Hell Screen

butterfly dreaming of being a man | he/him/they/ them | 21 | MDNI | dead dove: do not eat

[californiapipsqueakin]

open for interaction/ asks/ small talk

[californiapipsqueakin]

The first shuttle arrives at 8:00 to take you to the locality from where Caleb’s house is a walkable distance in sky haven.

And it’s currently 6:45 as you sit with your suitcase and bag outside the coleum express train station.

You partly blame the lack of your foresight and in equal measure your excitement to surprise gege for this wait.

But then again it boils down to gege’s fault.

Even as you knew he wouldn’t be there to pick you up from the station your eyes from searching for the familiar face through the handful of people that had happened to be there.

You could take a cab from here, you internally reasoned, but your budget was already tight living in a city as big as linkon with a hunters salary. So no that was not an option-

Until another man approaches you and you tighten your grasp slightly on the hunter licenses firearm strapped to your waist. Wanderers aside no man can be trusted- a lesson drilled into your head by Caleb as you wait for the other man to speak.

‘I noticed you sitting here and was wondering where you are headed’. He said with an easy smile.

It repulsed you. The audacity.

After a brief exchange confirming that you both were indeed headed to the same location, he offered to split the cab fare with you.

Haven never learned to say no, haven bought up by a person who always said yes.

You book the cab and wait. And in spite cancel it.

Why should you have to do everything? A sense of indignation overcame you then.

The time was 7:05 now and from within you had sprung forth a new found patience to wait for your designated vehicle.

You didn’t tell it to the man tho, who was already too pre occupied with whatever it is he was watching on his phone.

You can see him from the corner of your eye looking at you before he turns back to his screen.

You haven’t approached him to tell him about your change in plans. Yet. Decided to let him know when he deigns to ask you about them himself. Why should you have to play valet?

You have the perfect script ready too, ‘ah it seems my app isn’t working at the moment.’. To which he should respond by offering to download the same and try himself, between the entire ordeal of which you will politely observe, ‘since we have waited so long we might as well wait for the bus.’

It was currently 7:11.

You sit and think about other things, such as how sad you were to not be able to wear the ring gege got you when you both had reunited.

It has beeped too viciously under the electronics scanner for a simple metal ornament.

You try not to think about the implications. Even as a small part of you is disappointed. With the tracker he would’ve seen that you’re waiting here, being inconvenienced, by your lonesome.

Stupid gege, he should’ve been smarter.

You indignantly huff at the thought as your musings are once again intruded upon. As wide brown eyes peer curiously at you from where you sit with an equally curious wagging tail.

A welcome surprise as you let the mocha coloured mutt nuzzle his wet nose against your outstretched palm.

You softly coo at him haven grown a soft spot for the entire species owing to their striking similarity to a certain someone you know.

You sigh as the dog scampers to the next person greedy for affection, a trait you are intimately aware of in his human counterpart. Only yours wouldn’t be this infidel you think lips set in a line as you watch the furry creature get pets and scratches from other people.

It is 7:20 now.

The man in question still hasn’t spoken to you and you seem to be growing antsy now contrary to what you had planned and so with all the awkward grace of a goose you blurt out a jumbled mess of the script you had so meticulously mentally planned.

To weary to even consciously lodge the exchange in your head you are satisfied when the end verdict is the same you had wanted.

And so you return to your pondering watching the city slowly awaken. You wonder if he is awake yet, haven originally planned to sneak into the house with the spare key he has insisted you keep (and you had the sneaking suspicion that it was indeed the main one given his tendency to overwork and push himself without respite unless you are over).

In your minds eye you would creep into his room and ambush him under the covers and somewhere you can’t help but think that this trip was for your own sake than his.

The phantom sensation of melting into safety played over and over in your head. A not probable possibility if the steadily rising sun, now in your eye, was any indicator of how late the hour is now.

It is currently 7:33

You are interrupted for a third time now as you smell your favourite coffee order in the air and resolutely train your gaze back to your own phone to not betray your longing in your gaze wishing for it to go away.

Only it grows stronger, now paired with the sound that is of heavy uniform boots. You think is passing how similar they sound to Caleb’s.

You resolutely remain as you were adamant on not being pulled out of your reverie again, earphones in as some music plays through them. Even as you sip some water from your bottle to quench the latent thirst birthed through the delicious aroma of the drink.

