You aren't totally sure how long he'd been standing in the kitchen; it wasn't like you'd been timing him. It crosses your mind to ask if he needs help with anything. Would he be embarrassed? Most likely, but you've told him before you don't mind helping. You'll give him a few more minutes. Still, it starts to feel like he was gone for more time than it might have usually taken. From your seat on the couch, you sit up and peer into the kitchen. He's got his back to you. Is he shaking?
He doesn't have his hearing aides in, and you swear at the blood marking the sides of his face. You call his name out as a reflex, even though you know he can't hear it.
"Ferris!"
You don't hear your book clatter to the floor when you leap out of your seat and rush into the kitchen. He's not looking at you, and when you turn him around to face you, you're not sure he's looking at anything. His wild eyes dart around, like he's lost something on the floor that he desperately must find, though his body is still and seized up. He reaches down and clings to the countertop, his knuckles turning white. The only other sound he makes now is the click of his teeth grinding together, and his feverish breath passing rapidly through his nose. "Maddock..." You say his name with purpose, but you keep your tone gentle to avoid startling him.
Finally, you're able to sign something to him. Don't stop. Smoke and debris cloud your vision, but you have to keep going. Your lungs burn, but you're not worried about it. He can't hear you, but you can't stop yet. All of these things are trying to get you to stop holding onto him and to stop trying to escape but you can't. Don't stop. Something happens, something sudden and violent, that causes you lose track of Ferris as your mind lingers on the vibrant wells of pain that bloom over your right arm.
He grunts and reaches to his right, grabbing at something that isn't there anymore, his cry haggard and choked. "Maddock. Maddock we're right here." He's wheezing now, and you tear away from him to open a drawer and find a paper bag for him to breathe into. When you turn around again, he's started to double over.
"We're right here." Why is he saying that? You look at him. His face is serene, and still, the way it usually is, but his eyes are focused on you. Your lower arm screams in pain, and you want to grab it, but your hand keeps going through, like your limb is made of mist. You settle for your shoulder.
"Ferris," He swallows hard, and raises his head to look through you, "Why are you stopping, we need-" Erratically, and punctuated with another shout, his hand clings on his right shoulder. Like he's trying to will his own arm back into life, he scratches, clawing desperately at the ghost of something that isn't there. Normally you don't want to bind him, to make him feel closed up when he's like this. The flesh of his shoulder reddens under his twitching fingers. Maddock jerks his eyes around the kitchen and mutters something that was either too quiet for you to hear, or contained no sound at all. The need to not confine him is battled away by your need to keep him from hurting himself. The clawing stops when you touch his hand. It's tense, you can feel his pulse thundering under his skin, but he lets you guide it away. Using your right hand you lace your fingers between his, you adjust your left hand to touch his chest, over his heart. You crouch so your eyes can meet, though his are still wide and brimming with panic. "Stay with me, Maddock." you say, looking into his fearful eyes. "We're in the kitchen, and you're having a flashback."
The kitchen? A flashback? Ash chokes your throat and lungs, but you can't lose sight of him, and you have to get up. You don't remember crouching. The searing pain in your arm is gone. Your arm stops feeling anything at all. He's still in front of you, but the blood isn't there anymore, and you're somewhere else.
"Just breathe. For me." You close the gap between you as you can hear his breath hitching, not letting go of his hand despite the motion in it you can feel; his muscles and tendons flexing and trying to break free, trying to reach, again, for the arm he doesn't have. "Slow down. Breathe. I'm here, and we're in the kitchen. The worst is over. We're safe."
"We need to-"
"We don't, Maddock. We're safe, you're just experiencing hypnagogic regression. Please, take deep breaths and tell me where we are."
"Ferris, we need to go!"
"We don't need to go anywhere," you reassure him, and when he tries to back away and press his back against the cabinets, you drop the hand that was sheltering his panicked heart and let him, but your fingers never unlace themselves from his. Instead, you put a hand on his stomach, to encourage him to take in more air and breathe deeply. The way his voice is trembling, the way he shakes, and his eyes dart around and occasionally flick to you make your heart jump. Worry clings to you, but you don't show it. You need to be here, just like you say you are. "It's Tuesday night, on the 11th. We're both fine. You're safe, and so am I. What you think is happening isn't happening anymore."
"Tuesday night." he repeats, like he's not quite sure what you're getting at by telling him this. He swallows again, and his breath comes out ragged and thin, but in longer drags than it had been before. "Ferris..."
"I'm right here. I'm right here, and I'm not hurt. We're okay, Maddock." you squeeze his hand. "Do you want to sit down? We," your mouth is starting to dry out too, but you pull yourself together. He has to know where you are. "we can sit on the couch. Or we can sit here. Because we're at home. And we're both okay. We're not in any trouble, here."
The dust and smoke gradually begin to dissipate. His hands are warm, and firm. He's talking to you about something. You try to listen. Something about sitting down?
"Where are we right now, Maddock?"
Though still quivering, his breath begins to settle into a more normal pattern. The worst of his fear and tension is bleeding out of him as he carefully blinks the memory away. After a painfully long moment when you're not sure if he's here or there, he locks eyes with you. "...What?"
"Where are we?"
He takes a few deep breaths and glances around. Relinquishing his hand from yours, he rubs the back of his neck. "Maddock," you prompt again, "I need you to tell me where we are."
"The kitchen."
"What day is it?"
"Tuesday," and his voice is shaken but markedly better than before. "The eleventh."
