Tags: Sylus/Caleb/MC, pseudo-incest, self-cest, polyamory, human experimentation, dehumanisation, medical and scientific inaccuracies.
Part 2 of One Traveler
Sylus puts two mugs of tea in front of his soulmate. It’s late, or by most people’s standards early, even if one won’t be able to tell looking out at the forever darkness of N109 zone. The tea is da hong pao, the third steep, brewed personally by Sylus. It makes the room smell richly of orchards. Still, even da hon pao doesn’t mask the scent of blood, lingering after the worst had already passed.
Everyone had already left. The doctor, called in urgently to asses both the brother’s and the sister’s situation. Later, he was the one to make a cast for Kitten’s broken arm. The steward, who run out to bring everything necessary and back again and again. Luke and Kieran, who had to help Kitten drag her brother inside.
Sylus personally checked over Caleb’s prosthetic arm, which was heavily dented and charred. The man looked at Sylus with empty eyes as he took plate after plate off, leaving only bones sealed in several layers of medical grade PVC, with needles connected to wires acting as rudimentary nerves and veins. Kitten sobbed beside them, hunched over herself. Sylus could not soothe her, because he couldn’t be distracted at the moment. The twins helped with holding her brother upright, as Caleb was too out of himself to even understand where he was. So only Mephisto nudged at her limp healthy hand with his beak and crooned in artificially changed Sylus’ voice. Kitten petted his back absentmindedly. The look in her eyes was almost as distant as in her brother’s.
A small mercy was the fact that at least Sylus was able to repair the prosthetic enough for it not to cause its owner pain or discomfort, while he figured out how to replace it. The contraption was a piece of trash, and he already anticipated how he would tear those responsible limb by limb. For a moment the desire for carnage dulled the burning in his chest caused by how light and fragile the bones felt in his hands.
Sylus sat across from the siblings on the twin leather couch. Tapping on the thick folders he placed on the table beforehand, he said, “If you insist on dealing with it now, here you go. But you should understand it’s quite an upsetting read.”
Kitten sniffed, and pinched her nose with her healthy hand for a moment.
“Did you read them?” she rasped wetly.
Kitten’s face was swollen, not only from crying, but also from getting thrown on the pavement from up high by the force of the explosion and skidding some distance on it. One side of her lovely face appeared almost skinless, and gleamed wetly lathered in healing gel. Sylus pressed his tongue to one of his short fangs. If he could have been able to share his blood it would have be healed already.
“Of course I did, sweetie. Those files have been gathering dust for a couple of years in one of my vaults.”
In truth Sylus hid the files in a safe in his most secure base. He couldn’t risk loosing them when she came to him for the truth. Recently he had transferred the files here, to the penthouse. Kitten had been warming up to him, and Sylus had hoped—
“Why didn’t you give the files to me when we were at Gaia?”
Sylus leaned in with his elbows on knees, and steepled his finders in front of him. Admitting a weakness was arduous. Sylus had lived a long life this time as well. He’d come on Earth long before Wanderers, where life was much simpler and safer than out there. Still, he’d never lost his vigilance except for when it mattered most. Three times. Their final day at the arena. The first and the last day at Gaia.
“Let’s say I’ve always relied on my own instincts regarding what’s most important. They’ve failed me.”
Doubt plagued Sylus — a result of another mistake. He’d thought Kitten’s scorn for him was borne from the link weakening. Perhaps his soulmate saw him stumbling again and again, and decided to free herself from him. A weak mate was a burden. Yet she failed to recognise Sylus not because she no longer deemed him worthy enough as a mate, but because she was no longer able to do so.
A golden thread had split. One part had reversed itself, turning into the shadow of the second. Blinded by fear, Sylus had failed to notice it, and later — to understand the meaning of it.
“I don’t understand.” Kitten sighed, her free hand rubbing her left knee, where he knew lied a recent scar. “Listen, Sylus, I am incredibly grateful for your help. It goes beyond what any friend can offer. Thank you, truly thank you for taking us in. But I don’t understand what the hell you are talking about.”
Caleb put his hand over hers. “I know what’s in the files, sort of,” he said tonelessly, still mostly out of it. “I haven’t read them, of course. I just…” He chewed at his dry, crusted with blood lower lip. “I just know. It’s not easy to explain. Or to understand. We’ll read them, and we’ll— Maybe we’ll figure out what to do next, okay, pip?”
He looked up at Sylus. Nostalgia clawed at Sylus’ throat. He hasn’t seen this face for a long time. Sometimes his soulmate had been a man. Perhaps it was their preference to be a woman, or perhaps they had no control over it. Yet Sylus still remembered the expression on that exact face, as the one who wore it had pierced his heart with a sword. Sylus had hated the holy knight, had shredded his neck and chest with his claws, paying no mind to the white armour which was supposed to protect his vital organs. Yet he came to love the sorceress that came after.
The same eyes that were once full of hatred now crinkled with a smile.
“Grown into your nose, have you?” he asked gently, quietly.
“And you haven’t grown into your ears, as always,” retorted Sylus without thought.
Kitten snatched the thick folders from the table.
“Then let’s fucking read them already,” she barked. “Apparently I don’t know shit about my own damn self! And people I trust the most play fucking charades instead of explaining anything!”
Caleb tried to take the folders from her, but Kitten rushed away, trying to hold it all with one hand. Some pages slipped free and cascaded down her legs.
“Fuck off!”
“Pip, come back,” her brother ordered steely. “Sit down and we’ll read them, I promise.”
Sylus picked at invisible lint on his slacks, pretending he wasn’t there politely. His wife always loved to argue with herself, it’s just that usually she had one voice. Sylus learned to not interfere after the first time the countess thrown a coffee table at his head when she couldn’t figure out their joint budget. Sylus was forbid indefinitely from helping with the budget for daring to joke about her habit too.
Eyeing her brother suspiciously Kitten sat back down. More loose paper trailed after her, like a wedding dress. Sylus rubbed at his empty ring finger. He felt it now in its fullest — the link. How awfully he’d missed it.
“I’ll read it,” interrupted her Caleb, as soon as his sister opened her mouth. “I’ll read out loud, you just listen. I don’t want you to look.”
She laughed humourlessly. “And what’s the difference? I’ll know either way. I need to know, gege.”
“There’s a difference between knowing and seeing,” asserted Caleb.
“Whatever,” hissed Kitten. “I hate you both.”
Caleb pressed his lips tighly together, but stayed silent. He took one of the three thick folders and opened it. Sylus knew the words by heart now. He knew the first page featured a photo of a child — a girl, about eight years old, bald, with big ears, and a haunted look in her black eyes. She wasn’t smiling. She just looked straight in front of her, waiting for whatever was coming next.
“Subject 01,” rasped Caleb, “formed after the original body (00) undergone first supernova nucleosynthesis. Sustained unexplained mass loss. Severe brain damage, moderate organ damage (multiple heart failures result in the production of weaker tissue). Major memory loss (unable to recall its previous state as 00). Psychological age appears to be stuck at around eight to ten years old. Physiological age is unable to be determined (appears to be six to eight years old). Exercise caution in handling — subject 01 is aware of its standing; it has learned to emotionally manipulate workers, allowing itself more time to regain memory and function between experiments. It mimics behaviour of a normal child, seeking sympathy from workers and asking to play with it.”
Caleb turned several pages, featuring photos of the girl from every angle.
“Subject’s tissue possesses immense ability for regeneration still. However, once separated from the body and stored away, where the subject cannot see it, the cells begin to die at a rabid rate. If the subject 01 has a visual, the cells will remain viable for as long as the subject stays alive. According to multiple reports everything but the head can be reattached with little damage to the tissues itself. Large blood loss and multiple limb loss hinders regeneration, sometimes leading to the subjects death. Removal of the head was performed only once due to complexity of the revival, and total uselessness of the experiment, as it doesn't result in supernova nucleosynthesis. The head reattached itself after 24 hours, with subsequent 5 rapid deaths and revivals recorded. Leading hypothesis states 01 had difficulty reattaching nerves and veins correctly.”
Caleb turned another couple of pages. The photos here were revolting. A vivisected body, with organs at full display, glistening wetly. A small hand with a crooked pinkie finger lying limp, detached. Half a face with such raw, animal fear displayed on it Sylus wished he could cry every time he saw it. But the tears never came. Perhaps others might attribute it to his monstrous nature. Perhaps they would be right. He wasn’t a gentle creature, so the mate he’d chosen (or rather the mate that chose him) wasn’t soft either. They were the same sort of animal. They possessed only a ravenous maw, able to take, take, and take more. Yet every grain of gentleness that could be found in Sylus was resorted for her. A child, lost in the vastness of the cosmos. Hurt day after day after day in a vain hope to learn how she survived to steal it for themselves.
Sylus knew how.
The station orbited Tellus, a small planet, poorer than most in its system. The only source of income they had were the games performed on the arena located on the station. Whoever sired Sylus this time was quick to sell him to the higher ups of Tellus. There, in the cages, they’ve met again. She remembered instantly, and so did he. The rest of the world faded, leaving only her — a dirty, malnourished girl, barely ten, but already knowing the way of life. She clutched at Sylus’ shoulders and laughed in her childish voice, like tiny bells that they hanged on their kitchens window at the tiny house they’ve brought when they’ve grown too old to travel. His soulmate called him by name, called him her husband, and Sylus’ heart was bursting with happiness even there, confined to a cage as they were.
They grew, two stalks of stubborn grass on bare steel of the station, for once matching in age. They plotted, thinking up how they’d run away and marry again. They shared everything, every little thing, and it was magnificent.
The other children and adult slaves called them devils. Cruel, bloodthirsty vile creatures. But even Sylus and his wife had never stooped quite as low as to torture a child. They killed to live, that was true. Sometimes they killed unfairly, to spare themselves the trouble. Sometimes they killed out of hate or anger. Sometimes they killed to steal, to eat, to be left alone. But Sylus didn’t believe in divine punishment. His wife didn’t suffer just so she could understand how cruel she was before. Heavens didn’t want her to repent. No, it wasn’t a lesson to be learned. She had suffered simply because Sylus wasn’t there for her. Because he’d made a mistake.
And then he had made another mistake by not taking her in. By not taking them both in. And then another still, by rushing out and taking Kitten’s freedoms and choices. But haven’t they always played that way, Sylus and his wife? Biting and clawing at each other, wrestling for dominance. Before, it was joyful. Now she was fractured, her mind split between two bodies, too chaotic to recognise her own husband.
“That’s it for this one.” Caleb closed the first folder.
“What do you mean that’s it?! Look at how fat that thing is! You aren’t done!” yelled Kitten furiously.
“That’s it for now,” gritted through his teeth her brother. “Listen, please, meimei. We’ll look through it all later. Or we’ll just ask Sylus to tell us, okay?”
As always, desires flooded Sylus’ mind. He wanted to soothe them. He wanted to put smiles back on their faces. He wanted to take their wounds onto himself. A nature like his ached to gift his mate everything he had — his attention, his feelings, his body, and all of his possessions. Yet Sylus never wanted to reach back in time and undo what had happened. Such desires were prerogative of the weak, who dreamed themselves into a stupor. Sylus didn’t make a habit out of building castles in the sky. Like a hound, he’d searched for his soulmate across the universe. If he’d stopped to create fantasms of what could have been if only he’d done something different what husband would he be then? No one was free of suffering. Sylus was aware he had suffered too, many times. The understanding bored him in its banality, like seeing an ordinary object and knowing its name. He was never preoccupied with his own pains. They came, and they went, water off of the dragons back. Only the longing was ever-present.
Still, he couldn’t offer his compassion and love now. His soulmate needed to understand more than they needed comfort or rest. They were always stubborn, including in their affection. They hunted down Sylus every time. Even now, with the way they were, they came to him. Later, when they stayed (and Sylus would make sure they did) he could do as a husband should.
In the meantime his soulmate picked up another folder.
“Subject 02, formed after Subject 01 undergone repeated rapid supernova nucleosynthesis at the first stages of preliminary chamber testing. Fully functional. Psychological ageing progression normal. Physiological ageing progression normal. Unable to produce supernova nucleosynthesis (required resuscitation). Unable to regenerate in the same manner as 01 (required medical assistance). 02 is used for stabilisation of the chamber and control of nucleosynthesis process. Exercise caution in handling: do not under any circumstances allow Subject 02 to see the preparatory stage of Subject 01 experimentation or allow them to converse before and after the experiments. As of now 02 is unable to manifest a real black hole, but it had come close enough.”
Caleb turned several pages with photos of a healthy looking plump toddler sitting on the lap of the girl.
“Subject 01 has attempted multiple times to orchestrate an escape for Subject 02. The leading hypothesis states that’s 01 had split itself intentionally as a defence mechanism. Subject 02 resembles a human more than 01, is able to age normally, and is physically stronger and more adaptable. Subject 01 thus is, in a manner of speaking, a tail a reptile must shed to safe itself. It poses a line of quite interesting questions. Does 01 understand what it did? Is 02 intentionally made to resemble a male as most staff of the laboratory are men, so 01 believes the workers would be less likely to “hurt” it? From where 01 gathered enough mass to create another body? Can it transmute energy into mass and vice versa?”
The next page showed two drawings with detailed descriptions of organs, hormone levels and other medical information.
“Genetic compound: Subject 01 and Subject 02 are genetically identical. As of yet we are unsure how it’s possible bearing in mind the fact that their bodies have different phenotypes. All organs except for reproductive are mirrored. Both possess previously unknown chromosome variation. Hormone levels unstable (possibly due to repeated exposure to stressors). Outwardly appear female and male, however all of the other metrics indicate it should not be possible. Previously 01 had different chromosome variation, which changed with creation of 02, leading us to believe it’s a sequential hermaphrodite (most likely protogynous, akin to a fish). Thus, 01 is able to change its body to suit the environment. We hypothesise 01 was “female” of its species, but later changed to more adaptive “male” sex. Both subjects are naturally fully sterile, lacking ovum and sperm respectfully. Possibly the spicies reproduce asexually, as evident of the 02 forming.”
Carelessly, Caleb threw the second folder on the table, and opened the last one. He looked at the photo on the first page for what felt like a long time. Did he recognise his other self? Or was she a stranger, much like Sylus was to him now?
“Subject 00 (The Unicorn). Appears female (chimera; similar to 46,XX/46,XY), fifteen years old. Severely malnourished. Multiple injuries at the time of arrival. Shows immense healing ability, known to regenerate organs and limbs (most notably fully regenerated brain hemisphere under two minutes). In confinement repeatedly seeks stimulation in all available form (plays with scraps of cloth ripped from her clothes, food, etc.) Violative, prone to fits of anger. Exercise caution in handling: she had already killed twenty of our people. Don’t show her you can bleed.”
The photo featured a teenage girl. She had wild white hair, heavy eyelids, and big ears, that stuck out cutely. With her black emotionless eyes, and a deep scar stretching along one side of her face she looked intimidating.
Sylus gazed at his soulmate on the photo. She looked quite similar to the countess, and that pained him as well. It was supposed to be their happy life. He wanted his wife to be free of pain, of suffering, of course he did. Instead, they got this.
Kitten wiped at her face tiredly, looking worse to wear. Her brother closed the last folder, but left it laying on his lap. Sylus’ soulmate had exhausted themselves.
But it wasn’t too late. It was never too late in Sylus’ opinion. Even a second near his wife was forth it. He’ll forge a new path for them, he’ll bend the fates another time.
Two parts of his wife looked at Sylus from left and right. Her unbending, steel will and wild nature in the form of a young woman. Her endless memory and forever devotion in the form of a young man.
Sylus knew he’d do it again, and again, and again. Freedom was something one had to fight for constantly. And any fight beside his soulmate was all the more sweet.
Caleb dreams about what have been and what would be
AO3. words: 9546
Tags: Caleb/MC, pseudo-incest, self-cest, body horror (sort of), gore (a little bit), non-linear narrative, angst, mental health issues, suicidal thoughts, PIV sex, dubious consent (for caleb), blink and you miss it mention of polyamory.
Part 1 of One traveler
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And so I decide to take both
Be one traveler I split myself good
By a process I barely understood
…
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
Took them both and many others beside
It turned out there never was a difference
WTNV, ep. 133
Even when they were kids people never believed them to be siblings.
When Caleb was ten and not yet Caleb, and his sister was eight, they were the same height, the same weight and the same build. They moved in the same way, in cautious little bursts, like neglected animals. Their eyes hooded similarly. They both had big ears.
At first people would surely think “Oh, so Josephine adopted twins!” But then they would notice places Caleb and his sister were unlike each other.
Caleb’s face had fuller cheeks, while his sisters face was more sharp. Her nose was more pointed even as a small child. Her eyes were solid black. Her skin was darker compared to Caleb’s.
So, in the eyes of people who came to know them they didn’t look like siblings. At least not the ones that shared both parents.