It is only when the boots stop infront of you does curiosity overcome you as you sweep your gaze bottom to top tracing the familiar white pants and the crisp and ironed uniform and finally those eyes.

Your expression breaks open like sun behind rain clouds. Your sun was here.

You launch yourself into him even as he holds your favourite milk tea in one hand. He holds you effortlessly against him smile soft and amused.

‘Looksie who we have here, a lil pipsqueak waiting all by their lonesome’, he teases with a fake teary expression as he pats your hair. Then adds in a softer voice next to your ear ‘next time tell your gege hmm?’

You don’t know how he figured out where you were. You don’t have to. You simply melt into security eyes closed as you take a sneaky sip of the tea savouring the sweet taste and warm touch.

And so you miss the silent exchange that goes on between Caleb and the other man as gege eyes down the other. Eyes cold and fatal if looks could kill.

Apparently that was enough to make the other guy pull away from his screen and shuffle away in a hurry.

But what care you. Gege’s here and as a rule of thumb everything’s gonna be alright.

It’s is currently 7:49.

——

A/n: not proof read

[californiapipsqueakin]

‘Did grandma tell you that she’s called her friend to babysit me while she attends a conference?’

You frantically text Caleb as you lay in your cramped sleeper seat of the bus back ‘home’.

There was too little space, your neck was bent at an awkward angle at the ghastly rainbow lamp visible through the sliding door was driving you quite mad.

‘No’ comes the prompt short response, something that was unusual and conveyed his affect precisely because of the lack of it. You could see his sternly set face and pursed lips.

Something in you basked at his anger, anger at your behalf and so you continue-

‘I am in the hunters training academy and an adult, can I not be trusted to look after myself for one day??’

‘I wasn’t aware’, comes the curt reply, and you knew it would be followed by an immediate call by Caleb were it not for the shitty signal on road- the route from linkon to bloom shore was barely functional at best, to speak nothing of the shady bus you had booked online not wanting to indebted to Josephine more than you already were.

‘I wasn’t either. And I wouldn’t have been if I didn’t call her incidentally right now’

‘Maybe cause you’re going home for a short time and she didn’t want to bother you pips :p’, comes the reply. The mask is back in place. You curse Caleb and his need to always soothe you and pretend like everything is under control even as you grandmas text ‘Did you tell Caleb?’

You ignore her because ofcourse you do. What irked you was that people you didn’t know that well have to come and baby sit you. God knows you have already long struggled with calling that place your home, a feeling especially exacerbated once Caleb left for DAA making you realise that home just might be a person and not a place.

But you persist, trying to keep playing the fantasy, that you do have a place where you do belong. Never mind that you did it just so you could have a place to fill in the destination category while your friends excitedly booked their own tickets back.

You feel weary beyond belief, defeated and small, you were not even home and you already regretted it. Regretted the moment of sentimental weakness that thought you actually had a place where you could rest, regretted the naiveness with which you believed you could find solace in any place other than by your gege’s side.

‘This wouldn’t have happened if you would just come home’, you type resentful and and unfurling ball of longing seizing the whole of your chest.

And because he is Caleb, and because that jerk knows you just that well, he reads the text for what it is-

And the screen lights up with his name, while lost in your musings, or perhaps the blurry vision through your tears, you had missed the signal steadily come through.

You don’t want to talk to him.

You pick up.

‘I feel like I’ve traded one cage for another’, you breathe out after silence that could’ve been a minute or an hour.

‘Baby-‘, he uses that infuriating name again, that name that always made you felt seen and held even if he wasn’t here to do either in the moment.

It doesn’t matter what happens after this, you wake up from the dream of a memory that happened back when you were still in training.

Ofcourse you wake up before you can listen to what he said then. You don’t remember what it was to begin with.

Only a haunting sense that it’ll never be completed or replaced, and it’s fitting you think bitterly, for the utterance to not be in existence when the utterer is not.

You phone vibrates and you blame your residual dream for a hope of a familiar name. And while it was on the screen in a sense of the word, it wasn’t in a way you had thought-

A/n: not proofread but in my defence there’s not much signal on the bus

[californiapipsqueakin]

You lay miserably on top of your covers in bed.

You had a lot of work to do before your lectures tomorrow, but nothing quite took cognizance like your tummy ache.

Caleb always nagged you to not skip meals and eat better. That lovable dummy making sure to prep food for you with painfully in-depth instructions on how to heat and assemble them.