He stands weakly, and you follow, not taking your eyes off of him. His breath is relatively normal again, though he huffs a few more times for good measure. "Ferris...I was," he starts, and he looks put off by the realization of what was happening, "How long was I-"
"Don't worry about it." you say, and for a moment the two of you stand in the silence of the oncoming evening. The kitchen is dyed orange from the light of the setting coastal sun as it descends into the sea outside your window. It's dimmer than it was before. You should have brought him into a space with more light, and you keep that in mind for next--
The thought of next time is banished from your head as quickly as it came. He breaks eye-contact with you and rests his hand on the counter. "Thank you." His voice is soft. You almost don't hear it, but you feel it in the way he pulls his eyes to meet yours again, and in the redness blossoming on his cheeks. "I wish," he mutters, anger and annoyance playing over his expression "...I wish you didn't have to see that."
"Do you feel faint at all?" you ask, ignoring the remark. You place your hand on his neck to see if his heart rate is at a normal pace. "No," he replies defeatedly, "I'm okay."
Your hand bounces up and rests on his cheek while you pay attention to his breathing, as you're sure he'd say he didn't need help even if he was in the process of clattering to the floor. He's a little sweaty from the ordeal, but he seems otherwise fine now. His face escapes your hand when he leans forward and buries his head in your shoulder. The sigh that escapes him is heavy with frustration, and he's grumbling something you don't catch, but you feel his voice vibrating through your skin. A warm sensation meets your back, and his tense hand curls into a fist against you. From this you form an embrace, with you holding him tightly and his hand balled up in the back of your shirt. Time passes, as it does, and you continue to hold each other while the orange glow of the kitchen gradates into the mellow blue of dusk. With strange and sudden urgency, he lifts his face away and presses his lips to yours, and though you weren't totally ready for it at first, you close your eyes and welcome his invitation, parting your lips and reciprocating. "Thank you," he whispers finally, breaking your kiss but not going too far away. "I love you, Ferris." The way he says it is almost informative, as if he was relaying some recent development to you, with his voice louder than before.
"I love you too, Maddock."
He rests his forehead against yours, and you tilt your neck down a bit to accommodate for your shorter partner. He looks bothered, wearing the same face of wounded pride that he's worn before. He'll wear it again, you know, and for something different. You shouldn't think about next time, and for all intents and purposes, you don't want to believe that next time is ever going to exist. This wasn't the first, and the twinge in your chest reminds you that it's not the last. The past can never go away. And you both know that. You won't ask him what triggered it tonight, and maybe not even tomorrow, but you have to find out so you can be there and stop the bad ones early. You clutch him, and angle your head to kiss him again, hoping to ease the tension in his face.
Regardless of what happens, you're still going to be here.
This is in four parts! Sexual content in the first two. control-f '10:00 pm' to skip the sexy bits!!! Events in this occur after the main so far so good storyline!
It occurred to her, in a moment that seemed as if the world had paused and ceased to spin, that she’d never seen him look flustered until now.
In this brief pause, his face was red. Not just the cheeks, not just his ears, but the entirety of his face from the cheeks up, was some degree of red. It was, if she were to be completely frank, which she often was, kind of gross looking. His yellow lemongrass hair and fair complexion made him appear much too similar to the way he did when he’d finished playing rugby.
"We should dye your hair…."
She’d said in an unusually dreamy voice. Aldric had been chattering excitedly about how 'ready' he was, and he stopped dead in his tracks.
“What?”
“You might look nice with darker hair.”
He looked down at her from where he’d been perched, with one arm supporting his weight at her left side, and the other touching her cheek. “Nadia…” He said, his voice dangerously close to a whine, “I thought we were gonna-“
“Yeah, we are, I was just looking at your face and your hair. We wouldn’t have to do your eyebrows or anything since they’re already sorta dark. Maybe some honey brown or something…”
He looked flummoxed, another thing to jot down in the field book of expressions one doesn't see him wearing often, but after what seemed to be a moment of consideration, he smiled. He was no longer in the ballpark of being flummoxed, and was shooting free-throws on the court of being his usual exuberant self. “Are you…stalling?”
Nadia furrowed her brow. "Those are some pretty cutting accusations, Aldric."
"You're....you're adorable!"
"Aldric!"
"Nadia!" he teased, punctuating with a soft kiss, planted neatly on her lips, which she accepted despite her growing indignation, albeit with a rougher overall tone than what he was going for. Their parting was brief, as Aldric moved his lips down to kiss Nadia's neck and nape, gently moving down to her exposed collarbones. Though his face had taken a shade akin to a lobster, and his hands held onto Nadia desperately, as if the bed might bail out at any second and send her falling to the floor, he mumbled between motions "We don't have to if you don't want to. I know you're sort of taking it slow in terms of affection and-ow!"
She'd met his statement with a small smack to the head and a groan.
"Aldric," she said, pulling him so their eyes could meet and so she could damn him for being so sincere and polite, "I am on your friggin' bed with your knee between my legs. I'm down to my underwear and a shirt. Your shirt, in fact."
Aldric looked down and noted that it was, indeed, a shirt of his. Not even a clean one, at that. He didn't mind it, in fact it looked nice on her. Then again, he'd have her if she was wearing his bloody hospital scrubs.
Okay maybe not bloody scrubs.
"Do you really think I came over here to use your shower because our water was off?" Aldric couldn't tell, from her tone, whether or not she was teasing him. "Wait so," he asked, "your water is still on?"
"Well," and her tone was suddenly more reserved than it had been before. "yeah. Why would I be the only one who needed to take a shower? You know how clean Merlot likes to be."
Aldric shrugged, and supposed that he could have thought something was fishy - and by 'fishy' he meant 'completely awesome'- was going to happen when Nadia came to his door on a Friday evening, saying simply "They turned our water off. I need to use your shower." She didn't even bring a towel with her. Thinking about this made a laugh bubble up in Aldric again. "You came all the way here because you just wanted to have sex with me?"
Her face matched his, now, in that it was turning a distinct shade of crimson, though she glared at him. "God, you don't have to say it like that!"