And then Caleb turned eighteen. Suddenly they looked like people who had nothing to do with each other. Embarrassingly, Caleb noticed all the ways their bodies were different.
While his little sister, who dreamt of becoming a hunter, was tall and muscular enough, she never got to match Caleb’s stature. She tried, but whoever her parents were (if she had any) they clearly didn’t possess the genes necessary for her to be that tall and broad.
“I still have two whole years!” she would say. And then, “I still have a whole year to grow, you know that, right? I work hard!”
She was at martial arts club all through her middle and high school years. Caleb regularly nagged her not to overwork herself, not to put her heart through too much, but secretly he was glad. She grew stronger, which meant she would be safe.
On his sister’s eighteenth birthday, when Caleb came home he saw her standing in the doorway barefoot, red-faced and still chewing on a protein bar. Grandma was standing behind her, lost.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into her…” she sighed. Her mouth was turned down almost cartoonishly sharply. She looked like that a lot before, when she was still doctor Zhang, and not grandma.
Caleb dropped his bags and strided in. When he hugged his sister, she sagged in his arms. She sniffled and chewed loudly in his ear, but he didn’t feel mad or disgusted.
He didn’t allow himself to cry too. And he couldn’t chew on her shirt because good brothers didn’t chew on their sister’s clothes just to match them.
He knew it wasn’t only about looking different. She mourned the end of their childhood. The scarce years they got to pretend they were fine.
Her mind didn’t remember, but her body did. Caleb could see it in the way storms scared her, in the way she loved movies and cartoons about Lumiere. The way she fought sometimes, with such determination. Later, he would see it in the way she looked at the stars.
After they all calmed down and ate the cake that Caleb made from the ingredients he asked his sister to buy beforehand, she found him in his room, staring at the darkened sky.
She sat on the bed behind him, and put her head on his shoulder.
“You know, today I had a dream,” she said.
“Yeah? What were you dreaming about, Pipsqueak?”
He had a dream too.
“I was a bird. I don’t know what kind though. A seabird, but not like a seagull. Or maybe like a seagull, but not a seagull. I had hands and wings.”
Her voice was quiet, like she was unimaginably tired. As she grew older her voice became huskier. Maybe because she used to scream a lot she damaged her vocal cords.
“I was in a nest, and near me was a cracked egg. Because I had hands and claws, I helped the chick in the egg to get out. And it was you!”
Caleb felt her smile. He smiled too.
“You were so funny looking! Like, grey and fluffy. I was like that too, probably. And then, like you know how in dreams things don’t go in the correct order? Then we were big. Two big birds in a nest. Other birds flew away, or build new nests, but we still lived in our childhood nest. It was so cramped there we had to sleep really close to each other. But we were happy, I think.”
Pipsqueak went silent.
Caleb could imagine her dream so vividly, it was like he saw it too. Two giant white birds, nestled close. Their beaks touching tenderly.
“And then I saw a tear in the sky,” said his sister in a low voice, “It got wider and wider, until it swallowed me. I became what was living behind the sky. I was big. I was so big, like a whole entire world. Everything happened to me, and I was every happening.”
Her voice cracked painfully on the next sentence.
“And then I was in a library that wasn’t a library. A god lived in there. He was so sad… and so cold. And then I saw a field full of dragon bones, with a boy curled near a giant skull. And then a dying, dimming golden star. And then a god of seas and fire was raging, creating a storm so big it could drown a planed. And… and… a man…”
She drew in a shuddering breath.
“What was I saying?” she said in an almost normal voice.
“How we were birds in your dream.”
“Yeah… right…”
Pipsqueak fell silent again.
Caleb read in one of his many books how when someone died their brain hallucinated or relived past memories. Maybe his sister died so many times she never stopped hallucinating. Or she never stopped dying and coming back.
“What do you want for breakfast tomorrow, Pip?” he asked, as he turned to hug her to his chest.
She followed easily when they fell onto the bed. Caleb’s own body shadowed hers, so he couldn’t see her clearly.
“Coca-cola chicken wings, steamed eggs and ramen,” she said immediately.
“Ramen for breakfast? That’s gross, Pip.”
Pipsqueak jabbed one bony finger between his ribs.
“I miss you,” she mumbled, burying her face between his pecks. Her breath felt warm and damp even through his shirt.
“I miss you,” he echoed.
They fell asleep just like that.
𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿
When Caleb first had a sexual dream about her he waked up mortified. He knew what it meant.
Boys in school talked a lot about things they didn’t understand. They boasted about things that didn’t happen. They shared videos they had no business watching.
And, well, Caleb was a curious child. He was also once, or would be one day, a curios man, woman, machine, and other many things.
Watching naked people do weird things to each other made him feel equally weird. But not like his classmates felt watching it. For Caleb it was just that — strange. Why would one want to touch a stranger like that? Why would they do it so violently? Why was the one on top always so angry?
At fourteen Caleb knew that people generally had sex with each other. Recreationally or to have kids.
He read a lot of books. And when he read all the books he could find for free about bugs, electronics, and models, he started borrowing books from Zayne. At his home there were a lot of medical stuff, so sex was always described in a clinical, detached way. So between the books he read as a child and videos he watched as a teenager existed a strange dissonance.
Boys in school talked about sex a lot. So much so, Caleb from time to time was inclined to agree with Pipsqueak when she said boys were gross.
“Except for Zayne,” she would add sometimes. “Zayne is not like other boys, he’s nice. Except for that time he was mean to me and gifted me snow.”
And that too, was something Caleb agreed with her on. Zayne really was nice. Except for that time he nearly killed his sister. Still, he would say:
“Am I like other boys then?”
“No. You’re not a boy, you’re my brother!”
And then she would try to wrestle him or pinch his sides for the crime of not allowing her to steal food from the kitchen before it was ready. Or something like that.
Even years later Caleb couldn’t figure out what exactly prompted his first sexual dream. It was a day like any other. Wake up, make breakfast, wake up Pipsqueak; make sure she didn’t fall asleep while eating and not forget to eat too; check her backpack and homework; help Pipsqueak do her hair… and so on, and so forth. His sister could even spend all day wearing her school gym uniform if he didn’t remind her to change.
The dream itself was vague. Shapes and colours. The smell of Pip’s hair. Her giggles. He couldn’t imagine how it would feel, so he just felt warm.
When he got up in the middle of the night to wash his underwear, he cried over the sink. He felt horrible. Like he was deformed somehow, only in his head. Like he was sick. It was so, so wrong. His sister was only twelve. She still liked playing with her stuffed toys sometimes, even if she insisted she didn’t. Caleb saw her arranging them for an interview at “The Hunter’s Association”.
From the ages fourteen to eighteen he would try his hardest to never have such dreams. To never imagine her like that.
The dreams still came.
𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿
After Caleb nearly died in Deepspace tunnel for a long time his brain felt like it was stewed in a pot for twelve hours. Tender, barely holding together.
He knew logically he couldn’t feel his own brain. There were no sensations behind the wall of his skull, because the signals simply had nowhere to go to be decoded. Still, sometimes Caleb swore something moved in there. It coiled around his corpus callosum, moving in perpetual circles. Round and round, until both hemispheres of his brain fused over it, halting the movement.
He would sometimes, for a fraction of a second, forget how old he was, who he was or where. Sometimes he stopped feeling his whole body. Other times he abruptly went blind in one eye.
He never told anyone at DAA about any of it.
The only thing holding him together was, as always, his sister. And some heavy medication he was legally obligated to take.
Caleb didn’t understand what happened there, in the tunnel, despite everything he came to know.
While his unwanted sexual dreams thankfully receded, he started seeing other things when he closed his eyes.
Once, just like his sister had told him, he was a big white bird, huddled in a small nest with its sibling. That dream was Caleb’s favorite. Close to it was a dream about a snake with two heads that lived in jungles.
There were many other, worse dreams. Fantastical, impossible dreams. Sweet ones. Sad ones. Caleb could close his eyes only to open them again to see his and Pipsqueak’s lives refracted through mirrors.
Sometimes she wore rings Caleb didn’t gift her. Sometimes he wore those rings too, and for that he was glad too.
And sometimes they were whole.
𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿
Caleb always strived to be the best. Ideas of his supposed greatness, of deserving success, of being exceptional never visited him. He had to be the best for his sister.
Much like a mother must patiently explain why her child shouldn’t stick their fingers into an electric socket, Caleb learned to patiently explain why his younger sister shouldn’t pick fights with children who were taller than Caleb. Well, he himself did pick fights with them if they bullied his sister. It was laughably easy to make it seem like they accidentally fallen from a tree. Or maybe they tripped badly and cracked their head on the edge of the pavement. The ones who were only beaten up or purely by accident shoved their hands under a falling rock were the lucky ones, he supposed. At least no one died.
Caleb learned all the complicated words and how to write them. He learned to disassemble, fix and assemble back all the house appliances.
At school he learned it was a man’s job to fix things, to protect and make decisions. Despite doing just that regularly Caleb felt it was not exactly right. He did it all not because he was a man, but because he couldn’t imagine not doing it. His Pip should be safe and taken care of. And he had to be the one providing care. As a child his reasoning was simple, but the older he got, the more tangled it all became. He didn’t think he had to be the sole provider for Pipsqueak as her brother. After all brothers couldn’t offer everything.
Many things he did were too intimate. Too close to something else. His sister allowed it, she even at times could go farther, forcing Caleb to stay her hands. She didn’t understand what she was doing. She just wanted to be closer to her brother. It was Caleb’s fault she expressed it like that. She wasn’t flirting with him. She wasn’t.
One part of him wanted to be her brother, her family. Relationships could end, but you always had your family. But the other part, the part which interrogated Pip if she had any boys or girls she liked, which tore apart any love confession letters he could get his hands on… The part which allowed his sister to sleep in his bed, kissed her cheeks and allowed her to touch him however she liked wanted other things. It felt like inside him lived a ravenous vortex, pulling, and pulling, waiting for the moment Caleb let go to consume him.
Caleb tried to keep it in check, but it always, always found its way to make him do something. The moment he relaxed, he found himself sticking his nose behind her ear and breathing in. Or plastering himself to her back. Every time he had to pinch her, mess her hair, flick her forehead — anything to distract her from what he’s done.
Caleb always knew he was a bad person. But it only bothered him when the bad things he was doing could damage his sister’s idea of him.
On rare occasion he imagined the day she grew up and understood what he felt for her. The way she would be furious. He was sure she’d slap him, call him horrible names. She’d forbid him from seeing her ever again. Caleb was torn at what he would do then. Would he decide to look after her from the distance? Taking care of all her problems like always, just without being able to soothe her too. Or would he just end it? The idea of ending it felt good. Right, even. His sister shouldn’t suffer because of him. Better he couldn’t bother her at all.
After his brush with death in the tunnel, lying half-dead on the hospital bed, Caleb dreamed his last normal dream. He knew it was just his imagination as everything around him was blurry, with colors shifting, light refracting in brilliant rainbows from walls and furniture. Nothing like crisp sharpness of his other dreams.
In it Caleb and his sister were sitting in an unfamiliar apartment on a grey-blue couch side by side. Pipsqueak was holding a tin can full of rock candies.
Caleb was saying something. His mouth was opening and closing, he felt the rise of air in his throat, but couldn’t hear anything.
He talked for a long time. Never once Pipsquak looked at him. She stared at her hands holding the tin can.
When Caleb finished talking, she hugged him. She pushed at him with all her weight, toppling them backwards.
And then they both were naked. Pip was sitting on his stomach, back straight and rigid. It pushed out her chest and with it — her breasts. In the valley between their soft weight run beads of sweat.
Caleb suddenly felt parched.
His sister was looking at him down her nose, like he was a small speck of dust before the full brilliance of the endless sky. Her black eyes were opened wide, shining feverishly.
“Mine,” she said, ecstatic, “You are mine!”
Her hands gripped at his chest with enough strength her short nails bit sharply into his skin.
She was so heavy. Much heavier than she was in real life. Much heavier than heaviest weights Caleb could pick up with no help from his Evol.
She pressed down on him. Down, down, until Caleb stopped feeling where she ended and he began.
Their foreheads were touching, making it impossible for him to see anything past her face. Her eyes looked giant, like two black holes. All light disappeared in them.
Nothing compared to the feeling Caleb was experiencing, but he thought it must be happiness. It’s like he was submerged in warm, loving waters. He felt the movement of it over his sister’s head and under his back.
He drifted, his only sense being touch — feeling his sister move rhythmically above him, feeling her muscles and bones shift under their skin.
After he woke up, he threw up all over himself from the pain and shock of being shoved back into the world. Even later the feeling of acceptance hunted him for months.
But then came other things. The anti-gravity chamber, Father and death.
So he really had to be the best. For her, and to make up for what he wanted. For them to be free.
But however much he tried, he couldn’t built a concept of what happened in the tunnel. Caleb felt he greatly lacked something to grasp it fully. His brain was a machine always working at half-capacity, assembled wrong and missing parts.
Or perhaps one just couldn’t understand the universe in its vastness. Perhaps no one could comprehend the complexity of all possibilities, tungled up and intercepting like animal trails in the jungles. Least of all Caleb, who could barely see past his sister’s silhouette.
𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿
At twenty three, his sister had dark circles under her eyes. Her usually somewhat matching Caleb’s short hair grew long past her ears. The green hair dye washed out, losing its vibrancy.
Caleb took her rough and calloused hand in his equally rough one. The skin on their palms rasped, sliding drily against each other.
He didn’t dare do anything more.
Pipsqueak flexed her hand. Fragile bones grinded under the canvas of her skin. Caleb felt the movement like his own.
She didn’t try to grow her hair out since she was fourteen. In the laboratory they always kept them bald. It helped with affixing electrodes to their head. When grandma took them in, they were allowed to grow out their hair. But since they liked to match Grandma cut their hair the same way. Caleb didn’t like remembering caregivers at the orphanage cutting his hair, but not Pip’s.
“All the girls at school got long hair!” Pipsqueak said one day. “I want to have long hair too!”
“Okay, sweetheart,” said Grandma calmly, while Pip was practically running in circles around her.
“I want to dye it green!”
Grandma opened her mouth, then paused. Her warm eyes slid to Caleb, probably imagining him with green hair too. He desperately wanted for her to say “No”.
“Okay,” said Grandma again.
“Hell yeah!!!”
“Don’t swear,” said Caleb.
“Softer, please,” said Grandma at the same time.
And so began the saga of Pip dyeing her hair. The growing out part quickly made her angry. The movement and the feeling of long hair overstimulated her, so she gave up, grumbling how annoying it all was. But she liked Caleb’s long hair, even though it wasn’t green. She was even reluctant to let Grandma cut it again.
“Why green?” Caleb had asked one day, carefully applying hair dye on the back of Pip’s head.
“‘Cos I am miss Green Apple, duh.”
Caleb laughed.
“Should I dye my hair red then?”
She looked at him askance, like a cat in that one meme.
“No, your guy friends will make fun of you.”
“It’s fine. I can still do it.”
His sister looked away. From his position behind her Caleb could see the way she clenched her palms on her lap. He paused, unsure.
“Don’t,” said Pipsqueak, “You have your own head. So use it.”
Now, Caleb couldn’t figure out what made her grow her hair longer. Did she do it for someone? To match her friends? Did she want to forget him? What did she want, he thought, mystified, while looking into his sister’s bottomless black eyes.
She lowered her gaze.
Two hands, one bigger, one smaller, held palm to palm.
Fragile peace enveloped them.
If Caleb lowered his head a bit, he could kiss the crown of her head. But he didn’t. Of course not.
The words still rung in his ears. It’s like they got stuck in his head, snugged on some ragged edge of his mind.
You killed Caleb.
You killed my brother.
I hate this uniform.
I don’t need you.
Every single word felt like a new needle, stuck through bone.
“Let’s eat,” Caleb said, because it was the only way he learned to express how he felt about her.
“I am not hungry.”
Caleb brought the bag in his other hand closer to her face.
“At least try something. Gege made your favourite things.”
They were standing on the threshold of her apartment, stuck on the opposite sides of it. Caleb wasn’t sure he was allowed in. Pip was probably unsure if she could step out.
“Gege.”
His sister said it like she was just repeating a word, not like she was calling to him. How many times had he heard her calling “Gege, gege!” barrelling down the stairs, eager to show him this thing or that? Why didn’t he think to count it? To write down every occasion?
His thoughts halted. Someone was walking up the stairs.
Caleb turned his head sharply. The movement, too abrupt, made his head loll a bit, metal plating weighting it down.
On the stairs stood a man. There were greasy paper bags in his hands.
“Are you okay, partner?” he asked, his blue eyes shifting from Caleb’s sister to him.
Caleb bristled inwardly. Yet, the far back of his mind was awash with light. A radiant flower bloomed there until Caleb’s right eye went blind.
“I am okay, Xavier. My… cousin is just visiting.”
Pip smiled brightly.