Or at least he would do so whenever he could possibly manage to sneak out of DAA on the weekends. Yesterday marked two weeks of no sign of him.

And so you were equally surprised to see when today in the evening an express parcel arrived for you filled with your favourites.

You could see a note at the bottom but you were much too preoccupied with scarfing down the first container you could get your hands on—having lived on a steady diet of fresh orange juice and cigarettes for the past few days.

Which brings you to your state of current misery.

You had once again (unsurprisingly) eaten too much too soon. Your reasoning had been immaculate and mature when you had reached for a second container (you needed to make up for the lack of food, you deserved this, gege made this just for you), but now you realise with some clarity that it was just your hunger talking under the guise of careful consideration.

And so all things considered you resort to cursing him. Of course none of this would have happened if only he had been there to plate your food. Stupid gege. If only he-

The sound of the doorbell pulls you out of your righteous contempt as you drag yourself to the door- and lo and behold there stood the accused with a nondescript brown paper bag.

And it was so unbelievably unexpected that you just stood and stared.

‘I didn’t know I looked that good after a long day,’ he says with a goofy grin making a show of flicking his hair back even as the travel of exhaustion weaves through his demeanour.

His smug voice and a stomach cramp break you out of your reverie as you scowl stepping back to let him in and flopping down on the couch with a groan as he comes and sits next to you with a raised brow as he takes in the sight of the strewn empty containers on the kitchen island.

‘Sooo I’m guessing you had dinner on my behalf as well?’ he mentions voice light and teasing, putting two and two together.

‘Caleb you big dummy,’ you whine weakly hitting his chest, ‘it’s all your fault you say,’ whining till another wave of pain makes you double over curling clutching your tummy.

He sighs softly as he runs his hand through your hair, ‘Caleb is a big meanie huh,’ he murmurs softly as he pulls out digestives and cold water from the paper bag he was holding earlier.

‘Here have this,’ he mutters tilting up your face and holding the vial to your lips as if you had to be babied! Your face burned at that.

After the medicine he lets you whine and throw a fit about how it was all his fault as you sit between his legs and he simply hums and pats your head, knowing that this too was a part of the recovery for you, as you ultimately succumb to sleep in your gege’s arms while he looks at you with an exasperated yet fond smile and a memory plays through his mind.

The experiments were long and arduous and food was a luxury. The scientists had decided that it would be more efficient to inject the two test subjects with the nutrients required deciding that mastication was unnecessary and wasted precious time better spent running control protocols.

He holds you a little closer then. Making his way to your childhood bedroom to put you to bed.

He reluctantly pulls away after tucking you in as he tidies up the kitchen putting the containers of your favourite meat buns in the refrigerator.

The young girl stood facing a boy who could not be older by much to her, the orphanage had given them meat buns today but she had gobbled hers as quickly as possible and now she looked longingly at the boy that was supposed to soon be her ‘gege’ (the woman in the white coat had said so).

He kneeled in front of her then gently patting her hair and giving her his snack and she nibbled on it like a little squirrel- a pipsqueak, ‘Nobody is taking this away from you silly.’

He switches off the lights in the kitchen as he pauses for a moment in front of his own room and ultimately crosses it to go to hers as he slips under the covers careful not to wake her gently carding through her hair as she fusses when he finally pulls back, ‘Nobody is taking you away from me silly,’ he murmurs pulling her flush against him as he too drifts off to sleep.

A/n:

[californiapipsqueakin]

Caleb: *uses the endearment ‘my heart’ instead of pipsqueak*

characteristics of the heart in question:

[californiapipsqueakin]

Late September in the city

The sky is grey, the air is sticky

I keep falling in and out of sleep

You sit in gege's apartment in sky haven, you had taken a few days off from the hunters association given your persistent ill health.

"It must be something in the air", Caleb had said insisting that a change in place might help

Zayne would have politely disagreed with that diagnosis but nobody had seen him after his abrupt resignation from the hospital.

Letting the sun scorch the grass

The flies are knocking on the glass

But they're the only other friends I have, you

see

You are bored to say the least.

For all its cutting edge technology at the disposal of the far space fleet they couldn't get proper cellular network you think in frustration as you eye the overripe fruit on the counter.

Gege had cut it for you in little shapes before he left for you to eat when you woke up.

But now the once pale luminous skin had rusted to brown as you had slept unusually longer.