"But, then why were you stalling so much? Are you nervous?"
"You're the one who was going on and on about god knows what." she replied curtly. " If I didn't want to be with you tonight, why would I have called you into your own room, wearing nothing but one of your shirts and panties, and launched myself on you with so much aggression that later I'll need to go out and get you some glue to fix that frame you had on the wall?" The frame, containing a bit of abstract art that Aldric's brother had given him, wasn't that important anyway, and it was apparently not very well made to begin with. When Nadia forcefully pinned Aldric to the wall, and at this point he was pretty worried that she was going to make an attempt at his life -finally going on the old promise to kill him- the resulting tremor from his back so near the picture caused it to clatter to the ground and split the frame. Through the course of events that night, Aldric had nearly forgotten about it.
As he rested his forehead against hers, he whispered, "Don't worry about it, Nadia-bear." He felt her face get hot, and first she kissed him, and then she pinched his arm lightly, he assumed to repromand him for the name. "So, it's okay?"
"Yes."
"We're really going to do this?"
"Aldric."
"Really really?"
"If we are not doing something even vaguely sexual within the next ten minutes I'm going home, you dumbass."
It started like a little hum, a squeaky sort of noise that escalated as Aldric pried his body away from hers. It turned into a shaky laugh, and when he was fully standing, Aldric tore his shirt off while shouting:
"I AM SO EXCITED! OH MY GOD! I'M SO HAPPY!"
With another gleeful "OH MY GOD!" he shimmied out of his jeans and flopped down over Nadia. He clung to her like an ecstatic koala and rolled the both of them so she was on top of him. The motion and force of it made her gasp, but she adjusted quickly, shifting her weight so that she could sit on him properly. And for the first time of the night, with her legs straddled over his abdomen just above the hem of his boxers and her torso bent down so her face had easier access to his, he saw her smile.
Some time later, her shirt-or his shirt, rather- had joined Aldric's on the floor, and he was tracing his fingertips on her upper thighs, just barely going under the elastic of her underpants, testing to see what she might do if he completely removed them from the equation. Her skin was hot, and she must have been wearing a ring, because when her hands clutched hair, there was something cold among the sensations of heat. Somewhere in the kissing and hip movements and elastic-leg-hole-water-testing, a sound wafted to Aldric's ears. He was certain Nadia hadn't heard it, because she might have reacted, but the sound of two voices was coming from out past the open bedroom door, leaking in from the front. One was soft and barely noticeable, but the other was deep, and when it was muffled by closed doors and Nadia's breathing, it sounded like a sort of growl.
"Oh, shit, Yang!"
Nadia abruptly stopped moving on top of Aldric, her brows furrowed. Her eyes opened, and she glared down at him. "The name's Nadia, actually, nice to meet you."
"No, I mean!" Aldric started to panic, not only was Yang coming home, with probably seven or more vaginas following him, but now Nadia..."Yang's coming home! He's-"
The sound of the door unlocking made Aldric tense up. Nadia groaned in annoyance and rolled onto the bed. He shot up and awkwardly ran to the entryway. Aldric knew this drill: Yang was coming in to tell him that he'd need use of the bedroom. It happened a few times every week, and he'd normally oblige with just a small portion of guilt-tripping, but tonight was vastly different. Hopefully he was leaving his girl outside this time.
"Just hold on for a sec, okay?" Yang said in a low rumble to someone beyond the entrance. "I'll be right back." He closed the door and turned around, only to see Aldric closing the bedroom door and looking completely panicked. "Hey, I'm gonna need thewoooaaaah." Yang lowered his sunglasses and his eyes flicked down to the crotch of Aldric's boxers. "Happy to see me, dude?"
Aldric made a sort of screamy sound and grabbed a throw pillow to cover his lower half with. "Yangyangyangyang, I-I can't, you need to, no I need-"
Yang leaned against the wall and smirked. "I'm so proud of you."
"NO!" Aldric said louder than he meant to, "No, don't be proud of me dude that's weird, okay, look every time you bring someone home I let you use my room so you can screw them to your heart's delight but I-" his eyes shot back to the closed bedroom door, "I need it tonight, or at least for a little while. Can't you go to her place?"
"She's got roomies. We wouldn't have any privacy."
"Wow!" Aldric said, jabbing his free hand- the hand that wasn't holding a pillow to his junk- into the air, "can you imagine not wanting to disturb her roommates with your loud sex? With your weird grumbly noises and her making fake gaspy orgasm sounds."
"Ey!" Yang snapped, righting himself, "Cut that shit out. Girls don't fake it with me."
"Whatever! Look, if her roommates are girls, won't that just be like," Aldric fidgeted, wondering if there was ever a time he felt more uncomfortable, "Supermarket Sweep for you? Just girls all around! Ladies abound!"
Yang removed his coat and tossed it onto the sofa. "Okay. good point," he admitted, "But why aren't you at her place?" He jerked his head in the direction of the bedroom.
Aldric dug his nails into the fabric of the pillow, unsure how much to reveal to Yang. Was Nadia okay with him knowing that they were sleeping together now? Thinking of her made his chest tighten up. Would she even want to continue now? "We can't."
"You can't?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"We just can't, Yang!"
"No, if you can give me a real reason as to why you need to be here, then I'll go to Summerrains's place instead."
"Summerrain?!"
Yang folded his arms.
"Yang," Aldric said, his eyes continually going back to his bedroom door, as if a lack of constant visual contact would cause it to evaporate, "I'm going to give you a medal. A huge gold medal that says 'I shag every girl indiscriminately and I don't care about how much of a dick I am about it.'"