“He’s kinda rude. But that’s about it,” she added.
The man, Xavier, nodded.
“Okay. Come at my place when you are free, alright? I just got the new volume.”
Soft-spoken, almost shy. Strange how a man like that could rule the whole—
Something in Caleb’s head popped loudly. Or rather it was like someone clapped inside his skull. He felt warm salty liquid run down the back of his throat.
“Sure,” agreed Pip, still smiling. “Want me to grab something for exchange? That game about a rabbit lost in the woods maybe?”
Caleb awoided looking at the man. He didn’t want spewing more cerebrospinal fluid. Pip would think he had a cold.
At the end, after her small talk with the man who shined like a star, Pipsqueak led Caleb into her apartment by the elbow.
They ate everything Caleb brought with him, sitting in her small kitchen. She opened expensive wine, gifted to her by her friend.
“He’s, like, so rich. I’ve never seen a person who cold spend millions like it was nothing. Well, one of my employers is like that too, but he’s less in your face about it. He just paints. Do you want to see one of his paintings? I have photos from the exhibition.”
Caleb listened to her talk till the sun set.
𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿
When they had sex for the first time on his (theirs?) birthday, Caleb couldn’t move for half a day afterwards.
They’ve done it till sunrise, sweaty, and somewhat chafed from head to toe.
He was lying on a carpet in his Skyheaven house spread eagle, with Pip lying on top of him, curled on his chest like she did when they were children.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
“Bold, trying to be all manly when my knee is so close to your balls,” said Pip flatly.
“I am fine,” he yielded.
“Good. Me too.”
She fell quiet.
Lying like that Caleb could see all of her, bathed in yellow light of the morning sun. Strong arms, curled over to fit on him. Between her forearms he could see her squished breasts. Some time before he tried to fit one whole thing in his mouth. Almost succeeded too. He had a big mouth (“Because you yap so much,” Pip would sometimes say, angry), and her breasts were small. The feeling of a part of her in him almost made him come. He sucked and nuzzled there for a long while.
Her stomach, taut with muscles, had three cute moles near her bellybutton Caleb had dreamed of kissing for a scary long amount of time.
The jut of her hip, turning into a soft curve of her ass. In the shadow between her thighs was hair that felt strangely soft on his face. The way she was there, warm and wet. Inviting, but once you got in, she was like a steel trap.
Her knees were actually near his balls, huh.
Caleb turned his gaze to the seling. All of that gazing made his dick try to get hard again.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked, as for once he couldn’t guess. His mind was too full of the things he felt and saw.
Pipsqueak mumbled something into his chest.
“What was that, Pipsqueak?”
“How good it felt,” she rasped, clearly annoyed, “Should have done it earlier.”
“With me?”
Pipsqueak slid to the side and sat up. With her bare ass on the prickly carpet. Bad Pipsqueak.
“You are dumb,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“I am going to go get a wet towel or something. You are crusty.”
Pip pointedly scratched at the matted hair on his crotch.
“No, I’ll go.”
“Uh-huh.”
Pipsqueak got up. Towering over him, she looked like the wast sky. Impossible to know or to grasp.
Caleb grabbed her ankle.
“I’ll be quick,” she promised.
After she came back, freshly kinda washed with a wet towel, she did the same for him. With joint effort they got Caleb onto the couch and Pip onto the Caleb. Pipsqueak covered them both with a fleece blanked, shoved her cold nose into Caleb’s neck and went out like a light.
Caleb didn’t sleep until the night came. He just lied there, under her.
𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿
The second time they had sex Pipsqueak initiated by grabbing his dick. She fished it out of Caleb’s grey sweatpants like she fished stuffed toys from the claw machine — swift and precise.
“Woah,” she said, folding down to get a closer look.
Caleb felt like his head was going to explode.
They were sitting on Pipsqueak’s bed, just about ready to watch a movie and nap. Pip was wearing an old stretched out t-shirt with collar so wide it fell down one of her shoulders, and his underwear. Hence why Caleb was left with only sweatpants — she stole all of his clothes while he was showering.
Caleb grabbed the offending arm.
“What are you doing?” he asked, trying to sound stern, like a good big brother would.
Despite using this very tone of voice often, he failed. His voice came out breathy, almost moaning. He was so easy, it almost made him angry. But no, it was her. Of course her warm palms could do anything to him and he would thank her.
“Looking at you, duh,” she answered, unbothered.
With her other hand she lowered the band of Caleb’s pants to get his balls out too. She squeezed them a little, then rolled them around.
“The skin is so weird here,” she mumbled, “All wrinkly.”
Caleb whimpered. His dick hardened so quickly he physically felt blood rush down from his brain.
“Stop,” he said. Even he didn’t believe himself.
Pipsqueak ignored him. She pumped his dick a couple of times, not caring it was dry or that Caleb’s hand hang limply on her wrist still. Callouses on her palm chafed the soft skin there. It hurt. Still, Caleb found himself leaking horribly. It hurt, but it was so good, because it was her. She was doing it to him. She could tear his heart out with her bare hands, crack his head open, whatever it was, it would feel good. It must.
“Huh,” said Pip, “Should it be so dry? Mine is always wet. Hang on…”
She let go, at the same time shaking Caleb’s hand off of her.
In horror movies there often were this specific moment when before something awful happens time slows down. It gets unnervingly quiet. Everything stills. Caleb felt like that. Like a helpless victim about to be devoured by a monster.
His sister swished her tongue around, gathering spit. Then she opened her mouth, stuck her tongue out and drooled thickly onto her palm.
Caleb’s stomach did a somersault.
“No, wait…”
Pipsqueak ignored him once again. Her spit-slick hand glided on his dick — up, then down, then up again. Caleb never felt dizzy in his life before now. His head felt light, floaty, his arms weak.
“What are you doing?” he rasped.
“I saw it in a video.”
“Don’t watch videos like that, Pip.”
Pipsqueak looked him squarely in the eyes.
“Don’t piss me off, gege. Am I not being nice to you?”
When Caleb flipped them, gripping her wrists with his prosthetic arm, she smiled.
She continued smiling when he ripped apart her (his) underwear, hitched her legs up and showed his face in between her thighs.
Whatever he did, she liked. She liked it a lot.
When he moved inside, he felt her soften. But the softness still gripped him like a vice. Every time he moved out of her, she would cling to him. Looking down between her legs, where a part of him disappeared inside of her made him choke on air.
His sisters hands were tightly woven around Caleb’s neck.
“Faster,” she whispered haltingly, “Harder. Go as fast and hard as you can.”
Caleb gripped her slack thighs and tugged her onto himself. A far part of him thought that she would definitely bruise. The skin on her legs would turn purple, like far galaxies. Maybe he could bruise her inside too. Leave a mark deep inside her core.
Foreheads touching, they breathed into each other’s open mouths. His harsh exhales turned into her inhales. She breathed out her pleasure into him.
However far he flied after he couldn’t forget the smile on her face at that moment.
𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿
One day Pip came back with short hair again.
She sat on the big sofa in Caleb’s apartment in Skyhaven still in her hunter’s uniform, minus heavy combat boots she left at the door. Caleb never tolerated dirty shoes at home.
Her back was bend like it hurt to stay upright. But her face was blank when she looked up at him.
“I had a dream yesterday. It was the end of the world. I didn’t know what to do, because everything had lost meaning. All was going to end, so what was the point in doing anything?” she said, not even blinking.
His sister’s eyes were bloodshot. Her face looked slightly puffy, and there was something sick about it.
“And then your called me from the kitchen. We were back at home. You asked, ‘What do you want for dinner, Pipsqueak? I can make coca-cola chicken wings or we can order pizza.’”
Her voice got raspier as she went on.
Caleb stood before her, bound in one place by her gaze. She agreed to come visit Skyhaven, so Caleb actually cooked. He made fried chicken wings. Now a big plate of crispy golden wings was lying on the kitchen counter, cooling. Caleb’s hands still had breading on them. But it wasn’t cooked in cola.
“I said I wanted chicken wings, duh. So you nodded, and started cooking. I felt so… scared just standing in the kitchen. Hopeless. I knew we were about to die.”
Her voice wavered. She sniffled, then wiped her eyes with the palm of her hand.
Caleb felt like his heart was pierced with a needle.
“I don’t know. It felt so opressive. I wasn’t afraid of death, I don’t think. I just didn’t want all of it to end. The way we went to the arcade, and worked on our homework at the kitchen table, and went on walks to the park… million small things I loved were going to end. They did end, when you died. I thought I would never see you again. All that was left of you was the necklace, some clothes you left at my place, a couple of photos. The things Gideon brought from your DAA apartment. I just wanted you to come back.”
Tears were streaming down her face. Pipsqueak’s eyebrows scrunched pitifully forming a triangle on her forehead. Looking down at her, Caleb thought she looked like a child.
He crouched down. Maybe he was going to hug her, pat her head. Or maybe apologise. Prostrate before her for the sin of leaving her alone. But the decision was never his.
His sister cradled Caleb’s face in her palms. They were hot and dry on his wet cheeks. She was almost feverish.
“But someone else came back wearing your face. That’s what I thought.”
Caleb grasped her hands. He knew he no longer was the elder brother she wanted. Maybe even he never was that person. He was just very good at pretending to be.
“You lie so much. You don’t allow me to be by your side. You say you are always fine, but I know you are not.”
Tears still flowed freely from her reddened eyes. They were opened so wide it almost looked painful. Caleb could see his own face reflected in them.
“Do you hate me? Do you think you’ve had enough of cleaning after me? Is that it?” she whispered hotly, “Do you think me so weak and dumb, I won’t be able to share your burdens? Answer me.”
His sister dug her fingers into Caleb’s cheeks. It stung, even with her short round nails.
“No. No, of course not. I just want you to be safe.”
Pip closed her eyes. Her mouth hanged open, a few strings of saliva, thick from crying, stretched between her lips.
She swallowed. Caleb reflexively swallowed too.
“If I am perfectly safe and good, and you fuck off somewhere to die again I am going to slit my throat. See how you’ll save me from that.”
“Pipsqueak…”
His sister let him go. She stood up, furiously wiping her face with her sleeves.
Caleb stood up with her, his hand hanging uselessly in the empty space between them.
“In the dream—” Pip swallowed thickly, glanced at him and then turned away. “In the dream we ate the chicken wings you made. They were good, like always. And then…” her voice wobbled, “And then we died. Right there at the table. It… our house… ex…”
Caleb hugged her from behind. If she didn’t let him see her face so be it. But he couldn’t wait, couldn’t stand here doing nothing.
Sobs wracked her thinned frame.
“Gege, don’t leave me anymore.”
She could barely get the words out. But even if she stayed silent Caleb would’ve understood.
“Okay, Pip,” he said into her neck.
It really was bad she cut her hair again. Now she certainly could feel his own tears, sliding down her skin.
He was the weak one between them. But he would never give up the chance to be holding her together in moments she needed someone beside her.
𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿
“I had a dream,” whispered Pipsqueak from her spot on the floor near the sofa.
Caleb laid his head on the edge to get closer to her.
“What kind of dream?” he asked.
“You were the sun. Like literally the sun. I had to look up to see you, but you hurt my eyes.”
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, it’s fine. You didn’t mean to. So in the dream I was sometimes me, sometimes a snail and sometimes even the sky. It felt weird to be the sky because you were kinda inside me.”
As she said the last part, she looked at Caleb askance. It was dark, but his right eye saw everything perfectly. Pip looked embarrassed.
“A snail?”
She nodded, clearly relieved to have an out.
“Like a common snail. Any snail. Maybe every snail was me, actually. I don’t know. Being a snail was weird too, for some reason it always thought that it was also the sun.”
“Small brain probably.”
“Probably, yeah. And when I was me, you hurt my eyes.”
“Yeah,” he echoed. “You said.”
They both fell quiet. After about ten minutes of silence, Pipsqueak scooched her butt closer.
“Do you— Have you—” she grunted, frustrated with herself, “Were you ever with someone? Now?” she finally asked through gritted teeth.
It was a little funny how angry she sounded.
“No.”
“Like ever? Why not? Even Gideon?”
“Like ever. Because I don’t want to. What does Gideon have to do with anything?”
Pip stared at him even though Caleb was sure she couldn’t see anything.
“He’s your closest friend.”
“You are my closest friend.”
Pip let out a “pf” sound sharply.
“I am your sister!”
“So what, we can’t be friends?”
“Don’t you try to confuse me, mister Xia,” she wiggled her finger. She probably thought that’s where Caleb’s face was, but actually it was closer to his stomach. “Why?”
“Never liked anyone except from you. Also Gideon had a boyfriend for as long as I’ve known him.”
“What, like eight years?!”
“Yeah. I’ve seen him once. He’s a bit older.”
“Cool.”
“When I… wasn’t here, have you?.”
Caleb was a coward, as his sister said. He couldn’t ask properly.
“No. And before you ask, because I didn’t want to. No, not even captain Jenna. She’s too professional for that. Also Tara has a crush on her.”
“Poor Tara.”
“She’s coping.”
Caleb hesitated. Still, it burned his throat. He was supposed to be smarter than this. Quick witted, intelligent and prone to manipulation — as was written in his profile.
Yet here, in the dark, lying on a rickety sofa in front of his other half he felt dumb.
Something in his half-metal skull sparkled and sizzled.
“I don’t care for it much,” said Pip after some silence. She lowered her head to stare at the carpet, so he could only see the top of it. “Never did. I just want us to be fine. To live good. Whatever you want — we’ll do it.”
Caleb patted her hair. Familiar short dark green strands felt soft under his palm.
“I don’t want you to do what I want. You have to want it too.”
“Why do you think I asked? Why do you think I made you promise to never have a girlfriend? Are you dumb?”
“Maybe you are just confused.”
Pip suddenly looked straight at him, despite evidently not being able to actually tell where he was before. Her face was a grimace of fury.
“You are dumb. You are an idiot. One step forward and two backwards. Fucking decide already. Do you want us to be family or to be together?”
“I want all of it,” Caleb rasped. “Don’t swear at me, Pip.”
His sister got up, throwing his hand off.
“Then have it all. Haven’t we decided to not let good things spoil and rot?”
She marched to her bedroom, throwing a toneless “Good night, gege” over her shoulder.
𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿
When Caleb’s body started the complex process of dying (again) he saw a memory. It wasn’t a dream, because he was human or at least someone humanoid enough. He wasn’t a bird, or a snail, or the sun.
He was a child.
Caleb didn’t remember a lot of his childhood. Allthought he certainly remembered more than his sister, his memories before age seven were full of holes. Like someone drilled his skull open and scooped half of it out with a spoon, dipping randomly.
He remembered being smaller than his sister. In one particular memory she made cloth dolls out of scraps of ripped bedsheets. She moved them about, playing out some story he forgot details of. His sister looked about eight years old then. She looked about eight years old until Caleb turned ten and doctor Josephine Zhang turned into grandma.
Caleb, before he was named that, just sat before her and looked at the performance she put on with cloth dolls. He realised much later his sister had tried to make him laugh.
When he started to die, he found himself in the same white glass room he lived at with his sister as a child. It’s just that this time he was alone in there.
There was no paper cranes, no cloth dolls, no second metal bed.
He sat on the floor, chained by both legs to a thick metal hook hammered into concrete.
He was also much older than he ever was in the laboratory. Upon examining himself, he found out he should be about fifteen. He had long scraggly white hair, long jagged nails and a lot of scars. His left shoulder and chest ached every time he took a deep breath.
It was also not his body.
Caleb stared at (not) his palms. He knew them, because he held them almost every day on the way to the school. Those exact long thin palms, with the lines on the left forming the letter “M”. And the crooked pinky on her right hand, which slightly affected her grip.
Careful examination revealed scarring Caleb’s sister didn’t have. All scars were keloid, often with visible suture holes.
On the palm of their right hand was a thin white scar. Looking at it closely brought a faint memory of a boy about the same age, tall, and thin, with a big nose. The memory felt good, safe, but also brought a dull ache of separation.
It was a surprisingly familiar feeling. Caleb remembered feeling that way when Zayne moved away. It was a feeling he could never place. An echo of something long forgotten. Like a dream repeated back to him.
Sometimes, when Pipsqueak looked at certain things her eyes would glaze over. Caleb always turned to look at them too. Those were rare things. Photos of Lumiere in the news. Pictures of Lemuria artefacts in art books. A video of snow falling, when all got so quiet you felt like you’ve gone deaf. Red gemstones. And a… Caleb’s thoughts halted. There was something else too. A fountain. A golden bridge. What was it?
He couldn’t focus.
Caleb pressed his palms and soles of his feet to the cold concrete floor. Theirs? No, it was hers. Her body, strangely lean and sinewy for a teenager.
Her.
What was her name?
Caleb was sure he knew his sister’s name. Obviously. He called her by name too many times to count, after all they grew up together.
He looked at h(er) palm.
The letter “M”.
