you might be interested in MLP inspired Sims…;-) I can definitely post pictures! The Mylipones are really entertaining to play, mostly I think because there's no pressure for me to try and come up with a storyline with them, and I kinda run them as a wishacy, so it's neat to see how they dictate their own lives. They are currently on their third generation, and I'm considering uploading them to TRS or something one of these days…
Yay, I can comment!!
I really like the way you handled Fabian's promotion…did Landgraab promote him because he respected that he'd become his critic, or just to get rid of him, do you think?
And whoa there, thought for a second that Zahra was gonna up and split. She has always been complicated; I sort of like that about her. I know she and Fabian aren't the classic happy couple, but I admire that they have been able to stick it out all these years, in spite of everything. I will be really sad when it's their time to go. 🙁