"Get it in silver." He took off his sunglasses, and Aldric wished he hadn't. As Yang stepped closer, he was once again strangely unnerved by his eyes. Something about them..."No, see," Yang said, putting a hand on his blond friend's shoulder. "If you hadn't had such a shit fit about it, I might have let it slide. And to be honest, I don't care too much. But now I'm curious as hell. Why can't you go to her place? Her parents live there? Ya' sick fuck."
Aldric stiffened as he faced his roommates unsettling eyes. "Because," he hissed, "your sister is at her place."
Yang's eyes widened, and he put his sunglasses back on. "My-My sister?" And his expression held shades of both anger and confusion, though anger was clearly winning the battle of wills and overtaking confusion. "Yin is at her place? Where the hell did you leave Yin, Aldric?"
"Yin is..." and he phrased it this way just to agitate Yang more, "with Merlot."
It all came crashing down, and after a beat, Yang's lips broke into a wicked smile. "Hoooooly shit." he chuckled, and Aldric thought that he wouldn't feel embarrassed about this, but life is surprising sometimes. "Nadia is in there? Holy shit. Good job."
"Yeah, there you go, I'm going to- or I was going to sleep with her before-"
"No, hey, I'm sorry." Yang replied, "By all means don't let me stop you." and he almost laughed, "holy shit, that's adorable."
"It's not adorable! I mean she is, but this-"
"You guys are probably gonna do some 'Oh,'" he said in a high pitched mocking tone as he placed the back of his hand against his forehead, "'let's be gentle and slow because it's our first time together ooooh let's be all boring and do it in the missionary position oooh!' shit, aren't you?"
"Well we can't all do it on poles, dude."
"Hey!" he said defensively, "She had the pole in her room, I just used it to our advantage. Do you need a condom because I have a shitload-"
"Yang!"
They both turned around, and there stood Nadia. Hair ruffled, shirt replaced, and eyes burning with the annoyance Aldric was used to. "Yang, are you gonna make out with Aldric? Because if you two wanna go at it out here, I'll just leave."
With a thin smile, Yang bit the corner of his lip and looked her up and down. "Nice to see you, Nadia. That's a good look for you."
"Fuck off." she grumbled, almost half-heartedly.
"I plan to."
With that, Yang roughly patted Aldric's shoulder with that same wicked grin before collecting his coat and making for the door. An apology was heard once Yang had rejoined his girl, and it was topped off with the sound of the deadbolt locking. As if she might cast him to stone if he met her eyes too quickly, Aldric turned to Nadia carefully. "Uh-"
"Nice pillow."
She smirked at him and bridged the gap, crossing over the rug and removing the offending cushion. "I guess," he said, pushing his hair back, "that kind of killed the mood?"
And at first she didn't reply, just looked at him with an expression he couldn't make out, until finally she whispered: "You're cute, you know?"
"Well," he fumbled. That was, all things considered, not what he was expecting. He searched for the right words, not feeling like himself. "Thanks?"
"No," she said softly, "I'm not used to you being all flustered and embarrassed. You always go around like some kind of damn peacock, so proud of yourself and being the center of attention. You're so over the top and theatrical, even when you threw your shirt off. Sometimes I think you might have your own background music playing. But seeing you look all sheepish and tongue-tied..."
Aldric looked aside and pouted. "That wasn't cute." he mumbled.
"Yeah," she said as she placed her head on his bare shoulder. "it was. You're wrong."
"I can't be wrong about my own opinion, Nadia-bear."
"Yeah, but here we are."
Her faced inched closer to his. He pepared himself to kiss her, but she instead pinched his nose. "Don't call me that."
His voice was nasally from the pinch, "Do you still wanna-"
She shook his shoulder. "No! Stop, we're not doing that again."
Nadia freed his nose and took his hands. "What would they call this in rugby? The second inning?" Aldric shook his head, "Not really. Rugby doesn't have sections like that. There's a half-time and sections of stoppage and you don't actually care about this do you."
"I was looking for a way to play that into our situation, but I should have figured once I got you started you wouldn't stop with it. I guess," she said, removing the shirt once more, "that was just a stoppage. Is he going to be coming back soon?"
"He had a girl with him, so at least not for a while." Nadia nodded wisely in reply before kissing Aldric once more. "Hey," she whispered.
The girl had her hands on her hips, and her full lips were pulled into a little frown. Yang ignored her anger and pecked those pouty lips. "Just my roommate. Don't worry about it."
"But babyyyyy!" she mewled, "I thought we were gonna have some fun!"
"We will, okay?" he looked around and grasped her hand. "You sure we don't wanna go back to your place?"
"Nooo!" she said, swinging on his arm, "I have, like, five other girls living there! They'll hear us!"
Yang took his hand out of hers and ran it through her glossy brown hair. "Yeah, well, don't you think that'd be kinda hot?"
"Hot...?"
"I mean, come on," he said in a low voice. He pushed his body forward so it was pressing hers against a wall. The hand that was touching her hair moved around her waist, the other cupping her small breast. "there are a lot of ways we could make this a good thing, right?" Her eyes fluttered closed, but her expression betrayed her. "Yang, oh my gosh, we're in a hallway!"
He smiled. "I know we are. But that's part of the fun we could be having at your place. Trying to keep quiet, being all secretive, your toes curling under as you try to hold back? Or," he whispered huskily, "maybe we won't have to be quiet at all? Devil-may-care kind of thing? Or maybe we could get one of them to join us?"
"Yang, that's gross!", but her voice was laced with bubbling giggles.
Her apartment was familiar, and Yang wondered if he'd maybe slept with someone there before, but he could place his finger on it. There was one girl out in the sitting area, who regarded the pair of them with sharp, judgemental eyes as Yang carried his giggling, half-drunk date to her bedroom. Her room had another bed in it, but bless the heavens that be: it was empty along with the rest of the room. The girl whose name Yang still didn't care to get sat down on the bed and began to unbutton her blazer.