Did her name start with “M”? No, he called her pipsqueak. So, it started with “P”? Or “C”, like his own?
He didn’t have a name. He was 02. Or “boy”. Jiejie said those weren’t names.
02 squeezed his head between clenched fists, trying to put his thoughts in order. His chest hurt from how fast his heart was beating. He could feel hot blood rushing through his body like a flood, trying to leave confines of this body.
Slowly, the chaos in his head subsided, same as the hot pounding in his temples. He didn’t know how long he sat there. But people in white didn’t come back, so it probably wasn’t too long.
At one moment, when he could almost convince himself to relax, behind his tightly shut eyelids he saw a lush green jungle. Thick, meaty leaves unfurled, revealing a stagnant pond. It was covered by silt, almost indistinguishable from other greenery. He knew pond’s waters were black without seeing it. He had to see it.
If (s)he could look behind silt, he could see h(is) name. But he didn’t have hands to swipe away silt.
When Caleb opened his eyes he was strapped to the hospital bed. His right arm was stretched out parallel to his body, with needles inserted into the bones. They were blindingly white.
𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿
At infancy both Caleb and his sister were unaware of the world below.
Their beautiful dream ended much as it began — with brilliant explosion of light and heat.
It was the hardest thing to remember. As if Caleb’s mind was a jellyfish, unable to grip hands that tried to save him to show he understood what was being done for him.
In that dream he could see his sister’s face, bathed in golden sunlight, peeking from behind giant leaves of some plant Caleb has never seen in real life.
She would often braid their hair together, binding them. Looking at how that half-done braid swung between them as they walked, Caleb would recall when they would be children holding hands on the way to school.
His sister’s eyes were the color of viola flowers she’d woven into crowns for them.
𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿
Caleb was enveloped in blistering heat. At first he thought his skin came off, melted in a puddle under him, because all he could feel was pain. And then there was no thoughts. All of Caleb congealed into one singular experience — hot electric pain.
He’d never felt that much physical pain before, but later he would learn he will many times. He’d welcome it even, with the same determination he brought upon himself this pain. Still, burning alive was the worst of it all.
However, Caleb knew, even if at the moment his very human brain couldn’t comprehend it, due to having to process complicated jumble of signals and hormones that made the expirience of a body dying, that he what he did was right. True. The great snake circled back once more, eternally dying just to be born again.
When Caleb opened his eyes he saw his sister’s face. She was so close their noses touched.
She blinked, some sort of a soft clear membrane covering her black eyes for a fraction of a second before her eyelids moved.
She stood up suddenly and turned away.
“Unit E-02 responsive,” she said, turning her head to the side. “Yes. Understood. Yes.”
His sister looked at him from up down. The suns behind her back made a halo, drowning her body in light.
“You good?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Caleb said, because he didn’t. His head hurt, but at the same time it didn’t. Like an echo of a memory. Something in his skull ached, but it was so faint it felt like he was imagining it. Yet, the couldn’t let go of the feeling of something happening in his head.
The hemispheres split, freeing something that slept there.
He couldn’t feel his body. Below the line of phantom pain was void. Caleb tried to move his hand, but he couldn’t understand if he succeeded, because he was looking up at his sister, and not at his hand.
His sister crouched beside him. She was dressed in some sort of dark metal armour. Some parts of it glowed orange. The glowing light moved like flowing water.
She touched either his head or something behind it. The metal joints of her fingers clacked near his ear.
“A pack of local animals attacked us. You drew them to yourself, as you always do. Idiot. You got smashed into a cliff side.”
“Is that why I can’t feel my body?”
Her gaze grew alarmed. She did… something to his body. Caleb didn’t want to look down.
“Grip my fingers.”
Caleb did as he was told. Or he tried to. Which hand should he move? How many hands did he have anyway?
Pipsqueak closed her strange eyes. Usually she would sigh now, but her chest just moved up, down. No breath came. Caleb should have felt it on his face with how close they were. Belatedly he realised he couldn’t feel the movement of the air at all.
Reflexively, he tried to breathe in. Nothing. No feeling of his chest expanding, no cooling air in his nostrils. He wasn’t breathing. Or was he?
“I am going to look into your core, alright, gege?”
“Alright.”
Caleb knew that no matter what happened to you, the worst thing you could possibly do is panic. Panic robbed you of time. Panic made you stupid. So Caleb didn’t panic. He shut down all feelings and all thoughts, like he did when he still lived in the laboratory.
Caleb hadn’t made a habit of relying on his sister, but this time he had to. Obviously, she would help him. She would fix whatever was wrong. It’s just he preferred it the other way.
He heard some more metallic clicking, a sharp release of pressure. Shuffling. All he could see was two suns in the low sky and the top of Pip’s head. Her hair was extremely short. Even more weirdly the skin on top of her head matched in colour to her hair, like someone sprayed her with paint.
“Huh, everything looks fine,” she looked up at him from her hunched over position, “What’s the diagnostic saying? Run it again.”
Once again their faces were so very close. Pipsqueak didn’t have the mole under her left eyes. She also didn’t have any eyelashes.
Caleb tried to breath in again, but it stuck in his nose. He opened his mouth to suck in air, but it just rattled his chest cavity. Like loose screws dancing on a tabletop.
“Woah!” Pip pinned him down by the shoulders. “The diagnostics! Don’t scare me!” she barked.
“Don’t know how… can’t breathe in…”
His sister grabbed his chin, fixing his head in place. Her big black eyes stared deeply into his. Caleb could see himself reflected in them. Chitin-like texture of her irises rippled in sync with the orange glow of her armour dimming and brightening. Her firm grip relaxed Caleb a bit.
“You are not my gege…” she whispered. “Who are you?”
She let go of him, rocking back on the balls of her feet.
“You are probably just confused. It’s fine. Your core is fine. I don’t think there’s something more serious than a few bend plates on your side. Talking is useless, so I’ll just show you.”
Pip dug her fingers in between her collarbones, then popped one of her shoulders from its socked, moving it back. Despite a clear sound of bones disconnecting her hand didn’t go lax. It still moved, hanging on some sort of white connecting tissue.
Caleb let out a noise he was pretty sure he hasn’t made since childhood. His throat ached with it, but it also did not.
“It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt,” smiled Pipsqueak.
And then she opened her chest like one opened double sided doors. Inside was an orange glowing sphere, attached to a bunch of thick tubes and wires. Some were clipped together, like he saw in books the way people organised ordinary wires with zip ties before Chronorift. Through tubes moved some sort of viscous liquid. It made them move rhythmically, squirm inside her chest like barely alive snakes.
Caleb wanted to throw up. He didn’t want to see inside his sister’s chest. Not again.
Her insides squirmed then too. The heart beating despite everything. Like a captured bird, flapping its broken wings. The lungs expanded, quivering.
The cloth over her face slipped, and 02 could see her left eye, wide open and unseeing. She didn’t cry anymore. No one could, after loosing so much blood.
“Warning! Shell temperature exceeds 60°C!” blared a mechanical voice in Caleb’s head. “Initiating emergency shut down. 10… 9…”
“Oh,” said Pipsqueak, “That’s bad.”
After, the only thing he saw was darkness.
𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿•𑣿 𑣿
When Caleb came to, Pipsqueak was sitting beside him on the grass, twirling a long metal needle in her hands.
“Do you know who you are?” she asked softly.
“No.”
She nodded.
“You are unit E-02. I am unit A-01. I don’t know how this world is called, only coordinates. We were send here to assess if this planet was suitable for life.”
“Is it?”
Pipsqueak put the needle on her lap. Caleb suddenly understood she was very much naked. He could she all of her — her seams, her joints, small hinges of her fingers. The plate that made up her crotch.
“No. There’s too much oxygen.”
“Can’t they filter it?”
“Probably. The megafauna is too dangerous though. There’s not much androids like us. Most are just workers. It’s not like we could keep a whole planet’s population safe, you know.”
A-01 shifted to be in front of Caleb.
“Where did you come from?” she asked, looking at him like a curious puppy would. The head tilt and all.
Caleb shook his head.
“Why are you so…” He felt lost suddenly.
When Pip was a teenager he had to be careful with his words a lot. She would get angry at his wording, upset he insinuated some thing or the other. Adult Pip was more closed up. Even if he did upset her, she would stay silent for a long time. Still, words did upset her. Even words not said, even words hidden.
“So what? Metal? Weird?” smiled A-01. Her teeth were too flat. They were perfectly white, but all the same size.
Caleb shrugged, still unsure how to behave with this new, unfamiliar Pipsqueak.
He still couldn’t feel anything, but decided better than to try to actively perceive it.
“Well, I am metal because I was made from metal, I suppose. So were you. As for the weird part — I just remember. I think I was punched a bit too many times, so the main chip corrupted or something.”
“Are you okay?”
“Well, now I am. They had to dissasemble me, because my brain was fried. There has been some new development in android technology at the time, so they put me back together differently. But you know how proud Ever is of making me, so they didn’t want to trash the good parts.”
A-01 first tapped Caleb’s skull, then his chest. “That’s me,” she laughed.
Caleb knew somehow it was laughter, even though it sounded nothing alike it. Just loud irregular static. Still, there was some similar huskiness to it.
He touched the right side of his head.
“They made me out of you?”
“Yeah. A lot of the parts are your own, of course. You are bigger, so they are custom made to fit E-02 unit.”
“So my head and chest are yours?”
A-01 looked into his eyes. Caleb have never seen her face make an expression like that. It was… pure adoration.
Caleb flinched. It felt like looking into a mirror, but the mirror was warped, and everything around bathed in darkness. He could see a vague silhouette, so he assumed the mirror reflected him. It should be him looking at her like that. But not this time.
“One third of your brain is mine. Parts covering your core is mine. Some armor plates. One eye.”
“The right one?”
A-01 smiled again. She was the only dark spot in the lush pale green forest. Even the suns looked washed out, two pale-blue disks on grey sky.
Caleb realised he could look at the suns without pain. There were no black spots in his eyes, except for A-01 figure in front of him.
“I have some parts of you too. From emergency repairs.”
Pipsqueak waved her left hand.
“And this.”
She turned around to show E-02 her back. Her protruding vertebrae were blue. Caleb touched her there. The only way he understood he made contact was by seeing it, hearing the tinny clanking and the voice in his head saying, “Initiate connection with A-01?”
He dropped his hand.
“What do you know?” E-02 asked.
A-01 shrugged, lacking human fluidity of the motion.
“Everything, I guess,” she said, turning to face him.
A-02 looked into her dark eyes.
“How to make pizza too?” he asked.
She laughed hard, throwing her head back.
“That too. But I thought you’ll ask what to do next.”
A-01 smiled with all her teeth. The artificial skin of her cheeks folded into stiff approximation of a happy face expression. Too perfect, too waxy. She lacked moles. Pimples that she got on her chin every month before her period.
Seeing him quiet, A-01 touched his cheek. Her smile turned down.
“We’ve fine. Maybe we are eating pizza right now.”
E-02 chest hurt, even though he knew nothing in him could hurt. He covered A-01 hand with his own.
The world had gone to absolute shit. Firm in his belief there’s nothing left to lose, Gideon joins a strange pair of “twins” he’d met on the road on their way back home — one of the last real towns left, lead by infamous Sylus Qin.
Ch 1 | Ch 2
AO3
words 6,453
Tags: Sylus/Caleb/MC, zombie apocalypse AU, horror, POV outsider, polyamory, pseudo-incest, cannibalism, brief mention of human trafficking and mafia doing mafia things, mention of animal death and the butchering process.
(Art is based on the Cerberus door found in RE7:Biohazard)
@ilalily you asked to be tagged :)
The factory burned so brightly it illuminated the night sky, making it seem as though the sun was just beyond the horizon, and at any moment it would stretch its rays even higher, flooding the barren earth in light of a new day. But it was, of course, a lie. An illusion made to crush last vestiges of hope, when you would inevitably realise nothing changed. Another day could not make a difference. The truth tasted of charred flesh of the dead.
Gideon’s mouth was flooded with the particular bitter saltiness indicating he’d run too fast. He hadn’t eaten in some time, and now he’ll have to pay for overexerting his body too. The bounty he collected was pitiful, not even worth the pains he’d gone through to get it. It was complete and utter failure.
The twins sat a way back on the boulder, murmuring softly to each other as they checked their wounds. They payed no attention to Gideon.
The weather was turning colder fast. In a couple of days it would be winter, and unforgiving winds would strip everything from shame. One would do anything in winter to see it end. But despite the freezing air the twins shrugged off their jackets and took off the scarves. The wind offered him pieces of their conversation — the habitual nagging of two people worried for each other. Now that the shorter twin was stripped down to a tank top Gideon could see they must be a woman. A long gash on their shoulder, left most probably by a broken pipe, protruded somewhere in the corridors of the burning behemoth, was skilfully bandage by her brother with pristinely white gauze. He bowed over her, their heads touching.
Gideon turned back to gaze at the raging fire. The steel moaned, struggling to hold on. Acrid smells of wiring, rubber, and chemicals had stuck in Gideon’s throat. He snorted and spit out. Phlegm came out soot-black. Gideon wiped his mouth. Inhaling those fumes was most certainly bad in some way. They were leeward of the fire, but the smell and taste refused to go away. The wind clawed underneath Gideon’s clothes, its clammy hands holding tight. It forced him to stand still and look.
In the day an almost featureless landscape was dressed in fall’s colors — dull shades of yellow and brown. Now, beyond the fire existed only black abyss of night. The factory fought back, bright and luminous, but it would not last. Once, the factory provided means of living. People worked here. They hurried inside, after driving their own car or being brought here from the neighbouring town to do the job assigned to them. Even before that, they slept in their beds, in their homes. People lived their small lives, here and everywhere. They found meaning in everything surrounding them or at least tried to. Gideon knew they were real — he saw traces of hours spend here doing things that once seemed important. Necessary. Now those people were nothing but rotten guardians of rotten treasures.
The roof of the factory caved in with a mournful cry. Gideon flinched despite himself.
“Hey. Are you okay?” asked a raspy voice behind him.
Gideon coughed, and wiped his face again, harsher, before glancing at the twin who now stood beside him. He didn’t notice them before they spoke, too absorbed in whatever was happening to him. He couldn’t even name it, too exhausted by—
Gideon glanced at swaying glass under his feet. Dry, barely surviving under the harsh sun, it crumbled into dust under his boots.
“I am fine,” he lied.
The shorter twin furrowed her eyebrows. Her eyes seemed black, and in them Gideon could still see the dance of flames.
“I am not injured at least,” he offered, not at all kindly. There wasn’t any point in that.
They shrugged, unfazed. “I’ll be fine by tomorrow.” She lowered her head, and looked up at Gideon, somehow both fawning and pitying. “I am glad you are okay.”
Were they? Why did both of them even drag Gideon out? To make him stare at the metal begging to die?
The other twin walked up to them much more noisily. They huffed at the sight of the burning factory. The canned goods in two tactical backpacks slung over one of his shoulders rattled with every step.
“Let’s go, meimei,” they grumbled.
Up close and illuminated by the false sun Gideon could see the face of the taller twin. Soft and boyish, despite a week worth of beard. His posture was slacked, bored, but his eyes were sharp and calculating.
With them standing side by side like that it was clear they weren’t actually twins. The woman’s face was sharp, and her dark eyes shone almost feverishly. The shape of her nose seemed different from the man’s. It was just the identical way in which they dressed that confused Gideon. The similar way in which they moved and run. Like a moon and it’s reflection in the water.
“Wait.” The woman patted her brother’s chest soothingly, like she was calming a dog. But she didn’t take her eyes off of Gideon. “Do you want to come with us? Our town is nearby.”
Plenty of people asked Gideon the same question before. After a couple of times he stopped agreeing. There was only so many ways a closed community could go insane. Gideon was sure he’d seen them all by now. He even survived them. He didn’t need to tempt the fates again and again. Furthermore, there was obviously something wrong with the fake twins. He understood it not with his mind, but with the meat of his body. When Gideon looked at them his knees threatened to lock up. He wanted to tuck his chin and raise his shoulders, to fold in on himself and freeze. He had never felt like this in the presence of an alive person before. The military destroyed a part of you that feared consequences of your actions, along with your ability to feel remorse. He knew what to do to handle an alive person. But when he saw two silhouettes in the dark halls of the factory he had frozen. The flashlight in his hand shook, the dim light making it seem like the dead were twitching oddly.
But Gideon didn’t have anywhere to return, except for memories.
“Yes,” he said, avoiding looking at the man.
—
The nearby town happened to be a week worth of travel east. Gideon never considered moving closer to the sea, but perhaps there were some benefits to it. Dead don’t remember how to swim after all.
They trudged through the night for some time, putting good distance between them and the fire. Luckily the wind was blowing the other way from where they were headed, and the risk of the grass catching fire was lower.