It could be that your body was recuperating, it could be the medicine gege gave you being unusually effective. No matter that now, eyeing the oxidised fruit it occurred to you how coagulated care can look so similar to decay.

As you slump against the kitchen counter you look at the, yellow bodied orange eyed flies knocking against the glass dome that covered them.

Drosophila melanogaster you hear a young Caleb's voice resound in your head, they were an ideal in labs he had said then.

You didn't understand much of what he had prattled on about. Except the part of being experimented on- that felt oddly familiar to you for some reason as an unfamiliar lab came to mind.

And so you sit and sit till the relentless buzzing of the insects seem to ring in your ears and your mind wanders for what feels like days.

The note saying that he will be gone for a few days into the deepspace tunnel for an emergency mission going unread as it remained neatly folded under the rotten plate of fruit as the fruit goes uneaten.

As they swarm your head now attracted to the rot in the recesses of your mind.

How much time had passed? Minutes, hours, days?

I need him so much that it hurts

I wish he didn't have to go to work

And I just lie and watch the ceiling fan turn

You lie in his room, surrounded by his scent.

It has had to be a few days by now if the coming and going of the illumination behind the blinds was any indicator.

You felt yourself in the same lul as you had after the explosion- only now instead of the finality of loss the anxiety of reunion gnawed at your chest.

The way the fan wobbles on a high speed makes you doubt if it ever could hold your weight.

The far space fleet, how you detest them. In your mind they were the reason why Gege wasn't here with you.

Something shifted in you then- your unexplained illness felt far away as your body was revitalised by the single minded thought of monopolising Caleb's time - all to yourself.

Before the fleet, before the DAA, when it was just the two of you and nobody else.

Back when you didn't have to share him with the world- he was yours and yours alone in those lovely summer days always together.

When it was impossible to tell where he ended and you began. Before the concept of self, of duty, of responsibility.

When there was just this fervent red hot desire in you to consume and be consumed.

He's my man

We're hand in hand

To hell and back

And I love him like nobody else can

He was like the sun bright and warm and all you have ever wanted as far back as you can remember is to be consumed by him.

Icarus to the sun and you to Caleb. Even when grandma pulled you aside one day to preach you about how it's no longer appropriate for you both to share a bed or for him to bathe you-what would she know about love you had thought then in disdain.

His gravity was too strong and you had no mind to resist, and so you searched for ways- anyway you could ensure that his eyes were only on you.

And then he saw those parallel scars on your forearms- once you hadn't particularly paid attention to, it was routine at this point. As mundane as waking up to another day.

But oh, his reaction was delicious, as tears prettily gathered at the lower lids of his eyes, like dew on a blushing lotus.

And oh you realised 'I must be wicked but i love the look on geges face'.

At then the instinctive perversion to consider yourself evil congealed into something darker, your intense adoration for him congealed into something obsessive, stepped in the childish whims and wants of your youth.

"Look at me! Love me! Pay attention to me!", you threatened to die like a wilting flower without his obsessive care

He's my man

I've been damned

No, nobody has to understand Me and my man

And so you deliberately wore his clothes- oversized as they were on you they weren’t able to conceal the raised tender flesh on your arms.

And when Gege saw you like that his eyes darker and jaw clenched, from anger, desire or possessiveness you knew not.

But as he kneeled infront of you, carefully dressing your wounds, you felt his fiery hot touch burn into you.

Something in pursuit of which you had begin to leave lacerations on your thighs and chest just to feel the sick thrill of his flesh there, higher and higher up your thigh, as you finally basked in his complete and utter attention towards only you and nothing, no one else.

Monsoon arrives, the heat has turned sticky, you drew lazy orchids in your sketchbook the doctors orders of not letting any sharp objects near you and this allowed him to invade your space completely, leaving you with no sense of privacy - he made sure you showered with the door open as with everything else and it sent a shiver of excitement and heat pooling in your abdomen every time.

In return you made sure to always hide your razors in the drawer with your underwear, after all you were just trying to be a good meimei and make things easier for him after the day you had found him standing next to the laundry hamper with your plain underwear to his face as if it gave him life his hand rapidly moving in his pants as he whimpered.

You didn’t understand what it was about then.

But you didn’t need to, the fact that Gege felt good, that it made him press against so desperately against something you considered dirty, was reason enough.

A/n: not proofread. incomplete.

[californiapipsqueakin]

You are not your brothers keeper.

He is not even your brother, just another test subject in the adjoining room - but grandma insists he is.