--
Her fingers danced along sides of his head as she kissed him. The bed had been abandoned so Yang could stand up and press her up against a wall, her feet resting against the posts of her flatmates bed. Yang had removed his shirt, and she commented on his chest hair the way one would comment on an adorable small animal, but he shook off that irritation. There were a few things that night he'd resigned to shaking off, until she made to take off his headphones. Bells rang in Yang's head. He reacted without thinking, his wrist jerking erratically to smack hers away. She cried out in annoyance,and pulled his hand out of her shirt in retaliation. "Don't do that," he said, his voice lower and darker than before. "What the hell?" she snapped, "That hurt! I was just gonna take off your headphones, you asshole!"
"I'll take those off. Later."
"Why can't you take them off now?"
Yang rolled his eyes and removed his sunglasses. "Does it matter?"
"I wanna see all of you!"
"Aaaand you will, just not right now."
"Do you have, like, weird ear insecurities? Are they hella big or something?"
"No, they're fine-"
"I bet that's why you never stay with one person..."
Yang narrowed his eyes at her. He'd found Summerrain at a bar near the college campus. He was beginning to dislike pysch majors. "That's not why. You're drunk."
"Then why? Why did you tell me right away that you weren't looking to see me more than for tonight? What are you afraid of, Yang?"
Yang glowered at this girl whom he'd never see again that was trying to read him like a book. He was dying to change the subject. "I'm sorry for hurting you, okay? It was a knee-jerk reaction."
"Jerk is right..."
"I just don't like people touching my ears, alright?"
"Aww, see! It's good to admit it." Her voice took an unwelcoming and sympathetic tone. "You really do have insecurities. People say you're just this big tough guy who sleeps with a lot of women, but deep inside you're just scared and alone, aren't you?"
Yang wasn't insecure, he simply didn't want to have the whole 'Why are your ears so hairy' conversation. Something else she said was what really got him. For a moment, Yang remembered a time when he was, indeed, frightened and alone. Not frightened for himself, but frightened for a little girl who was lost because of his stubbornness, and for what might happen if they didn't meet again. When he looked down at Summerrain...he wondered if this is what he really wanted. Her big eyes and long eyelashes just made him think of her, now.
He wondered what she was doing. Why did he spend so long looking for her, just to leave her alone every night? Did she miss him? When he'd landed here all that time ago, looking for her in a big, snow draped city, the first warm place he found was between some woman's legs. What was Yin's warm place?
Yang's fake heart, the thing in his chest that made people think he was a real human, began to ache.
The question came back to him. Do I really want this? Is this what I wanted to do?
And Yang's current boner ensured him that, yes, he for sure wanted to do this girl. Like hell he was about to pussy out of this, he decided. He'd gone far enough. Earlier in the night he'd had plans for multiple dates, but maybe, for tonight, he'd have a change of plans. "You're kinda dulling the excitement, here." he said, putting on a nonchalant show, though now he was conflicted about if this was the right thing. He missed Yin in a way that he hadn't since she got lost. Summerrain giggled an apology and wrapped her arms around his neck again. "I won't touch your ears, okay?"
Yang only removed his headphones when the heat in his body was overwhelming, and she was far too distracted to notice. He pushed his sister out of his mind, feeling sick for thinking of her right before he rammed a girl against her bedroom wall.
Hours later, when Summerrain had fallen asleep, and Yang had successfully nicked some beef jerky and a can of beer out of the fridge, he hit the streets again. It was the dead of the night, and the cold February air stung him. Aldric was probably done with Nadia by now, but he didn't think it was wise to head back yet.
But there was someone else who was waiting for him anyways.
Merlot was watching the clock almost as much as he was watching the movie. Nadia was apparently going 'to the store', but he assumed she was off to engage in some sort of shenanigans with Aldric. It didn't bother him, it wasn't his business what she did, but...
'She smells like honey and vanilla.' he thought.
Reese was piled against him, wrapped in a puffy blanket and eating pistachios. Merlot's left arm was so asleep he was ready to declare it comatose, and yet he didn't dare readjust it. "I remember when this movie came out," she said, "back when everyone thought Brian Waterglass was straight. Like, 'Hi! Welcome to reality, and in realitly, Brian Waterglass is gayer than a two-dollar bill.'"
To his surprise, Merlot laughed. He normally couldn't care any less about celebrities if he tried, but when she talked about it, she made it sound interesting. She'd confided in him her love of celebrity blogs, and he confided that he didn't pay attention to celebrities.
"Yeah, I guess it's not for everyone!" she'd said while she swept up at the salon. "But you pay attention to politicians, right?"
"Well, yes."
"Soooo aren't they just like...superpowered celebrities?" Reese had stopped sweeping to look at him seriously, "You pay close attention to the things politicians do, and I pay attention to the things celebrities do. In the end, we're both closely examining the lives and choices of people we don't know." and after a considerable pause, she added, "But, I guess political actions have more staying power than celeb things."
But since then, she'd fill him in on facts about the people when she'd read about them in magazines, or saw them on TV, or just at random when the mood struck her. They'd been hanging around so much recently. He would in turn, tell her about politics and finances.
No matter what, their conversation always turned personal. He could start off talking about Wall Street and national debts and things, and end up telling her about his past, or his dreams and the things he wanted to do, and what he'd started to do and never got to finish. Reese was, he'd learned, an incredible listener. She would let him speak, and she'd even laugh when he made little jokes, even the bad ones. "I like that they're bad, you goof."
That was another thing; Merlot never felt so free, and at ease, and confident with anyone before her. She brought him some new energy he hadn't realized he possessed. He would make jokes, and he smiled more, and when she talked to him about things she cared about, she spoke the same way that she spoke to Nadia.