The woman led them to a shack, that once served as a control point of some kind. The inside was stripped of everything useful. Four walls, wooden pallets and gutted control panels was all they got in this temporary shelter.
Gideon regretted his decision almost immediately. Forced to spend the rest of the night at a cramped place with the twins, he was subjected to things he’d long suspected gone extinct.
The woman almost demanded to know Gideon’s name, where he was from and why he traveled alone. But she wasn’t discouraged not disappointed with perfunctory answers given. The man was quieter, and paid more attention to Gideon cleaning his gun and sharpening his knives, than his words. His lips stayed stretched in a polite smile of a neighbour boy enduring adults talking in the middle of a sidewalk.
The fake twins introduced themselves as Caleb and One.
One sat on a faded orange tourist pad, wiggling her toes in her new pair of dry socks. Her brother put them on her by himself, with ease which only came with practice.
One’s smile made her eyes crinkle at the corners from the force of the muscles contracting.
“I haven’t come up with a good name, so in the meantime you can call me ‘One’,” she said, “Or just call for Caleb. It doesn’t matter who you address, we are always together anyway.”
While they talked Caleb was busy checking contents of their giant backpacks, sorting, and repacking everything. He gave One several baggies with strips of dry meat, nuts and berries. (She offered them to Gideon, but he refused. The worst he could do is take food from strangers. He had no idea what kind of meat it was, or if they sprinkled anything on top.) Then Caleb checked on her bandage, pinched her ear and called her dummy. His hands were light, and voice cheerful. Gideon couldn’t see any traces of resentment for being made to do things while his sister chatted.
“You tell that every time you meet someone new. Just pick one name. How hard could it be? Or let me do it,” Caleb said, rolling his eyes. He plopped beside her, so close their legs were touching.
“I picked One!” she exclaimed, puffing her chest out like she was proud of the childish joke.
Caleb leaned in and fluffed One’s hair aggressively. She didn’t like it, and a scuffle broke out. A tame one, considering how small the shack was.
Gideon observed two grown adults play fighting silently, his own routine forgotten. Caleb yelped as One jabbed her fingers into his ribs. His smile stretched so wide Gideon could see all of his teeth. They whisper-yelled, as each of them tried to gain an upper hand over their sibling.
One was wheezing from laughter by the time her brother folded her up and deposited her on his lap. Finally Caleb picked up the food baggies, and they continued their dinner in peace.
Gideon turned to look out of the only window. Deep in the night it could only reflect back his own exhausted face, and two people curled on each other.
—
He slept all through the rest of the night and the most part of the next day. When he finally woke up at the sundown, Caleb was cooking two fat rabbits on a small fire. He sat not far from the shack on the same orange tourist pad, entirely focused on cooking.
The weather was deceptively nice. Clear skies had only started to pink, and the sun rays still felt hot on Gideon’s face.
When he looked around, among the swaying grasses he noticed One’s head and shoulders sticking out. Gideon quickly averted his eyes.
Caleb chuckled beside him. “She’s digging for roots. Relax.”
Ten or so minutes later One skipped to them, carrying a bunch of bulbous brown roots. She took a yellow flower from behind her ear and put it behind Caleb’s. The action got her a peck on the cheek from him.
“Prickly!” One hissed, rubbing her cheek against her shoulder.
The meal entirely provided by One was objectively meagre. However, for Gideon the barely washed roots and cooked over fire rabbit meat felt like a feast. He knew Caleb could have added something to the meat while Gideon was sleeping, but the smell alone was enough to win over his not unfounded paranoia. At least he knew it was a rabbit.
The fake twins generously gave Gideon a whole rabbit, while they shared the other. One said they ate something during the day, so it was fine. He thanked them for the food, and for not leaving him behind too, albeit more reluctantly for the later part.
Eating so much after days of barely anything gave Gideon a massive headache. He also felt so tired he could barely keep his head up. Thankfully his stomach didn’t cramp, and he didn’t get nauseous. Warmed up, and satiated, he had spend the evening idle. An opportunity to do so was rare now, and he cherished it, with however much of the feeling he could muster.
That night Gideon’s slept much like the previous — like he was sure the dead slept, with only dreadful nothingness to accompany him.
—
On the second day of travel it started to snow. Big, lopsided snowflakes drifted lazily through the air, obscuring Gideon’s vision. The view wasn’t particularly exiting anyway. One’s narrow back swayed in front of him, with the backpack slung low; and up ahead loomed the dark forest, still mostly dressed in leaves. They walked perpendicular to the paved road, through the grasses and mud. From time to time One or Caleb would say something, prompting their sibling to talk at length. Miserable and wet, Gideon only listened to his own bleak thoughts.
By the evening the snow stopped. The sky cleared somewhat, strong winds ripping the sheet of grey clouds apart. The temperature dropped again.
One stopped suddenly, and pointed up in the sky.
“Gege, look! A dragon!” she shouted, bright and clear.
Both Caleb and Gideon looked up at the skies. A nimbostratus cloud formed a hulking body of a western dragon, its long neck bend down, as if peering curiously at them. It’s massive wings were spread open, either ready to take off even higher, or to cover the skies again.
“Cool,” said Gideon involuntarily.
One sighed. “I wish I had this thingy to…” she trailed off.
Gideon tore his gaze from the dissipating dragon. One hanged her head so low he could not see it above the line of her shoulders, as if she was decapitated.
Caleb stepped up to his sister and rubbed her back.
“A camera, Pip? Or a phone?” he asked softly.
“Yeah, yeah! One of those.” She snapped her neck up, coming alive. “I wish we could take a photo to show Sylus.”
“Yeah, me too. I guess we’ll just tell him.”
The sky dimmed. The dragon disappeared, torn apart by winds. One and Caleb switched places. They walked for a couple of hours more, now with much less chatter.
One offered him food from the baggie again, and Gideon refused once more. He still felt bloated and heavy from the meat.
“You should eat more,” she said. “Don’t be like Caleb, he barely eats too.”
Gideon stared at Caleb’s back in front of him. The man didn’t look like he barely ate. That back was too broad and muscled to belong to someone used to going hungry. On the other hand, One looked too skinny. There was some muscle on her, indicating a cushy by these days standards life, but she didn’t look quite as big as her sibling. Maybe not only weren't they twins, they weren’t even related. Caleb and One didn’t look that similar except for their eyes and ears.
But it’s not like it was any of Gideon’s business anyway.
The forest was still too far. Each of them understood entering it at night would be a bad idea. Eventually they were forced to camp on bare ground, without any kind of shelter. In the light of the moon Gideon found a flat patch of earth suitable enough to become his bed. As he picked out rocks and dry stalks, he lamented at the hastened pace of winter’s arrival. He thought he had more time. Every year it came sooner, and more violent. Maybe this time it’ll settle in its reign in a week. Was today the last warm day?
Beside him, Caleb was busy cleaning a sleeping place in the same manner. One stood to the side, holding two backpacks with ease. She stared into the dark line of trees ways ahead.
“What do your elf eyes see this time, pipsqueak?” joked her brother. He brushed his hands off and stood up, peering into the forest too.
“Dunno. Nothing much.” One turned to look back at where they came from. The night was clear, but Gideon couldn’t make up anything except for a charred skeleton of the factory all the way on the horizon, now insignificant. “Some people are walking by. There.”
Gideon looked at where she was pointing. The tall grass swayed with the wind, like the fur on a crouching beast’s back. He couldn’t hear anything. No talking, no steps, no clatter of the gear. And no snapping teeth of the dead either.
“Do we need to be careful?” he asked.
”Not really. I doubt they are stupid enough to bother us. And even if they do, we’ll take care of them,” answered Caleb in place of his sister. “You seem like a good guy. Don’t get in our way and you’ll be fine.”
One stretched her neck out and cocked her head. Still no sound came. Only the forest and the grasses were whispering to each other.
Caleb ignored his sister’s strange behaviour. He took both backpacks from her, put them on the ground and started unpacking the sleeping bags.
Gideon stayed squatting beside his own sleeping bags, layered one over the other, until his ankles started protesting One stood in the same place, looking out across the flatland. She looked like she was frozen in time. Only her short hair danced with the same rhythm as the grass. In the military even the patientest snipers would scratch their ass from time to time. But she didn’t move a single muscle.
“What are you staring at?”
Gideon didn’t flinch at the sudden question. He stayed in place for a moment, then slowly got up, making sure he didn’t stumble on his numb feet. Caleb loomed over him. He didn’t step back to give Gideon space, forcing them to stand uncomfortably close. He stared him down, eyes dark and blank.
“I just got lost in thought,” said Gideon steadily. “I was looking at the flatlands. Nothing more.”
“Yeah?” Caleb’s thick eyebrows climbed higher on his forehead. “You sure?”
Gideon tried not to blink as he looked into Caleb’s eyes. This game he knew all too well. And the game was extremely simple. Don’t show any weakness.
“Absolutely. I don’t have a habit of bothering people. And I don’t intend to get into whatever weird shit you two have going on.”
“Oh, so now you have questions about that or something? Wanna know what’s up?”
Gideon breathed out through his nose harshly, like an angry bull. He subtly adjusted his stance. There wasn’t a lot of possibilities with them standing like that. Either a choke-hold or a headbutt was coming his way soon.
“No. I don’t care.”
Caleb didn’t ease up. If anything, he looked almost giddy at the prospect of finding any reason to get rid of Gideon. Was it the same kind of crime to not take interest in his sister as taking it? Or was it the fact Gideon didn’t care about their fucked up relationship that pissed him off? There was also a possibility Caleb was the sort of person who picked fights for the pleasure of getting rid of dispensable people. But the reason hardly mattered, if Gideon was getting beaten either way.
“Shut up, Caleb,” said One, raising her voice, in spite of her brother being silent. “The guy was probably dissociating or some shit. We don’t know his problems.”
Caleb’s eyes flicked to her, but he didn’t move. Gideon realised he wasn’t breathing either. He stood as still as One did just now. Something flickered in Gideon’s brain, and despite the training instilled in him all those years ago, despite understanding he mustn’t do this exact thing — Gideon took a step back. And then another.
The hulking shadow in front of him lunged. But before it could do anything, a well timed hard jab from One’s elbow made it stumble. Caleb caught himself by grabbing One’s waist. They swayed like a strange multi-limbed creature for a moment, finding their balance.
One turned to smile at Gideon, her teeth glistening wetly in pale moonlight. The smile didn’t look apologetic.
“My brother is a little overprotective. Sorry about that. Anyway, those people have left. We can go to sleep now.”
Still stuck to her side, Caleb gently bumped his forehead on her temple. The fake twins didn’t exchange any words, nor did they care for Gideon’s hoarse “Okay” thrown at them.
Each of them got peacefully into their own sleeping bag. Gideon stared up at the sky, trying to ignore the eerie silence spread over the flatland, until he fell asleep.
—
On the third day they finally crossed the tree line signifying the forest proper. One resumed her place at the front, and they walked in the same manner. But for some reason this time Gideon listened. They spoke of the sort of nonsensical things two people who spend all of their time together often spoke, or so Gideon imagined. Do you remember when?… Does it remind you of?… Hey, do you really think?… And so on, and so forth; round, and round, and round. In some way it was similar to listening to a podcast. There wasn’t much to do in the barracks, and they didn’t have energy for something more substantial than listening to other men talk like they knew everything in the world. The host agreed with whatever nonsense their guest of the week was sprouting, same as Caleb agreed to everything One said and vice versa.
The forest loomed over their heads, large yellowed canopies blotting the grey skies. Thankfully it didn’t snow, but the biting winds came back. In all honestly the only thing Gideon wanted is to go back to sleep. Making your bed on the ground in fall wasn’t ideal, but it was far from the worst place he slept in those years.
“Hey, Gideon,” said One suddenly remembering he was also there. Yet she didn’t turn her head to address him, continuing to trudge ahead.
“What?” he asked gruffly.
“Do you know any places where we can find cool stuff?”
The question confused Gideon so much he started to slow down. But a hot palm patted his shoulder and nudged him forward.
“Carefull, don’t trip,” murmured Caleb. “There’s a lot of tree roots sticking out.”
One continued, “You know, like the stuff from before. But not the electronic junk. I mean real cool stuff, like jewellery, paintings, books. Like that.”
“Um, no, I don’t.”
“Damn…. We haven’t found anything good to bring back to Sylus in a long time. I want to give him a gift.” One sighed, and started kicking her feet as she walked like a child. A thud indicated every time her steel-toe boots met with a root or a rock.
“He won’t be upset,” comforted Caleb. “Besides, we found some food.”
“He won’t,” echoed One, “but I am. Food is for everyone. I want to give Sylus something special, just for him.”
Caleb hummed from behind Gideon. “Maybe we could make something ourselves.”
“You could. I am bad with my hands,” she whined. “I don’t understand this engineering stuff you both love.”
For some strange reason Gideon decided to butt in. He didn’t remember the last time he took interest in others business.
“You could write something for him,” he said, too loud even for his own ears.
“Like a song?” asked One excitedly.
“No, I mean like a story. You said he likes books.”
Curiosity wasn’t something Gideon indulged often in either. It required having enough energy to care about something besides his immediate survival.
“Is Sylus your father?” he blurted, staring at One’s giant backpack swaying.
“Gross,” said One.
“In a way,” chuckled Caleb at the same time.
“No! Gross!” said One again, but louder. She finally deemed necessary to look at Gideon when she addressed him, and turned her head. “He’s our husband. Just because he’s the head of the town doesn’t mean he’s an old guy. Young people can be in charge too!”
Gideon halted. Caleb tried to nudge him forward once more, but he ignored him. One stopped too. She stared at him, a clear question in her dark eyes.
Head of the eastern town named Sylus. And the twins who know and miss him.
“Please say you don’t mean Sylus Qin,” Gideon laughed nervously. “Is this where we are going?! To his town?!”
“Well, yeah.” One frowned. “What’s wrong? You know him?”
Everyone knew Sylus fucking Qin. Although communication in times such as this was limited, every poor bastard unlucky enough to still live in the east knew who Sylus Qin was. Even before the world had gone to shit Gideon had had heard about him. The man traded in everything — antiques, jewellery, drugs, firearms, you name it. He traded in people too, albeit briefly, and as far as Gideon knew he often took some of them for his own use. The exact specifics of how he used people he bought were unknown. But no one ever saw them again.
Gideon had some friends in law enforcement back in the day. When they got drunk together they sprouted all sorts of secrets one should never tell. Gideon said some things he shouldn’t have about his superior at the time too. Blythe often talked about cases concerning Sylus Qin, of which there were many. He managed to get away every time. Sometimes by killing the policemen, sometimes by buying and threatening his way out.
And even after, that name continued to come up in many conversations. People Gideon met in the settlements often had dealings with Sylus Qin. If you wanted something — he could provide, if you had the means to pay.
Gideon himself had never met the man, but he had the misfortune of seeing his sons at work. Two reedy boys on the cusp of adulthood, with wild ginger hair. The Couriers, the others had called them.
To his regret the head of the town Gideon had tried to settle down at the time was a fucking idiot. He thought he could say “no” to the most dangerous man in this part of the decaying world and live to tell the tale.
One of the couriers had put a bullet through his head, and every single one of his guards. A moment before the boy had gotten punched in the face so hard the mask he was wearing went flying. Gideon had been close enough to see the boy’s face — mangled and scarred, one cheek bitten off almost entirely. The other courier had given his brother his own mask, revealing his face — identical, but unscathed. The town had gone up in flames in an hour. Those who had survived were graciously invited to Sylus Qin’s town. And if you had happened to reject the invitation you were expected to fend for yourself in the wilderness. Which was exactly what Gideon had done.
The rumour had it Sylus Qin always had a pair of twins beside him. Even in this the fucker ensured he would come on top. He had two sets of twins with him. While one set was away, the other protected him. Or maybe the couriers were his carrier birds, while those two before Gideon were his sniffer dogs.
“So what now?” asked Caleb from behind Gideon when he failed to answer for some time. There was a strange quality to his voice, which made all hair on Gideon’s body stand up. “You changed your mind?”
One’s smile turned rigid. It was as if her face was sewn together from different parts. Ashy skin of her cheeks folded, revealing two rows of small straight teeth, but her eyes remained wide open
“No. I was just surprised,” gritted out Gideon.
“Really,” said Caleb flatly.
One inhaled sharply. Her face softened from the waxy mask it was a moment ago.
“Great! Then I am going to write Sylus a song!” she declared. But after some thought she added, “But if you remember a place with cool stuff, tell me, okay, Gideon?”
—
A couple of days came by uneventfully. They got into a routine of waking up early, eating roots and the last dregs of dried meat and nuts, and then continuing to walk on their way. In the evenings One would go hunt, while Caleb would start a fire. Gideon had nothing to do, and no one demanded anything of him. And so he would just sit beside Caleb the whole time, waiting for One to bring their dinner. She was a remarkably good hunter, managing to find enough to eat for three people in a slowly freezing over forest every time.