Back then too when you both were still in the lab you were disregarded while he was looked favourably upon. He shone bright like the sun after all.

They never explained why either even as you tried to stay awake in the pulsing darkness longer- although you didn’t know what was the fiery heat, you did know that the longer you could stay awake the happier the man in the white coat was.

But now you lived together under the same roof with that boy and he smiled so sweetly to you.

You didn’t understand, you resented him.

And so you ignored him entirely, treated him as if he never existed, denied his presence even the slightest of your acknowledgment.

But then came the explosion.

But ofcourse you didn’t die.

But you had brushed off his concern as he still smiled so sweetly at you and walked into that house.

Right before it burst into flames.

Who’s to say you wouldn’t spend the rest your his life in horror of what you had done - to all extent that matters you had killed him.

Condemned to live is a cruel fate. As you find your journal from when you were younger.

And you couldn’t help but read what you wrote.

You hadn’t really wanted him to die even when you hated him the most and wished he was gone but rather the unjustness of the situation, wanted to erase the humiliation of the moment, the unfairness, and in your childish wishes wishing him away you weren’t even cognizant what his death actually meant even as you wished it upon him fervently in those pages.

You hadn’t prayed to annihilate the person then, in all your naïveté, but the situation, the white walls and the pain that never stopped, the loneliness and the ache in your chest, but it matters not now- the world is the same; cruel unforgiving place but now without his burning smile.

It is five year past now and with every day it dawns over - the gravity of the situation; the irreversibility of that fact. His non existence would have been easier to swallow but his absence is what haunts you.

You had first written the letter expressing your distaste for Caleb when you were 15-what did your mind know about the manner in which reality works, of the irreversible nature of death of the limits and constraints of this world which you had mostly encountered through concepts and through the bedtime stories grandma used to tell you and Caleb.

Your world was small.

And Caleb was not “someone among many.” He was one of two; the entire category of “other human beings” was barely populated then, and your prayers were not situated within a framework where death was even a fact to be considered- for all you knew from your own experience in the lab, no matter how bad the pain got, you somehow always opened your eyes again the next day.

Or so you tell yourself as you read your cruel wishes of him disappearing. Coming across your childish letter to Santa where you casually wrote that you didn’t kill him this year despite him annoying you so much, if only you had known that Gege had worked in the cold winter to be able to afford the things you had asked Santa for. Now you couldn’t help but behold the same words in frozen horror.

If you had died in the explosion too, you would have died with a child’s understanding of what you had seemingly orchestrated- pushed him into. But by living, you must now understand it with an adult’s mind—without the ability to amend, explain, or undo.

And the funeral comes and goes with an empty casket and people move on.

Gege cannot speak, age, err, forgive, or be forgotten. You must do all of that for him—even as it is against your will.

He is dead. But by living you are bound to him forever.

And so you are your brothers keeper forevermore.

A/n: someday I will do justice to this grief

[californiapipsqueakin]

How on earth were you supposed to do this new years paper cutting with Gege when the mean doctor has strictly restricted your access to sharp objects :((

And if your lush fluffy happy trail is any good of an indicator (due to your access to body razor being revoked) then Caleb is doing a mighty fine job of following the doctors prescription.

So much so that when you sat to draw an orchid the other day you couldn’t even find a sharpener for your colour pencils (come on that was back in middle school you wouldn’t resort to such desperate measures surely not). He’s just a meanie- that’s the only explanation there is, after all you are a responsible adult that can be trusted, yes that must be it!

But no amount of pouting actually resolves anything as the flower in question remained without an outline-

[californiapipsqueakin]

You had a strange dream the other night, in it you -

You see Caleb, you behold him and you say

“This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.”

But now his flesh is no longer there- in place of its warmth is this strange mechanical whirring and a support without safety.

Is he still your Caleb?

Made from your floating rib, he is not there to rule over you or trampled beneath - but to stand beside you.

You who is yourself yes, but he is a/part of you

A part of you

Needing the presence of another to understand the shape of your own soul- his obsessions, his desires are a mirror to your own.

The other in this case is illumination to your own being- and Caleb had always burnt bright like the sun, his shadows being consequently darker still.

Apart from you

But he is an imperfect mirror. Nothing can be reflected if nothing exists in the first place- and so instead of merely reflecting you - he resists, and his resistance over collapsing into this forbidden union, the deflection of his desire, is what gives shape to you as a person.