That was who she was at the house to see, anyway. Merlot reminded himself of that. She was here to see Nadia, but she stuck around, even though at the time it was just him and Yin. Reese had been doing that more often, he noted. He appreciated it, anyway, as spending Valentine's Day herding a small energetic child around was just making Merlot feel a bit hopeless.
Despite all of this, she still made him nervous. He still calculated his movements, watched what he said, stepped carefully. She was one thing he really didn't want to lose.
Her head was nuzzled against his arm. It was 10:14 now. Reese sat up, and Merlot was actually glad to have his arm free. "Are you cold?" she asked, but before he could stumble out answer, she adjusted the blanket so it covered the both of them.
"O-Oh, Reese, it's okay," he stammered, not wanting to offend, "you can have more of the blanket. I have a sweater on, and I know you like to wrap yourself up a lot, and to make little cocoons for yourself? I mean I don't have a play-by-play of your sleep habits or anything, and oh god by saying that it sounds like I do, but I know when you've taken naps over here you like to bundle up, and-oh!"
Reese had lifted up his arm and adjusted herself so she was neatly under it. Merlot's heartbeat increased wildly. He wasn't ready for this! He hadn't even mustered up the courage to-oh God oh God oh God.
Reese laced her fingers in between his. Merlot felt perilously close to going into cardiac arrest. Why was she doing that? why was she settling in and holding his hand? Does she feel that was about me? Or is she just very affectionate?
Merlot squeezed her hand, in case she didn't realize she was doing it and she wanted to pull away. She squeezed it back. "I heard that when this movie came out, there was, like, a Macbeth style curse on it during the premier. No one wanted to say the name of it, because whenever they did, stuff started going on, and they say that's why Ulrich Van Thoms is missing a finger."
Why is she just talking like this is no big deal? Does she want to not be just friends anymore. "I, um," he wasn't paying attention to the time or the movie anymore, just her small, soft hand, as it rested neatly in his. He couldn't move save for his fidgeting hand. "I didn't know he was missing a finger."
"Oh my gosh he totally is!" Reese moved again, no longer under his arm. She was sitting up, and looking Merlot in the face now. Merlot could feel his cheeks getting warm, he could tell he was blushing and shaking and tensing up all at the same time. He wondered if he was making a dumb expression, and he tried to calm down. "Like," she continued, glancing at the screen, "I think they give him a prosthetic one since it's only his pinkie."
"P-prosthetic pinkies."
Reese nodded at this subject of upmost importance. "Yeah, like made of a polyurethane plastic with little bendy bits inside so it'll move when gravity makes it so. And maybe they put silicone on top to make it look more real?"
They were still holding hands. She'd pulled away from him but she never let his hand go. Even when they were talking about hands.
She examined his face. "Merlot..."
"Yes?"
"Do you have some sort of problem with me?"
Merlot separated their hands for them and wished that he could melt into the back of the couch without her seeing. "Uh-um, wh-what?"
Reese tilted her head and gave Merlot a soft sort of look that he didn't like. "I dunno, you're just always so jumpy when I'm around. Nadia says you're all serious and boring, but when I come to hang out with you, you're like..." she shook her hands around in the air near the sides of her head. "Aaaaah! Unless I touch you! Then you turn to stone."
Merlot didn't realize he'd been pulling away from her until his elbow knocked the remote control off the table. "I-I am not, Reese!" he choked out, "I'm just trying to-"
"You shouldn't have to try to do anything! You weirdo!"
Reese took him by the shoulders. And Merlot wasn't troubled by her hands, but the fact that she was now sitting on his lap sent him into what can only be described as 'the early stages of a seizure.' His body locked up, and his face was warmer than it had been all winter. With his jaw feeling like it might bind together, he decided not to ignore the swelling in his chest. Better to spit out the next thing that comes to mind than to sit here like a fool and not say anything. "I didn't mean that! I just don't know what to say or do around you!" he spat out.
"Okay," she said, and Merlot watched as she rolled her brown eyes, "but, like, you don't know what to do or say around Yin either. But you handle her in a somewhat reasonable manner. Ugghghh..." Reese drooped and ran a hand through her lock of pink hair. The coldness where her hand had abandoned his shoulder was vibrant, and it made him take note of just how warm her hands had been. "Like, one minute you're talking openly with me, even if you're all nervous about it, and then I brush into you and I might as well be having a conversation with Stanley the Stammering Statue."
"Who-"
"You freeze up, and when you do talk you sound like you really really have to pee or something."
"W-well Reese, I, I mean that is to say that you-"
"You say you don't know what to do or say around me, but when I come over to hang out, you're fine! You talk and share things, and I get to see that you are sweet, and you aren't just some dude who's way too into money and the news. That you're not as pretentious and stand-offish as you seem to be. I like that version of you, Merlot!"
"You like me being stiff and reserved?"
"Dummyyyy," she crooned, and her hand, the one that was touching her hair, went to his neck. Her tone and face softened in time with each other. "I like when you smile, Merloser!"
Merlot paused, and felt like he'd been running for a long time and needed to catch his breath. He sputtered and fumbled over his words, truly solidifying his place as the most eligible bachelor in the tri-state area. "I, I mean," he said as he pushed his hair back and she stared at him with those big eyes. " I guess I just get really nervous when you're around, and, and I want you to like me? And my hands get sweaty and I forget the names of things, and my mouth gets dry, and I just don't want to say things that might make you not like me, or think that I'm just some stuffy wannabe stock broker. I mean I do want to be a stock broker but, um," he swallowed hard, and she was still watching him. Even though he was rambling, and not even about anything that was even on topic, she was focused on what he was saying. She listened the way she always did, no matter what he was on about. Merlot sighed. "that's not what I mean? You know what I mean. What you think of me is really important to me. And -um- not that I don't think your opinions on everything aren't important, and I don't want you to think I just say the things you want to hear. I do pick and choose, but, you know, um, doesn't everyone when they're talking to someone with," and he gulped again, because a grin was slowly creeping onto her face, like a little uninvited party guest, "a cute face, and big, honest, caring eyes, and really the nicest lips I've ever seen. And I just..."