If Gideon ignored how off-putting the fake twins were or where they were going it was rather nice.
On one of these days they run into a pack of dead. Gideon was startled when he heard gunshots ring through the forest, nearly falling as he forgot to be careful of where he was putting his feet. Then people started to shout and scream in the distance. The cacophony of sounds assaulted the forest.
Gideon realised it was probably the group One had noticed crossing the flatlands days back. Most likely they managed to wake the dead somehow. How unlucky must they have been to stumble upon a pack, when their trio haven’t seen neither hide nor hair of even one of them?
The shots continued to ring. They were wasting precious ammo out of panic.
As the sounds got louder, One and Caleb grabbed Gideon at the same time and boxed him in near a big tree. Bizzarely, they hugged him, and frozen in place.
Discomforted by the close proximity, Gideon opened his mouth to ask them to back off, but One was quicker. She covered his mouth with her cold dry palm.
“Quiet. They are close,” she rasped.
A minute or so passed, and true to her word Gideon saw an alive man run past. He didn’t notice them, scared out of his mind. And he didn’t notice a knotted tree root hiding under the cover of snow.
The man stumbled and fell. He tried to catch himself, but his hands slipped. The bone snapped. He cried out.
Gideon saw one of the dead when it was already too close. The man, who was cradling his broken hand, didn’t pay attention to anything at all.
The corpse was hiding in a crevice. The thick pelt of snow had covered the forest floor some days ago, and refused to melt. It looked just like a mound of dirt.
Gideon tried to warn the man, but One’s palm was pressed firmly over his lips. He couldn’t lift his arms to shake her off, as Caleb held him pressed to the tree trunk. Struggling only made them hold on tighter.
The corpse lunged at the man. Once it was another man, tall and thin. Maybe it was a runner. The man didn’t have a chance.
They both tumbled down, the dead landing on top. Its rotten head quickly found its way to the man’s stomach.
As the man thrashed uselessly, he finally noticed Gideon. His eyes were brown. A lot of people had brown eyes. Gideon did too.
Wet sounds of the dead gorging itself were the only thing now dirtying the tranquility of the forest. The steam rising over from the man’s body looked almost beautiful in the sunlight. It offered a blurry privacy screen, obscuring the dead bowed over him.
Both Caleb and One breathed steadily, their heads tucked into Gideon’s neck. They both smelled strangely sweet, almost powdery. Unheard of for people who trekked through the flatland and the forest for weeks, without a source of running water.
Gideon breathed in their smell, afraid to sense a metallic tinge now permeating the cold air. The twins smell, and the closeness gone to Gideon’s head faster than he could have thought with what was happening before him. Their hands were gentle when they touched each other. And while they now held him trapped, it didn’t hurt. Unlike the man he was safe.
The red seeped into the snow, melting it into a rusty sludge. The eyes of the man bore into Gideon’s, unseeing.
Unable to take it a second more, Gideon propped his forehead on Caleb’s shoulder and closed his eyes.
The pack of dead passed them slowly. Silent, they stalked their prey, stumbling, and twitching.
Only when another shot rang to the left did the pack shake its tattered hide and run.
—
On day seven One spotted a deer.
While human population dwindled, other species began to thrive. Even the abrupt changes from summer to winter which became the norm didn’t faze some animals. They learned the new way of living. For better or for worse Gideon couldn’t tell.
In a strange turn of fate forests were once again full of wild milu. Tall, strong, and smarter than a corpse, it could fend off the dead easily. Or so the twins had said later.
When One shrugged off her backpack, and ducked to the side, quick and silent, Gideon nearly tripped over it.
“What the hell?” he whispered, the encounter with the other group still too fresh in his mind.
“She saw a deer,” shrugged Caleb.
Gideon looked around. The forest was deathly silent. The snow had significantly dampened the sounds. Not a shadow could be seen; the pale sun hung high up above their heads.
“How the hell do you know that?”
“I saw it too. It run off.” Caleb went up to the discarded backpack and put it over his shoulder. “She’ll come back soon. You can sit down if you want.”
Not one to refuse an offer of rest, Gideon cleaned a fallen tree from the snow and sat down. He tucked the backpack under his ass too, as it was almost empty anyway. The twins didn’t seem to tire much. Gideon however was constantly tired. Regular meals of fresh meat did him some good, but he was still too weak. Sleeping on the ground in the cold certainly wasn’t great for the quality of sleep too.
“Why did you let me come with you?”
Caleb glanced at him askance. He had the same relaxed posture as he always did. He didn’t seem to care about most things. When he walked for days, carrying the heavy weight of the untouched canned food, while talking to his sister about nothing he looked genuinely happy. To Gideon happiness started to look strange on people’s faces. Almost alien, it could not belong to here and now.
“Because meimei wanted you to come,” said Caleb, as if it explained everything.
“And why would she want that?”
Caleb sighed. White mist of his breath dissipated in the freezing air. “She can be nice like that. And we could use a pair of hands back home.”
“Sylus would really just welcome me in with open hands?” huffed Gideon.
“If we say you can be trusted. Can you?” Caleb raised his eyebrows in an appraising expression.
“Sure. I don’t have any agenda, if that’s what you are asking. Or a plan to overthrow your husband. I just…” Gideon trailed off. He shrugged, lost in the vast emptiness of his mind. Nothing came to him. When he looked into the future he saw nothing but the raging fire, strangling the metal frame of the canned food factory until it surrendered.
Caleb snorted. The corner of his mouth twitched, and then he smiled broadly. It suited his face very much.
“Yeah, that’s why she invited you.”
Gideon didn’t know how long it took One to come back, too busy with the first real conversation he had with Caleb. Gideon even enjoyed it. He liked planes once too.
One appeared among the trees, dragging the massive body of a deer through the snow. Its neck was broken, the head turned backwards. There wasn’t any other wounds on the animals body.
Despite being smaller than her brother, One did give off an impression of a capable woman. But she couldn’t have broken a milu’s neck. How did she even catch it? She didn’t have a gun or a rifle. And Gideon would have heard the shot. Did she run after it? How did she drag close to 200 kilograms through the forest alone?
Gideon stared at the dead deer, dumbfounded.
Caleb jogged up to One, and nudged her head with his. Gideon didn’t see anything else they might have been doing behind the wall of Caleb’s broad shoulders.
“Sylus can make something out of the antlers,” he commented after a moment, squatting beside the deer to look at it closer.
“Really?” One’s eyes shone.
She readjusted her grip on one of the antlers, pressed her foot into the animal’s skull and twisted. With a dry snap the antler came off. One grunted, but didn’t stumble, staying firm on her feet. She repeated the action. The deer’s slackened jaw hanged open from rough handling, and its swollen tongue lolled out, like a wet purple slug. Its empty eyes stared right through Gideon’s. They were brown.
Gideon jerked his head to the side.
It was just an animal.
The fake twins butchered the milu, after hanging its body head down from a tree to bleed. It didn’t bleed very well, probably due to the fact that One killed it by snapping its neck. They quickly decided amongst themselves to quarter the carcass and bring it to town as soon as possible. But the method of doing it sparkled a dispute. One said they should just quarter it and pack the parts to clean them later, but Caleb insisted they should use the deboning method of handling the carcass.
They argued back and forth standing on the opposite sides of the sluggishly bleeding out deer for some time, as the earth and snow under their feet turned to mire. Tired of staring at the gruesome picture Gideon finally snapped.
”Just break it apart! What difference does it make?!”
Caleb’s head turned sharply to him. But before he could say anything, One cheered.
“Yeah! Gideon is on my side! Leave the guts in!” She had stuck out her tongue at her brother and added, “Two against one! I win!”
Caleb rolled his eyes, but acquiesced in the end. He and One quartered the poor animal and packed the parts in some huge plastic bags probably reserved for this exact occasion.
At One’s insistence they walked all night to reach the town. Besides insuring the meat wouldn’t spoil, she was also growing bored, and she missed Sylus. Caleb echoed her sentiments, saying they’ve been on the road for over a month and should hurry home.
By the time the first sunrays colored the sky Gideon could already see the outward wall of the town. Caleb patted his shoulder encouragingly, his hand pleasantly hot and dry in the cold weather. One turned to look back, her dark eyes creased in a pleased smile. Soon they would finally reach the town.
Tags: Caleb/MC, pseudo-incest, character study, angst, a little bit of made up science bullshit.
The spaceship shudders as it touches the airstrip. The Earth’s atmosphere feels too hot, too alive on its hull; the concrete of the airstrip — too rough when it’s used to the utter nothingness of space. There’s no escape from the onslaught of stimulus the ship should not experience, yet must. It shies away from every feeling that comes from being alive, scared and tender like a newborn pup.
Caleb shuts down the neurolink to escape crude suffering of a metal behemoth. He doesn’t open his eyes, but closes them tighter instead, until bright kaleidoscope of colors dances in total darkness before him. He lets his body and mind acclimate to being meat, bone, water and only some chemical elements and electricity. There’s no use in fighting for now. What must happen simply will. Most things are easy in this way. The world continues to spin until the time to stop comes. The order of everything is such — live, then die, then live again. A neat split into two states of being. Only human will can complicate it.
The kaleidoscope is overlaid by the memory of the latest game his sister was playing when he was at home. A simple platformer she’d been playing to get her mind off of things, where a small cute round creature jumps from one platform to another, up, up, higher and higher into infinity. He sees her hands, a little rough and calloused from handling guns and the motorcycle she loves so much gripping her phone. The creature pips and squeaks as it jumps, controlled by the rapid tapping of her fingers. In a moment Caleb will mess it all up by touching the screen randomly to make her lose, and she will slap his shoulder in retaliation, not even thinking to control her strength.
Nausea recedes, giving way to exhaustion — Caleb’s oldest, most loyal friend. He leaves the control room, led by the single coordinate. The ship thrums with thousand of the Fleet’s members walking, working, wasting. It is a bustling artificial anthill, never sleeping, never truly idle. Even those who are finished with their tasks and are waiting to go ashore disturb the silence threatening to swallow them in some way.
Caleb’s heavy steps echo in the long corridors; the leather of his boots and the uniform creak as he moves. As always, he drenched his underclothes in sweat trying to land the spaceship. Stearing it is somewhat similar to driving or piloting, yet not at the same time. The ship doesn’t react to his actions — in the moment it is him. Caleb is what makes its way through the deepspace tunnel and back. He is a vessel, not its master. The flesh body reacts appropriately, reflecting the steel one.
Before the decontamination area there’s a small changing room, where Caleb undresses, and deposits his uniform, boots, and underclothes in a sealed box. Naked, he stands in a middle of white empty room, staring up into the lights with his arms raised. If Pipsqueak was there she’d laugh at him. But she isn’t there. The only company he has is galactic cosmic radiation, solar particle events, trapped radiation and reagents made for decontamination.
After a sound signalling the process is finished, he proceeds to a shower stall barely accommodating his stature. Caleb routinely bangs his head and shoulders on the walls, trying to clean himself up properly. He doesn’t think about anything at the moments like this. Decisions he makes and actions he takes are all just means to get back to her.
Caleb puts on the clothes he previously left in the changing room on the other side. The emptiness permeates his mind.
The jet bridge leading from the spaceship to Farspace fleet quarters proper is quiet. Colonel Xia is the first to step down. The bored attendant waiting at the end of the jet bridge salutes, and gives him a bottle of water and potassium iodine pills. He is saying something too, but Caleb isn’t paying attention. It can’t be anything important anyway. Truly vital information is send to him directly, not through an attendant. So Caleb only stares at him blankly. The attendant coughs, and salutes again. Done then. Caleb swallows the pills dry, and gives him back the crumpled blister pack.
He braves moving through the Farspace fleet headquarters in the same manner. No one bothers him.
The air outside smells of petrichor and decaying leaves. It’s unusually cold for this time of the year, but then again everything is wrong now, so Caleb forgets all about it right after refusing to feel the cold.
The train to his apartment is alive too. Another anthill, huffing and rattling, blinking its many bright eyes at him, screaming with its many mouths. He should have taken the car. He couldn’t have taken the car. Too fatigued, too dumb, he’d crush it into the headquarters the minute he’d get behind the wheel. When he gets like that everything sloughs off of him, leaving only a cavity begging to be filled. But Caleb goes on, because he has to. He shuts down all the other senses, leaving only sight, just to stare blankly out of the window. The imposing, impossible towers of Skyhaven flicker past. They seem like fingers of a hand ready to clench into a cruel fist.
Caleb sways with the train for some time, shoved aside and prodded by elbows, umbrellas and suitcases. Time shrinks, but not on the way it does when he’s out in space or when he creates a black hole too close to his body. Not space nor gravitational forces distort, it’s just Caleb’s brain trying to shut down. Stupid blend of water and fat. It should listen to him, not the other way around.
A woman squeezes past him, moving in front of him impolitely, making him lean back. She glances up at his face. Caleb had never seen her in his life. Probably.
She freezes beside him, ready to open her mouth, but other passengers usher her out with the tidal wave of their bodies.
Caleb readjusts him grip on the handrail and turns back to the window. Twisted body of The Astronomical and Sightseeing Tower looms over the rest of the buildings. When Pipsqueak saw it for the first time she said “Huh, it really does look like it has a tiny waist. Kinda like you, gege”, and pinched him. Then she started complaining that she didn’t have a slim waist, and looked more like a tree trunk, which wasn’t true. Even if it was, Caleb would not care. Even if she was a real tree, Caleb would have loved her all the same. He had told her as much, then. She just blinked at him, perplexed at his sincere tone. Or maybe she wasn’t perplexed at all. Maybe in the depths of her dark eyes hid resentment. Caleb professed his brotherly love often enough, but it was not the only kind of love he felt for her. Knowing what he knew now, it could be that his sister wanted for another sort of confession, standing under the tower which stretched past the clouds. If they’d climbed it, they’d arrive at a place above every human commandment. A paradise made for two.
The train jolts to a stop. Caleb marches out, through the station, out on the streets back to his apartment, without seeing anything around him. The world passes by, its joy and grief small and insignificant.
Caleb closes the door of the apartment behind him, and stays standing. Now is a crucial moment. His body begs him to stop and rest. It shakes, and it aches. But it’s wrong, as always. It begged him to stop when he burned, and when he tinkered with his prosthetic arm, and when he was stuck in the lab, and the second one, and another after that. The body always wants to rest. But Caleb knows that if he does he’ll die. There isn’t anything mystical to this knowledge. Gravely wounded people die when they finish what they consider important. When there’s nothing left to give, you allow yourself to relax, to give up, and so you die. You are done. People do it. Animals do it. Just a fact of existence.
But his sister is stronger than that. Stronger than him. She didn’t give up. He would have. He thought about at the hospital often. What if she was the first to go inside? What if Caleb had to look at an empty coffin being lowered into the cold ground? If he knew with absolute certainty his sister was gone he’d give up. And it would be so, so easy. He’d crawl into the coffin, exhale and that would be it. But she went on, as she should have. Caleb had known his sister was stronger out of the two of them since they were children. She could do all the things Caleb struggled with and come out less bitter, less twisted. But he couldn’t allow her to shoulder any burden. He’ll take it all, and barely drag it, just so she didn’t have to.
Caleb inhales sharply to stop his line of sight shrinking. Reality flickers despite his efforts. He stares down at the floor unblinkingly, swaying with every breath. Intermittently, just for a couple of seconds, blackness swallows him whole. The brain is forcing him into micro sleep.
His sister’s laughter floats from the upstairs. The floor is flooded with black waters, and as it recedes it gives way to a lighter wood.
Her shoes lay discarded, with one limp sock to accompany them. Her backpack is further into the hallway, gutted like a cadaver. The plush dog keychain on it is smiling at him with too many, too human teeth. Caleb brought it for her. It knows.
“Gege!” she calls from her room upstairs. “Come here!”
The feeling of his body falling is viscerally wrong. His intestines are hooked and yanked down, like he’s being brought to heel by a cruel master. He’d never fallen before. This shouldn’t happen.
Caleb catches himself with one hand on the wall. The shoes and the backpack disappear. There’s no upstairs in this apartment.
With his forehead propped on the wall level with his hand, Caleb breathes deeply, steadily. His wide open eyes sting, but he can’t close them.
The room spins, and dances around him, dressed in shy sun rays. Acrid taste of vomit corrodes the back of his throat.
His sister’s hand floats into his peripheral vision. The fingers snap.
“Caleb! Get up!” she bellows.
The reality snaps back too, crisp and overwhelming. He sways, his left eye socket dangerously close to the corner of the small table. His eyelashes snag on it as he blinks dazedly.
Thankfully he’s still upright, only on his knees. Caleb straightens his back. The clothes sticks to his back with sweat. He’s shaking from the cold. But it’s okay. The worst part is over.
Caleb gets up and takes a step. Then another. The body needs many things, but Caleb needs only one.