His restraint from giving into his desire is what makes you exist as the object of it.

And thus your selfhood emerges as the point of friction, what is left to be seen is whether you will survive this encounter of meeting him at the point of frustrated expectations even as it continues to define the necessary condition to your being.

A/n:

[californiapipsqueakin]

Struggling to the breathe through the emotions that clog your throat and the dread that threatens to drown you, you reach out blindly to the hidden shelf in your home.

Chanting of murmured curses resound in your ears, not existing if listened close enough.

Instead of a box of the relief you seek your hand clenched around a paper-

To my pips,

You can’t judge your past self for taking the decisions they did because in your current state of unperturbed normalcy you cannot even begin to fathom the headspace they were in - when all felt lost, when there was no respite

When the only way out of the situation is to numb yourself so extremely by burgeoning the present moment with food, weed, nicotine- whatever you could find to make sure you make it through it

And it is not on your good days, when you wonder what could’ve possibly led you to even try them when the sun on your face feels so good, that your resolve to quit will be tested but on days when you understand exactly why- an understanding birthed from your instinctual reaching out for them, when you are cloistered in your room, on your bed, unable to move, to speak, to breathe with no respite in sight.

And then you think back to the recent past- moments that brought you pride make you now resent yourself- how you said no to basically ten grams of weed, how easy it would’ve been, how you didn’t give in to pre new year urges and get a packet of cigarettes; how convenient it would’ve been in this state.

Thus be so utterly unable to understand you own self through temporality how could you possibly expect understanding from others?

I am the only one that understands you and the only one that can bring you respite- afterall you must have noticed how each trip leaves you more worse for wear? So focus only on me and listen close-

There’s mouthwash and paper cups to freshen you up. I have also kept a kettle and your favourite brand of instant noodles in the bottom drawer beside your bed, I know how you prefer something unhealthy during times like these.

After you’re done eating if you feel up to it there is a change of clothes in the top drawer if not then the melatonin gummies in the orange bottle should help.

Eat up and sleep. You have to take care of yourself for the both of us.

——

A/n: struggling with substances and bad days

[californiapipsqueakin]

You realised you had grown up when instead of anticipating going out or getting more pizza than you can eat at your apartment alone you now sit in the quiet warmth of shared home as Gege cooks you dinner - all of your favourites.

Tomorrow you both plan to go to a nearby roastery house- as you plan to work on your journal and he his model plane. Both being gifts from the other from the Christmas not long past.

And although you have done terrible things and terrible things were done to him- between the space of this breath and the next, everything is ok.

A/n: happy new year, may the coming year be kind to you

[californiapipsqueakin]

Where is the gravity strongest pips?

On my back - I can’t get out of bed. Days pass through me and I remain stagnant.

Where is the gravity strongest pips?

My arms, I can’t lift my hand to even brush my teeth, they are yellow like mould on my walls.

Where is the gravity strongest pips?

My eyes, I can’t lift them to meet my own gaze. I am scared I will see someone I don’t recognise.

Where is the gravity strongest pips?

My head, it remains bowed as I walk through corridors of people.

Where is the gravity strongest pips?

My heart, it has dropped down to my stomach. It churns in a sea of bile and dread.

Where is the gravity strongest pips?

My stomach, it feels like my organs are free floating as I step off this ledge.

Where is the gravity strongest pips?

404 not found

[californiapipsqueakin]

‘Oh god. Oh fuck’ you murmur under your breathe again and again as your body stands seized by dread.

The same dread that has been pooling in the pit of your stomach, slowly stagnating when your attempts as distraction succeed over the past month suddenly washes over you like a tsunami.

You sit on your bed, not even out of the blankets or a hair put up as your laptop screens blue glare burns into your eyes.

Semester grades-

There were A’s yes but that was the standard, that was the only option, there was a blank grade still to be given, a B+ but the worst of all, the course that has been haunting you- a high level philosophy elective- was a garish C.

The offensive letter seamed and did laps infront of your eyes. Without noticing your breathing got laboured blinks a bit more forceful- as if the next one would rectify what was on the screen even as it remained burned to the back of your eyes.

It was your penultimate semester, throughout this time you painfully made sure to keep a straight a profile - knowing that you don’t have the luxury of anything else. Endless days spent with your racing heart alone in the dorm bed, of ingratiating yourself to the teaching faculty of going to office hours.