Merlot felt like he was going to throw up, which could only be a step up from rambling like a lunatic, to be honest. That was something that would ensure that she was going to leave. What he said instead was much more violent and explosive:
"I have feelings for you, Reese!"
And once he'd started, he couldn't stop.
"I have really, strong, emotional feelings for you! And whenever you leave I just start counting down until I can see you again. You make me scared, but in a good way. You make me think about myself, and maybe some things that might be wrong with me. But you make me want to change them! You make me want to not focus so much on wealth and status and...all of those other things."
Merlot had more to say, as he usually does, but Reese's giggling made him stop. "Wow," she said cheerfully, "you are such a weirdo! Oh my gosh, Merlot."
An entire three-ring butterfly circus was having their opening night performance inside of Merlot's stomach, and Reese's comment might as well have been the cue to crescendo. All he could eke out in reply was a flat, croaky: "What?"
"Come oooon," she teased, "I know you like me! I thought we both knew that we liked each other? Isn't that how it's been for a while?"
"We like each other?"
"No, Merlot, I come here when Nadia isn't around to cuddle up and watch movies with someone I totally hate."
"You like me?"
"I mean, at first I was pretty unsure. One of my roommates was all 'oh Reese do you like that guy or what?' and I was like 'what noooooo I just hang out with him! He's my guy friend.' and I, like, swear, the second she left the room I was all 'ohmygod maybe I do like him!'"
"...Y-You like me?"
Reese frowned at him. "You don't believe me?" She took her hands off of him and turned her head to see the TV again. "Shoot," she said, "we missed the whole thing! I'm gonna go back to the scene selection thingy on the menu." Still situated on Merlot's lap, she hung her body off of the arm of the couch to reach for the remote. Everything that'd just happened replayed in Merlot's head. It was as if his soul had left his body, and he was left to stare blankly at the scene selection screen as Reese mused about which scene they last saw. "Was it the part with the little kid in the flower shop? Where he tries to buy flowers for the girl?"
"I dunno." Merlot said, his mouth completely dry. Admitting he hadn't been paying much attention to the movie might make her upset, even if he told her that it was just because he was focusing on her. Even thinking it reeked of the kinds of things the characters in the rom-com that was playing on the TV would say. "I'm thirst!" he said. "I mean, I need a drink. Of something. Do you want anything? I want something." Reese looked at him, and then looked into the kitchen, shimmying off his lap. "Could you get my lemonade out of the fridge?"
Merlot spent an inordinate amount of time in front of the fridge. Reese was texting someone on the couch. Is she texting about me? he wondered selfishly. Should he bring over a snack? Did they count as boyfriend and girlfriend now? Maybe she likes strawberries. Did she want to kiss him? She had her pistachios. Has she really known all this time?
Merlot returned wit a small tray, one of Nadia's nice ones. He'd put together a selection of their finest cheese (bits of White American cut into little strips and placed on crackers), and fresh pastries (the sugar cookies Nadia and Yin decorated earlier in the day.)
"Woah!" Reese pipped, "you pulled out all the stops! What is that, like, Perrier?"
Merlot looked at his plain glass next to her bottle of lemonade. "It's just regular water..."
"Enchanting!"
He set the tray down and rested on the couch again. Before he could even settle in, Reese scrambled onto his lap and covered them both in the puffy blanket. "Okay," she chirped, "I promise I won't distract from the movie again!"
Merlot had almost calmed down. His heart rate was back to normal, he wasn't blushing any longer, and he had the comfort of knowing that Reese returned his feelings. He was absolutely fine until Reese gave him a quick peck on the cheek. Merlot made a strangled gasping sound, which she ignored as she unpaused the movie and went on about a celebrity.
There was no way Merlot was going to be able to concentrate on the movie.
It was entirely unnecessary for him to violently slam the door open, but overzealous shows of aggression were never too arbitrary for Yang.
"Hey." he barked into the dark room. The only reply was a stirring from the couch. Someone, probably Nadia's smelly wine brother, mumbled something incoherent.
The table lamp next to the couch flicked on. Yang assumed Merlot was especially good to whatever weird gods he worshiped, because Reese was cuddled against him, being rudely roused from her sleep.
Yang cut off Merlot's growing explanation by asking where Yin was. "She's in Nadia's bed..." Merlot grumbled into Reese's hair. He might have been half awake before, but something caught his eye. "Is that a balloon?"
Yang flipped him off. Merlot rolled his eyes and took his glasses of, snuggling into Reese again, but in a manner that suggested a landmine might go off if he touched her wrong. What a loser.
Yang shook off the feeling that he'd stepped into an alternate universe, one where Merlot gets to sleep on the couch with hot black chicks, and stepped into Nadia's room, opening the door gently.
The lights were off, but a little glowing globe sat on the nightstand. It bathed the room in soft blue light, and it illuminated a few curls that peeked over the top of the comforter. He sat down softly and patted her back.
"Yin," he whisped, "hey, Yin."
She grumbled, and pulled the blanket tighter. He knew she was awake- he was the heavy sleeper in this arrangement, while a fly landing might wake Yin up- she was just comfortable. Or, he considered, maybe she doesn't know it's me. Yang scooped her up, gathering the blankets around her so she was a squashy pile of sleeping child, and pressed his forehead to hers. His white touched her black. It made her gasp, her pale eyes shooting open. Disoriented, she took a moment to process, before lighting up in a smile. "Yang!!"