He cleans himself a second time, now even more meticulously. The water is freezing. He doesn’t acknowledge the fact, even as his teeth chatter. Pain is a good friend to those who can’t afford to stop.
As always, after a lengthy shower he strips the artificial skin from his prosthetic to check if it’s dry inside. People at the lab insisted he should always wear a special glove over for double protection, but he never bothers with it. Usually the skin itself is enough, and if the water does get in, he can just disassemble and dry it.
Now clean, he treks to the kitchen. In the fridge he finds leftovers from the last time Pipsquick had cooked dinner. She won the privilege to do so by cheating in Da Lao Er. Caleb doesn’t remember when it happened, but it doesn’t really matter. He’d never throw away something his sister cooked anyway.
He eats right there, standing naked in the kitchen in front of the fridge, and staring at the screen on the door, featuring a carousel of photos. Here’s a professional photo of Pipsqueak wearing a green hanfu, looking almost regal. Here’s a blurry snapshot of her yelling about something that happened at work, wearing shorts and a stretched out tank top. Pipsqueak with colorful make up, tiny flowers spread all over her cheeks like freckles. Pipsqueak tired from the summers heat, with sweaty locks of hair stuck to her forehead. Pipsqueak showing him a new look she put together, brand new clothes fitting to her figure perfectly. Pipsqueak showing him the tooth she accidentally chipped eating ribs, lip tugged far back. All of it beautiful.
Finished with eating, Caleb returns to the bathroom to finish cleaning up. He brushes his teeth, scrapes his tongue and flosses. He shaves, making sure his face is as smooth as possible. After some consideration he shaves everywhere else too. Even though he’s much too tired for sex now, Pipsqueak might want to touch him in other ways, and he needs to be nice for her. Caleb has done it even before, like a sort of ritual. In their teenage years, Pipsqueak, as many girls did, had gotten the ick from the boys in general. She had said boys stank; that they were hairy and gross. In a fit of strange desperation Caleb had shaved off everything. The following itch almost driven him crazy. But it was worth it when Pipsqueak had cuddled up to him. Their bare legs entwined as they laid on the couch. Being close without any barriers, even as small as that, had felt divine.
Next follows antiperspirant, then cologne.
He cuts his nails, and files them close to the skin.
He styles his hair.
Clean clothes.
Accessories.
Wiped down sneakers.
Caleb checks himself in the mirror before going out. The only imperfection is his dry lips. Pipsqueak keeps saying he needs to use chapstick more. But then, after scolding him, she keeps putting her own chapstick on her lips in a thick layer, and giving him the loudest smack of a kiss. It makes her laugh every time.
The trip to Linkon is even more of a blur. The train is packed with people. A woman asks him to let her kid lay down across two seats, because the girl is too nauseous to sit. It doesn’t help, and the girl vomits multiple times during the trip. Caleb stays standing over them the whole way, politely brushing off mother’s apologies. He doesn’t even mind. The kid looks a little similar to Pipsqueak at that age. Same sickly bags under her eyes, and clammy hands. But the girl is clutching a stuffed toy, not her brothers hand.
When the train touches down, it’s still too early. Pipsqueak is most certainly at work.
He mucks about Linkon, checking prices at grocery stores to be up to date, and buys a couple of things for dinner. Caleb is sure his sisters fridge is in as much of a sorry state as his own. But he’ll fix it.
When he comes to her apartment, she’s already at home. She welcomes him with a smile, even though he let himself in. Even after all the things he’d done and going to do.
The single most important existence in the world smiles at him.
Caleb lays his head on his sister’s lap, stretching across the couch. She chuckles, but then sighs. She doesn’t say anything.
Her thighs are soft and warm. Something in his spine snaps, and releases.
Pipsqueak’s rough hand comes down to pat his throbbing head.
“I love you. I love you,” he mumbles dazedly.
Her fingers glide through his hair. They scratch gently from his temple to the back of his head again and again.
They used to do this as children. An endless litany of confessions made into a game. Caleb was always a prince or a dashing hero. And his sister was always a witch or a monster. She would hide around the house, pretending to curse villages of plush toys, devastate cities made out of construction toys, and steal princesses. When the hero would find her, she’d say, “You are so good, and I am so bad. You should go back to your kingdom. People need you to protect them.”
And Caleb would answer, “I want to stay with you.”
“I’ll suffocate you if you stay,” she’d whisper into her knees, curled in the wardrobe. “I’ll drag you down into the darkness and you’ll never see the sun.”
“That’s okay. I love you so much, it’s okay.”
Then Caleb would climb into the wardrobe too and close the door. They’d sit on the pile of blankets and sheets, hugging until they both felt better.
“Gege, I love you so much. Don’t leave me, please. I hate being alone, it’s scary,” she’d say in her thin childish voice in the darkness.
Her hand covers his eyes.
“I love you too. Rest,” sounds her low whisper next to his ear.
The millstone of fate grinds them both down. Round and round, and round it goes, turning everything to dust. The only thing Caleb can do to slow it down even for a moment is offer himself. He feeds more and more to the millstone. He goes farther and father. A boy in a bone mask never could have imagined the things he’d see.
But for a brief moment, as Caleb closes his eyes, he is one with that boy again, lying on his sister’s lap as she sings. And he’s content.
Tags: Zayne/Caleb/MC, polyamory, autistic!Zayne, anxiety. Can be read as DID or body sharing; self-cest or pseudo-incest (it’s whatever you want it to be).
“Are you nervous?”
The question is so sudden the soaped up plate slips out of your grip. It splits perfectly in the middle as it hits the bottom of the sink. You stare at the sharp edges, glimmering in their newborn glory. The deep hum of water running through the pipes and out of the kitchen faucet deafens your throughs for a moment.
“Earth to pipsqueak? Do you hear me?”
“Don’t scare me like that, gege,” you admonish. “Of course I am nervous. Today will be my first real mission.”
You pick up two halves of the plate and throw them into the trash. When you straighten from bowing over the trashcan a lone chopstick stares at you from the sink. Where is its sibling? Did it slip down the drain?
“Scared of this, scared of that,” laughs Caleb. “Who raised this scaredy cat, hm?”
“You did, dumbass,” you retort without enthusiasm, your mind elsewhere.
If the second chopstick is in the pipes, then it’ll surely get stuck on the bend, and you’ll have to disassemble it, lest it accumulates grime and clogs the sink. There’s probably so much nasty stuff in there already — old oil you’ve poured in the sink despite your brother saying you shouldn’t do that; hair from when you’ve washed it here instead of in the bathroom, too tired to do it properly; bits of food, charred and over salted, from your cooking adventures. Maybe you could buy one of those things, how’s it called? A plumber’s snake or something? But even then it’ll be gross. You don’t want to do it.
“Gege, can you unclog the sink?”
“Sure,” he agrees easily. “Later, when we are both free.”
Relieved, you slam your palm on the faucet’s handle to turn the water off, and flick your palms. The task is as good as done in your book.
“Hey, stop that! It went into my eye,” grumbles Caleb.
“Serves you well,” you answer cheerfully, and wipe your face with the bottom of your shirt. Instead of reaching for a towel you dry your hands on your pyjama pants next. Caleb complains some more, but you pay him no mind. The sink and the chopsticks are forgotten in favour of going back to your anxiety.
The hunters uniform is the only piece of clothing you keep in pristine condition, despite it being easily replaceable. Hunters go through uniforms rather quickly, as it gets torn, splattered with dirt and blood all the time. Still, the uniform means you’ve made it. Somehow. So it has to be clean, even if keeping things clean is hard. There’s so much that needs to be done at home, and at work, an unending struggle between you and expectations. Caleb manages your wardrobe for you, shopping, washing, and mending clothes when needed. And he’s pretty good at keeping up with fashion too, as his outfits often got you a compliment or two from other girls.
You shrug off your pyjamas, letting Caleb catch it and put it in place with his Evol. Then you carefully take your uniform out. Time to get ready.
“So,” Caleb drawls, “why are you so nervous? You know you’ll do great.”
“What if I don’t do great? What if I mess up?” you say stubbornly, tugging on your uniform pants.
“Then we’ll deal with the fallout.”
You put on the white shirt next and add, mulish, “What if I do something so bad it can’t be fixed? What if someone gets killed because of me?”
Caleb sighs. “Pip, we’ve been over this. I know you’ve wanted to be a hunter since you were little. You can do it. You are just a little anxious. It’ll pass.”
The uniform on, and buttoned up, you stand in front of the full length mirror in the bedroom. Caleb pats your head, which looks awkward reflected back at you. Not awkward as in uncomfortable to perform, but awkward because it’s dumb.
“Stop that,” says Caleb sternly. The whirlwind of your thoughts immediately quells, suppressed by his authority. “Look,” he taps the mirror, “you are so cool in your uniform. You’ll do great.”
Feeling both chastised and guilty, you nod, and pat your chest in apology.
”Let me check your bag before you go out,” he adds.
—
Being a hunter is much like being a doctor. The majority of time is spend on writing reports, explaining why you did this or that in an extremely stressful situation and why that wasn’t dumb. “I know what I am doing!” you write, using other, cooler, and more professional words, “Everything turned out fine! Please don’t fire me!”
In previous missions you were a part of one of three newbie groups, led by a senior hunter. This time it would be only you and your partner, also a senior hunter. Just you and the guy who slept face down behind his desk when you came to work today. Great.
Others might see your job as heroic, but in reality it’s little more than the police service, just worse. (“So are you a doctor or a police officer, pip?”) Instead of dealing with people who could hurt you or others out of confusion, anger, fear, or a million of other human reasons, you deal with something alien, mindless, yet cruel enough it will hurt anyone it sees. Maybe you should have gone to work at the police, like grandma insisted. You’ve never wanted to, and Caleb was decidedly against it, insisting he wouldn’t allow you be at the mercy of an organisation like that. At the time you didn’t understand what he meant, and actually you weren’t even supposed to listen to them talk, but you did, because you were too curious.
Grandma always acted differently around Caleb. She rarely punished or grounded him. Even when Caleb got into a huge fight with the boys who bullied you, seriously injuring one of them by stabbing through his arm with a stick grandma didn’t say much. As soon as Caleb yelled he’d done it because he was protecting you, she just send you both in your room.
When grandma talked to Caleb her voice would gain a subtly bewildered tone to it. She never hugged Caleb or called him sweetheart like she did with you.
Despite all of that grandma would buy things for Caleb too, saying a growing boy needs this or that. Whenever she found time and energy to cook, she would ask who out of the two of you would be having dinner, and if she needed to add cilantro. You loved cilantro just as much as Caleb hated it, so if you wanted to eat it, he had to withdraw as far as he could. But you hated being alone. That’s why as a kid you‘ve invented a “cilantro hour” when you’d stuff yourself with dishes full of it, while Caleb slept. Then you would brush your teeth, tongue, and the inside of your cheeks twice, and only then wake Caleb up. Otherwise, as you two discovered, Caleb would throw up immediately upon feeling the taste. In the same manner he had his own private time when he, to grandma’s horror, ate lemons. You were okay with lemon flavoured sweets and lemonades, but the intense sourness of the fruit was too much for you. Your brother however could straight up bite into a lemon, and chew happily without as much as crinkling his nose. But most of the time neither of you needed to “sleep” while the other was busy doing things. Homework, hobbies, cooking, cleaning, and everything else you did together. Certain things required a different touch, so one would be at the forefront, controlling the body, while the other observed and chatted with the first, or hummed a song, or kept an eye on something else that needed attention.
According to others you possessed an uncanny ability to pay attention to many things at once, and concentrate at a long periods of time. In truth you and Caleb just switched whenever either of you grew tired. Your brother also had a greater sense of direction, was more focused on details and was extremely disciplined. (“That’s because I am your gege.”)
Caleb dreamed of being a pilot. You were sure he’d do great at any profession, especially one that required a desciplined mind. When you were still in high school you had a serious conversation, just between you two, what profession you should pursue. Caleb was adamant the decision was yours.
“But we’ll be doing it together! We should pick something that we both like at least,” you’ve said, throttling an innocent plush frog Caleb won for you that day.
“Being a hunter is fine. We’ll be a pilot next time,” placated Caleb. He made you unclench your fingers.
“What next time?” you huffed.
Your brother pinched your nose.
“When it’s my turn to have a body. Then I’ll make you study planes all day!”
He already studied planes, and bugs, and read all about stars and spaceships when it was his free time. Just as you, in your own free time studied wanderers, played video games or reread your collection of BL books. You agreed bugs were interesting, and Caleb liked the sci-fi books.
Lumiere wasn’t the only reason you wanted to be a hunter. Deep down you knew somehow it was just the right choice. You should be a hunter. You should protect, but do so by destroying. Teenagers were full of themselves like that. For an adult a thought like that was strange. But it was the truth. You were in your place, like a nice little cog, snug in a perpetually moving mechanical tower.
And now you officially work as an alien (an actual, real alien) hunter for the special organisation, based on a small planet, that pretends it can withstand the onslaught of such anomaly. Despite it being your dream job, it’s still bleak. Will the planet even hold on long enough for you to live the time intended for you? And if it does, will Ever be the one to fuck everyone up with its greed? Or will you just be killed on duty, left to bleed out, while a monster slaughters people around you, because you’ve made a mistake? The only comfort is the knowledge Caleb will always be with you.
“Of course I’ll always be with you, meimei.” You can hear him smile as he says it. “Why are you so gloomy today?”
Idly, you tap on the space key on the keyboard.
“Life is scary,” you whisper under your nose.
“Well, yeah,” your brother matches your whispering, “But there are good parts too. Cute plushies. A sunny day. A—
“Noodles with lots of chillies and cilantro…”
Caleb sputters indignantly. “See if I try to cheer you up again, you dummy!”
You are distracted from the quarrel by a loud rattling of Tara rolling up to you on her office chair.
“Hi.” Tara smiles broadly, waving at you, paying no mind to the fact she’s just on the other side of the table. “Waiting for your turn?”
You nod frantically. “I know other teams get dibs over newbies, and it is good it’s a slow day but still…” You pointedly look at your partner sleeping. It’s been hours. He hasn’t moved as of yet. At least he doesn’t snore.
Tara signs, and lies on the desk too. “Yeah… Oh, wait, want to see something cool, Xia-jie?”
She takes out her phone, taps on it a couple of times, and shoves it right into your face. You back out a little to see properly. It’s a farming game.
Together with Tara you spend about an hour making a character for you and setting up the farm. Tara's character is a crane with cute buns, dressed a pink sweater and a pink skirt. You make a leopard and dress him up in a white summer dress and a straw sunhat.
A crane and a leopard run around, watering crops, chopping wood and cutting grass until the operator finally calls your team.
—
Nether you nor Caleb think about much while you ride to the place where the wanderer appeared. Xavier nods off again on the bike, leaning his helmet on your shoulder. But his grip is tight across your stomach so at least you aren’t afraid of him falling off.
The police had already cleared the mall by the time you arrive. You are immensely glad for it. Despite the mandatory psychology classes covering how to calm people who are hurt or just scared, you still have no idea what to do. It’s one thing to know something, and another to put it to practice. What if someone started crying? Or throwing up? What if they were missing a limb?!
Xavier gently bumps your shoulder with his, then nods to the entrance.
Right. You don’t have time to panic.
Xavier leads the fight, with you providing support and enhancement for his Evol. Having shrugged off his drowsiness, he’s much too fast for you to catch up to him and fight by his side equally. And you aren’t even supposed to do that yet.
There’s not much space for fancy manoeuvres, with the glass walls, and the perfume stations, and many, many expensive things put on display The Hunters Association would have to pay for if they became damaged. Xavier tries to keep the wanderer in the relatively empty middle of the mall. There’s still fake plants, and benches, but at least they are cheap. You almost want to beg the wanderer to create its little space bubble, so you don’t have to think about having your first real paycheck coming with a deduction roughly the cost of a couple of Hermes bags. Can’t it aim its sword-arm away?! There’s a perfectly good Lego store nearby.
“Why the Lego store?” whinges Caleb. “And sets are expensive too!”
You’d really like to argue about how much does your brother think a Hermes bag costs, but Xavier calls out to you.
The resonance faded overtime. Xavier needs your support. You make haste, running a short distance to him, while the wanderer recovers from a heavy blow of Xavier’s sword. But your boot slips on shards of glass littering marble floors, and you come barrelling down.
A lot of things happen quick succession. Xavier jerks his sword away, so you don’t fall straight on it, and tries to catch you with his free hand. You try to catch yourself by grabbing Xavier, but forget you are holding two guns. As a result the gun catches Xavier’s cardigan and you drag it down as you fall, undressing and restraining him in one motion. At least you are quick enough to aim the barrel straight up, and take your finger off of the trigger. Caleb tries to catch you too, and actually succeeds, using his Evol. You only scrape the tip of your nose on the floor. In this exact moment Knave decides it’s a great time to kill you, actually. It stabs its sword-arm down, intending to pierce your scull.