With no familial advantage, connection or care, as Caleb studies far away at the DAA, you had no choice but to be beyond reproach.

And somewhere along the line somewhere slipped, you began experimenting with cigarettes in March and this semester you were high thrice a week.

And the same fear that scared you the most, to drown so deep and not even be aware of it, ambushed you. High level electives outside your major, unfamiliar subjects, substance as coping mechanisms - a puff an every time an overexcited voice called their mom and complained to them.

You didn’t have the luxury to complain and so you shut your mind the only way you could immediately see.

——————

It was still the 30th of December as you sat in your bed unable to think, unable to move. The screen saver had kicked in as you blankly traced images of nebulae and the Milky Way.

This type of thinking was dangerous, it made you step a bit too back, retreat a bit to much, disregard not only the impact of one semesters three grades on your life, but your very existence.

Caleb found you like that, sitting in bed. You were both home for the holidays and you couldn’t bring yourself to meet his eyes now. After all you have bought all your weed from the monthly allowance he had sent you over from the DAA- his hard earned money.

You wanted to scream.

‘Breakfast pips?’, he asked casually with the same smiley eyes as if the world was not ending, you resented him then. You hum, jaw clenched, not trusting yourself to speak without bursting into tears.

You were not the victim of an arbitrary educational system because you chose to get high and so you can’t cry about it now- it just doesn’t make any sense. Maybe if you bury yourself deep enough in your blankets you will wake up to your hunters induction ceremony where grades and college would be a thing of the past and you would have a steady job to support yourself and prove your worth.

Josephine would surely ask for your grades, that’s what she does like clockwork every semester. You try to call her every weekend out of filial obligation you don’t really feel and the first thing to the last thing on call if how you must ace your studies.

You stay in bed, refusing to get up and face anything, as usual refusing to take accountability.

​A/n: I know how to write about my misery because I am it but I dunno how Caleb would console us mostly cause he’s not there and my grief is too vast and all encompassing to allow a silver of imaginary comfort- possibly a part 2?

[californiapipsqueakin]

Escape velocity

Dead dove: do not eat

It was the calm after the storm of a train leaving the platform. You sit alone with the handle of your suitcase digging into your forehead but you couldn't care less.

Two minutes- the total time you had been late by, the perfectly adequate margin to not even let you have the poetic closure of getting to see the train leave in the distance, instead all that greeted you was a fatigued silence.

The winter sun sepped in in a strip on the space between the tin shed of the platform and whatever train stood there at the moment.

The faint hum of the whirring machines filled the background as the world held its breath.

You had come to bloomshore for a supposed relaxing Christmas break, whether it was the grief that came with the place or the absolute lack of anything that could be the object of that grief, the trip had been far from joyous.

And now that you finally had a chance to leave this place you had missed your only chance to board your escape.

You try to sit and think back to where it went wrong, you remember leaving the house fifty minutes prior as you got down the elevator, but the next conscious memory you have is of sitting in traffic phone screen split between tracking the train and her present location on the map

You had fervently prayed then, believed in God so vehemently it would put saints to shame.

If only you knew then that the train had already departed by that time and your separate pleases served no other purpose than to be a comedic relief to the universes unending churning.

You remained unmoving as the plastic casing of your suitcase handle digs into your skin, and you stare ahead blankly as the screen of your phone flashes with bright orange and blue colours: 'Booking successful!', all with exploding apples with confetti.

Bloomshore → Linkon

Boarding: 19:00 hrs 26th Dec, 20XX

Arrival: 08:30 hrs 27th Dec, 20XX

As the network wobbles, or perhaps just your knees, the webpage reloads and fails - no response from the shady all too cheerful website even as you get mailed the details of your upcoming journey.

Instead of a sense of excitement at the anticipation of this novel event, inexplicable dread pooled int he pit of your stomach by virtue of the contours of your body's and the f on your birth certificate no matter your very beings vehement protest against it.

Why won't anyone care more? A jarring lack of any queries struck you. You were overcome with an all consuming impulse to collapse on the filthy platform floor and throw and tantrum with deafening cries.

The resistance between this movement and the possibly future where you are on the ground is much too porous, your mind screams and something gives. You can almost taste the dirt in your mouth as the ringing in your ears reach a heightened pitch giving mimicking a grotesque silence.

You blink.

It's quiet. Nobody's overburdening care is holding you down today, it hasn't for a while now.