Caleb flips you on your back, like you are a door swinging open. Unfortunately Xavier shoves at the wanderer with all of his strength at the same time, and what could have been a miss turns into a long slice along your shoulder, as Knave stumbles and flails.
Xavier, bound by the cardigan, and losing his balance due to putting everything in one move, starts to fall too.
For this resonance you don’t need touch. Only a second passes, and both Xavier and Knave are already frozen mid-fall.
You shoot the wanderer through the head from your prone position on the floor. It’s sword-arm crumples like paper under gravitational forces at the same time. You get up with difficulty, click safety on your guns, and shove them into holsters. Only then you right Xavier. Caleb helpfully lets the resonance dissipate. Knave falls, but dissipates before it hits the floor.
Xavier blinks owlishly at you with his beautiful blue eyes.
“Yeah,” you answer his silent question. “I really have two. Sorry about… all of that. Do I… get a disciplinary now?”
His pale brows furrow. “The most important things is that you are alive. Mishaps happen all the time. It’s okay.”
“I fell on my face. And nearly killed us both.”
Caleb taps on your thigh to calm you.
Xavier tugs his cardigan back into place, and shrugs lightly.
“Mishaps happen all the time,” he repeats. “You need to go to the hospital. Do you have a first aid kit?”
“Yeah, it’s in the tail bag.”
Xavier nods, and simply starts walking away. You hurry after him, now mindful of where you step, even though it doesn’t matter anymore. He cuts through a group of gawkers on his way to your motorcycle like a king walking up to the throne. Police officers don’t try to ask either of you anything, only glance at your injured arm briefly.
Quick and efficient, Xavier is done with wrapping your wound in a couple of minutes. He pats your healthy shoulder lightly in consolation.
Possessing two Evols has been unheard of before you. A rare Anhausen class Evol coupled with gravity manipulation. Instructors at the Academy said you could bend time, make planets change its course or destroy the whole solar system with a black hole. Potentially, of course. If your primary Evol stabilised.
But you don’t have primary Evol. You have your enhancement, and Caleb has his gravity manipulation. Caleb is not secondary to you, he is his own person.
Caleb may jokingly call you dummy, but you are not stupid. You know how others see Caleb, when they learn about his existence.
Grandma send you to the therapist when you were in middle school. He explained what was wrong with you using proper, correct words. Both you and Caleb knew what he said was untrue. It didn’t work like that.
Here’s how it actually worked — you resonated with Caleb. If Caleb was you, then theoretically he’d be able to use your enhancement Evol too, but he couldn’t. If you were Caleb then you wouldn’t have needed resonance to use his Evol. But you did. It was that simple. But the therapist didn’t get it. The psychiatrist who came after didn’t get it either. Or the next one. They got mad at you. You’ve felt their irritation so acutely, as if they were trying to suffocate you with it. They insisted, they pressed, they repeated you were wrong again and again. Soon you got so scared, Caleb started going to every session alone.
Eventually grandma stopped taking Caleb to the psychiatrist too. You thought she was disappointed with the pair of you, but Caleb said she was just sad and confused. Caleb always knew better, as the older sibling, so you believed him. Grandma just didn’t get it, like everyone else. But because she loved you both, she got sad she couldn’t help you. Or something like that.
Caleb decided it would be better if less people knew about him. He appeared to even be fine with it, but it hurt you deeply. You wanted your brother to have a normal life. To have his own real friends at least. Not just people he played online with.
But as always, Caleb was right. The Academy didn’t suspect anything. You smoothly got through, and now could be officially called a hunter. There wasn’t even any evidence of you going to psychiatrists, as all of them were grandma’s old friends. And wasn’t that just great?
The ride to the closest hospital is silent. You hold Xavier with one arm across his stomach, ass glued to the seat of the motorcycle with Caleb’s Evol. Your shoulder hurts a lot. Strangely, you feel like it’s nothing special. Caleb is quick to distract you from mulling over why with nonsensical talk, and moves you slightly away from the sensations of the body.
—
The Akso hospital is busy at this time of the day. Or maybe it’s busy at all time, as the best hospital in Linkon. The moment you step inside you are assaulted with bright lights, sharp smells and loud noises. Doctors and nurses rush around, while patients either nervously chatter with each other or idly walk the corridors, dragging drip stands on wheels after themselves.
You turn to look outside through the glass doors. Xavier sits on the motorcycle, his head turned your way. You can’t make out his facial expression in the twilight. He doesn’t move, even though he should be able to see you clearly, standing in the middle of the well lit up hospital as you are. Is he asleep again?
You shift from foot to foot, uneasy for some reason. A dark spot on periphery of your vision catches your attention. Among other patients waits an old man in a coat and a suit. Seats to the right and left of him are empty. He leans on his cane, sharp chin resting over his folded palms. The slick black cane ends with a horse head handle, its sharp fangs bared at the world. The old man himself looks vaguely familiar. You think you’ve seen him on TV or something. Yet his face is so sallow it’s hard to be sure. He looks more like a skeleton dressed in skin than an alive person. The old man is obviously very, very sick. Why does he wait here?
“Don’t stare, pip,” says Caleb. His voice is tense, and your shoulders raise up to your ears involuntarily.
The old man moves. He turns to look outside too, or maybe he turns his good ear to you to hear better. He taps the cane on the floor, like a spider plucking at its web to check if someone had stuck in it.
Caleb turns his back to the old man, and silently stalks away. You want to ask, but decide it would be better not to.
Your brother walks to the main nurse station, where you notice Yvonne chatting with a nurse you don’t recognise. She notices you too, and her eyes crinkle above her mask, indicating she’s smiling under it.
“Oh, hello, miss Xia. Do you need any help?”
The other nurse looks between Yvonne and you curiously.
Caleb lets go, and you peel away the jacket to show them the crusted with blood uniform shirt. You smile awkwardly, unused to bothering anyone but your grandma and brother.
“I got injured on duty. I think I need stitches.”
The other nurse starts typing something on her laptop, but Yvonne quickly waves her off.
“I’ll take care of it. Doctor Li is free at the moment.” Yvonne raises one eyebrow at you. “Unless you’d like someone else to do it?”
“If it’s okay, I mean, if Zayne is free, I’d prefer him.”
Yvonne raises the other eyebrow.
“I mean doctor Li,” you hastily correct yourself.
“O-oh,” drawls her friend, “it’s that miss Xia.”
Yvonne waves her off more vigorously.
“Don’t mind her,” she says to you. “We remember every patient. It’s very important. Let’s go?”
The other nurse snickers as you walk past the main station. You trudge after Yvonne, already exhausted. Nothing even happened, not really, but you couldn’t handle even this much.
“Yeah, nothing happened,” mocks Caleb. “And we are absolutely not dripping blood right now.” He pats your chest gently. “Hold on for a bit. We’ll go home and rest soon.”
Yvonne slips in Zayne’s office first. There’s brief muffled talking, and then she slips out.
“Here you go,” she ushers you in, flapping her hands around your shoulders without touching, mindful of your injury. “Doctor Li will take care of you.”
The door closes behind you, and Caleb and you are left alone with Zayne. You’ve been here before. Even if you weren’t, this doctor’s office doesn’t look much different from dozens of others you’ve been to as a children. White. Barely any furniture. Empty not only in a literal way, but—
You feel the head turn, eyes focusing on a little tray of candies on a white ergonomic desk. To the side sits a small pot with flowers. It’s colder here too.
“We are fine,” says Caleb quietly.
Zayne sits behind the desk, his palms poised over the keyboard of his laptop. But he isn’t typing anything. His phoenix eyes look at you blankly behind thin wire frames of his glasses.
“Hi,” you wave at Zayne with your healthy hand.
He blinks, and the impression that you startled him, even though Yvonne announced you’d be coming, dissipates.
“Hello,” he says back, clipped as always. Still, there’s something in his face that makes you relax. Maybe it’s because he became familiar to you again, or maybe it’s something else. So minuscule you can’t pinpoint it, like the way his eyes shine.
You sit on the chair opposite of Zayne and wait. He types something on the laptop, most likely writing down the purpose of your visit Yvonne related to him in your medical records. Caleb and you watch the way his thin fingers glide over the keyboard. White light from the screen reflects in his glasses, making it even harder to understand what’s he’s thinking about.
“Probably deserts,” whispers Caleb.
“Yeah, my guess is macaroons,” you whisper back.
Zayne stops typing, and rolls his chair to the side. He glances at you briefly, then stands and goes to the little sink in the corner to wash his hands.
“How are you two?”
“I am totally fine,” you answer quickly. “Except for the arm. A wanderer got me.”
Zayne nods while staring at the sink. “And you, Caleb?” he prompts softly.
Caleb coughs to mask his awkwardness at being addressed. Not many people talk to him directly.
“I am fine, ge,” says your brother in his own voice. The body’s larynx drops, the muscles on your ribs relax, allowing the deeper pitch to emerge. “Our heart is fine, we haven’t felt anything strange in a long time:”
“Glad to hear it.” Zayne finally turns to you, but his gaze is stuck between your eyebrows.
Zayne was always kind to Caleb and you, even if he sometimes showed it in an unconventional ways. Like that one time when he gifted you snow (Caleb later explained he tried to make three seals out of it). Zayne didn’t understand pretend play very well, so instead all three of you would make up stories about passerby strangers sitting in the park and eating ice cream or read books together at his house. Zayne could easily distinguish between you and Caleb, even before your brother got a different voice. And he never made fun of you two for being that way. In turn, nether you nor Caleb made fun of Zayne’s habits, like eating sweets all the time or talking like an adult.
Zayne busies himself with preparing everything needed for stitching your arm. His movements are sure and calculated as he takes things from the cabinet. There’s a certain sense of comfort in watching a person who knows what they are doing. It makes you believe everything will be fine.
“Take your jacket and shirt off, please,” asks Zayne, his phoenix eyes now downcast.
You snicker together with Caleb. This part was funny the first time too. Zayne is so awkward about it. Is he like that with all of his patients, you wonder. Everyone has to undress in front of a doctor, otherwise how can they do their job? And Zayne usually needs to listen to your heart too. He’s seen you in just your bra already. What’s there to be embarrassed about?
You shrug off the jacked and the ruined shirt, leaving only your tanktop on, and prop your elbow on the tabletop, covered in what looks like a puppy pad to you.
Zayne’s medical glove clad hand feels like pure ice on your skin as he gently tugs the skin this way and that to assess the damage. Still, you don’t flinch. Up close you can smell the disinfectant and soap on him, and underneath a barest hint of something sweet and flowery.
“Osmanthus,” murmurs Caleb. “Did you know osmanthus and apples in green tea taste good, pip?”
You breathe in deeply. “No, we need to try it.”
Zayne cleans the wound carefully, never taking his eyes off of it. You and Caleb watch the way strands of his hair flutter as he moves; the way the thin frames of his glasses slip down his nose ever so slightly; the way his fingers glide over the skin.
But when Zayne takes out the needle, Caleb forcibly turns your head with a gruff “Don’t look”.
“How have you been, ge?” asks Caleb.
Your consciousness is nudged slightly out of the way again, so you don’t feel the pain as acutely.
“Fine.”
You roll your eyes at the answer.
“Anything interesting happened lately?” presses Caleb, his voice cheerful.
Zayne hums behind the surgical mask, considering.
“I’ve been at the conference at the beginning of the month. It was very informative.”
“Did you give a presentation there?”
“Yes.”
You snicker. Immediately Caleb gives you a mental equivalent of a pinched ear.
“I am trying! This is supposed to be a joint effort!” he says to you.
“Yeah, and the only ones putting in the effort is us,” you sigh.
“Are you…” Zayne trails off for moment. His thumb rubs the underside of your arm briefly. ”Are you okay? Was it your first mission?”
“It was… I don’t know, I mean, I got injured, that’s bad, right?”
“Meimei is really anxious,” adds Caleb. “But I think she did great.”
“I am sure you both done a good job,” says Zayne softly. “No need to be anxious, although the first day is always the hardest. In a week you can be ready for another mission.”
Caleb turns to look at the arm. Zayne is covering it with a waterproof bandage, rubbing the edges with his knuckle so it sticks better.
“Done. Now keep it out of the water, and change bandages every day. I’ll write down what ointment you’ll need.”
Together with your brother you watch him clean everything, wash his hands again, and write down the instructions. Caleb dresses back. You are too mesmerised by how calm Zayne seems. He’s done plenty of scary, complicated and impressive things, but he doesn’t lose his composure.
Zayne glances at you again. Then he tries to main eye contact, but his green eyes slide away after a couple of seconds, only for his gaze to stop on your nose. (“No, he’s looking at our freckles.”)
“Are you two free tomorrow?” he asks. He sounds a little surprised at himself, and tries to cover it by tugging at his tie, successfully making it even more awkward.
“Yeah. We’ll get a day off because of the injury for sure,” says Caleb.
Zayne nods. He’s clearly mulling something over, still like a statue except for going back to fixing his tie again and again.
“Do you want to meet up with us?” you ask in your higher voice. “Tell us how you’ve been?”
Zayne perks up a little. “I just did. But yes, I do. At six?”
“Yes, at six would be great. We’ll wait for your shift to be over on the first floor.”
The tie fidgeting stops. Zayne curls his palms on the desk, and smiles. His lips barely move, but you can see it in his eyes.
“There’s a café near by. They sell crêpes.”
“Sounds like a plan,” you and Caleb smile back broadly.
The corner of Zayne’s mouth twitches up even more. He nods again, and goes back to staring at his laptop. Knowing it’s the end of the conversation, you take your instructions, steal a candy from his table and walk out, already dreading explaining everything to Jenna.
—
The talk with Jenna goes surprisingly smoothly. When she asks Xavier he even helps you, presenting your mistakes like something insignificant.
Xavier drives you home. It turns out you are neighbours. You aren’t sure how you feel about that just yet.
Caleb helps you hold your stitched up arm out of the water as you shower. The bathroom is dark, as to not worsen your stress headache; only a sliver of light spilling on the floor from the living room.
You’ve shed all of your clothes in the living room and gone to shower. Your precious uniform is now lying in a bloody heap.
Caleb talks about a book he’d read recently. His voice reverberates from the tiled walls, the low timbre of it making you drowsy.
“No opipsnions from you, pipsqueak?” he asks finally.
“No,” you answer silently. You wonder if Xavier can hear you “talking to yourself in different voices”.
“Are you excited about tomorrow?”
”Yeah. Zayne looks so cool now.”
“Me too. But I miss his chubby cheeks. He used to be so squishy,” laughs Caleb.
“And now he’s like an immortal from the cultivation books.”
“Definitely a shizun type,” Caleb jokes.
You yawn and lean your temple on the warm moist wall.
“Alrighty. Let me dry you real quick. I’ll take care of everything.”
You feel barely there as Caleb dries off and dresses up. He heats up something delicious, but you doze off before you can taste it. He probably does other important stuff around the house, but when you resurface you are already lying on the bed.
You are warm. Your stomach is full.
“The sink?” you mumble.
“Later, we are too tired.”
You shift to lay on your healthy side under the blanket, one arm thrown over the side, and the other grasping the opposite elbow. Caleb is mindful of the injury. Usually he’d hold the shoulder, and much tighter.
“Okay, I am holding you, pip,“ he says.
“Thank you, gege.” You wiggle to burrow deeper into the mattress.
“I love you lots and lots, do you know that?”
“Yeah, love you lots and lots too,” you mumble, starting to drift off again from how cozy you are. You feel Caleb’s mind start to dim too. “I want fried eggs for breakfast.”
Caleb yawns. “Okay, pip,” he says, barely distinguishable.
Silent hill AU. At first MC just feels guilty her last words to Caleb were about how she doesn’t need him. Then she starts agonising over how often she took Caleb’s care and love for granted, how she never gave back, only took from him. And the more she goes back to every moment in their childhood she thinks she could have been kinder, more caring; every moment she upset Caleb over trivial things and said she hated him, the more she realised her Very Unsisterly Feelings. And now she spirals because of that. Like she’s desecrating him even after death.
So eventually MC needs to go do some work in another town again, and crushes her motorcycle in the fog. Intentionally? Maaaaybe. After some confused ruining around and beating a couple of strange monsters that look like two stitched together people (hm what’s that about?) with a pipe, she ends up in a park. Caleb waits for her on a swing. He’s a little strange, sure. His eyes have no light of life in them, and every time MC doesn’t look at him directly, just from the corner of her eye or from a distance he looks like a charred corpse missing an arm. And maybe he tries to stitch them together a couple of times. Or saw her arm off. Or make them fall from a ferris wheel. It’s fiiiiine. Gege’s just playing.
Perfection is an unattainable thing. There will never be no flaws because there are always flaws. Whether it's about your body, clothes, appearance, or even in art, literature, or dance. All you can do is find the person who finds no fault with your faults, and maybe, just maybe, then you might be close to perfection.