And you're floating away, and two golden circles seem to appear infront of you

Apples you murmur out loud unaware as a gleeful smile contorts on your face at the realisation, a familiar face flashes in your minds eye as you float to the ladders on your way to reach them with a single minded determination, something about their golden hue had you convinced that if only you could reach them you would surely meet your gege once again and once you did he would surely take care of everything as he always did, and so you step forward as they hurtle towards you.

The girl steps forward to the ledge of the platform seemingly transfixed to the headlights of the rapidly approaching train.

As she steps off the platform she floats in the air with perfect grace.

She is almost floating, as if defying gravity, no longer tethered by the care of a person no longer there. She is as was Icarus, and now she takes flight to reach her sun.

A/n:

[californiapipsqueakin]

maybe if I stick to italics I’ll take up less space

thinking about Caleb’s beloved being insecure about her thick thighs and pudgy tummy, and no they aren’t cute like what you see online- all soft and cute, instead they have angry red stretch marks and a happy trail

life is hard it is and she doesn’t need this but her body is already betraying her to the truth as more prominent facial hair begin to grow on her face.

it’s hard to perform femininity when your mind body and soul all disagree and it is only the whims of society that bind you to it.

she stared blankly at Josephine as she talks in a hushed voice and takes her to a small sequestered shop then when she was 15

they took her to a small room in the back and lathered hot wax all over her face and tore it off as equally hot tears of anger pain sadness streamed down her face

she wanted to yell for Caleb

when she returned that day the women around her said that she looked pretty, Caleb simply looked at her with a slight frown- noticing the angry redness on her soft cheeks instead of the lack of hair- as if they were something he wasn’t even bothered by

that couldn’t be- everybody knew facial hair on a woman were disgusting. how could he not be repulsed?

she heard a disagreement between Caleb and their grandmother that night, fragmented phrases of …appearances…floated through her mind as confusion floated through her mind and Caleb’s face of concern from earlier floated behind her eyes.

life is hard as it is she doesn't need this feeling of constantly being amiss from her own life, but then again she can't help her body from seizing and the feeling of wrongness when somebody refers to her.

and Gege notices of course he does, from the first time he found her on her bedroom floor crying in front of the mirror with peels of her hair lying around her like a broken halo.

to seeing her grin settle into something more natural when the shop vendor mistakes her as his little brother.

and he too shifts subtly then to face the sun instead of the shadows on his darlings face. Taking tentative steps, one summer morning when he was 16, his heart raced as her face settled into a scowl at the newly coined nickname 'pipsqueak' rather than the usual tenseness and haze of uncertainty he was met with on using 'mei mei".

And it stuck, because of they noticed they never said anything, rather the expression of their gratitude was the reverting of their carefree state of bossing around their gege before they were confronted with this thing called gender.

A/n- maybe being bold is not that bad

[californiapipsqueakin]

‘somewhere in the world there is a tree that sprouted the same day you were born and has been growing along with you’

The xia yizhou asiatic apple tree that is a seed and refuses to sprout on his date of birth but does with yours.

A/n: Will expand on it later maybe with Silverstein’s framework

[californiapipsqueakin]

Thinking about Gege’s pipsqueak coming back from a trip and excitedly showing him the pictures as they lounge at home their head in his lap as he cards through their hair and wears an amused smile at their jubiliation while they speak a mile a minute.

Only to don a growing frown as the more the bundle in his arm yips and swipes through their gallery the more he notices a consistent lack of their own pictures.

‘And what about the outfits you were fretting about before leaving pips? How did they turn out’, he speaks with a light teasing tone trying to steer the conversation to the answer nagging him.

It would be a lie if he said he hadn’t noticed the way they pursed their lips or jokingly made self depreciating comments when they did see the pictures clicked of themselves.

Caleb has an entire album of them and he goes through them on nights he is restless and needs to expel a little more energy to the thoughts of his pipsqueak.

He also has one as his Lock Screen, the wallpaper, the one he carry’s in his wallet and he had also just recently placed an order for something called a photocard that he had seen girls gush about on his social media feed and couldn’t wait to have his mei mei in that Apple themed plastic sleeve to carry around with him.

And so imbalanced as it is the dynamic remained as you remain aversive to meeting your own gaze while you are the the only thing Caleb can see.

It’s ok Gege will love you enough for the both of you as he watches through the secret camera installed in your bedroom with a lovesick look on his face.

A/n: That escalated quickly lawl