With her arms thrown around his shoulders, he squeezed her, and lingered for a moment. Sometimes he forgot how small she was.
"I didn't know you were gonna be here and also me and Nadia made cookies and you should have one I even drew a meat on one just for you and- OH MY GOSH IS THAT A BLALLOON?!"
Yin quickly abandoned the shelter of the blanket to grab the ribbon tied to Yang's wrist. "Balloon," Yang corrected, "and yeah. It's my Valentine's Day present for you." as he spoke he re-tied it around her own wrist. She bounced her hand around and watched the white heart-shaped balloon dance around. "Nadia isn't here." she said absent-mindedly.
"I know," and his smirk was difficult to hide. He took out his phone while Yin chattered about her day. He sent a text to Aldric:
did you do the deed-
-YEAH WE DID B))))
hell fucking yeah-
are you guys done-
-Oh, yeah. You can
come home if you
wanna.
bringing yin with me-
-Woo! Okay!
Yang pocketed his phone and picked Yin up, blankets and all. "Where are we going?" she asked from her blanket cave.
"I'm gonna take you back to my and Aldric's apartment." and for a moment Yang considered how gay that sounded. "Where's your backpack?"
"By the door." Yin adjusted herself in Yang's arms so she could be carried comfortably. "but I'm in my jammies!"
Yang shrugged.
"You don't have to carry me, though! I can walk. We walk all the time! To every place!"
Yang shifted her weight in his arms. He looked around, in case that one guy had woken up. The coast was clear. He kissed her black mark and ruffled her curls. "I know. But it's late, and you should sleep. You can sleep, and I'll carry you, alright?"
"You don't have to..." she said as if she was already halfway there, resting her head against her brother. The light was off again in the living room, and Yang didn't check to see if they were asleep again. He hoisted up Yin's 'Fatbunny and Flatbunny' travel backpack, slumped predictably near the door with her shoes, and tossed it over one shoulder. Yin was asleep again before they reached the ground floor.
Walking down an empty street around two in the morning, with a sleeping child in his arms, and a balloon trailing above him, Yang felt like he'd made the wiser choice. At least for tonight.
Another mountain fold, in a place without any mountains . No mountains, no hills, no dunes in the grass. Just a flat plane of green, only interrupted by a patch of nine-hundred ninety-eight folded paper flowers.
Fold by fold, flower number 999 was finally completed and mounted on a paper straw. Small hands punched the end of the straw into the ground. The flower was planted as, for the first time in what would be a literal eternity, the record began to warp.
Yin supposed that one day her record would mess up. You can only scratch up the same piece of vinyl so many times over the course of decades before it starts to warp. The lady would not be able to finish wondering why happy little bluebirds were able to fly over the rainbow, as her words garbled and became nonsense until Yin decided she could not take it anymore. She lifted the needle and ended the song prematurely. With gentle hands, she ran a finger over the edge of the record. It, in conjunction with the player that housed it, was her favorite thing they'd ever found wefting through The Void.
The Void wasn't often visited by foreign objects, but every once in a while some small run in the pantyhose of space would let some odd object fall through from one plane to another. Yin kept her found objects in a little pile, as no boxes or storage containers had ever fallen through. They might have been small and unimportant to the people who'd lost them, but to her, they were treasures. A very tiny silver telescope that was closed on one end and smelled funny, was repurposed into a little doll with a wig made of scrunched up purple origami paper. The paper was another lucky find, slipped through one day while Yin was pretending to work, and the straws floated by some long time later. The record player was actually a gift from her brother, Yang.
One could say that Yang and Yin were twins because they were born at the same time, but to do that the definition of 'born' and 'twins' must be reconfigured a touch. For one, they appeared different ages; Yang was the adult and Yin as a child appearing to be six. In addition, they were not even truly born in the traditional sense. When people, that is, Earth people, first recognized the idea of yin and yang, a great but somewhat stuffy council on another plane of existence decided that that concept should be embodied, since The Council of Grand Spirits and Beliefs was short staffed and wanted a few more sets of hands to push off the paperwork to. Yang and Yin, so they were named, were given bodies and asked what kinds of planes they'd like to live on. Yin, in her haste to stop floating about, spat out "grass and a sky" with few other descriptors. Yang thought a moment on his, and requested a large house with many hallways and rooms, with dark grey walls, white carpets, a nice bed, and a desk. However, this produced just what he'd asked for. Big house, grey walls, white floors, desk, bed, and absolutely nothing else. The CoGSaB lives on specifics, and they don't recognize the time-honored tradition of 'take-backsies'. They were given work to do and an endless time to get it done; they'd stamp things to be approved, sign bits of paperwork, file reports on happenings that might have concerned them. "This plant," the papers would say "was at its height in summer and therefore in 'full yang', but in winter it still did not reach 'full yin' by wilting and rotting into the earth as it should have. Yang, please do what is in your power to ensure that Yin is not distracted in her work. Yin, please insist that your brother is not so preoccupied that he neglects to proofread." and Yang would roll his eyes and scratch out a signature while Yin stamped a card approving the appropriate wilting of a plant, thus ending the wild superstitious turmoil that befell a small town.
And so it was since the dawn of their own creation, Yin and her brother Yang lived as opposing, yet complimentary forces. Yin would visit Yang's large dark house often, but she rarely left his side while there. Once, she left his bedroom to see if anything else had been placed in the rooms of the house.
"Don't get lost," he warned with little affect to his voice, "this place is a damn maze. I'd have to come find you." Yin swung on the doorknob. "I'll be okay!" she chimed back at him. "If i get lost, I'll walk backwards and that way I'll find your room again." She was gone trotting down the hall before he could reply.
Her bare feet tapped down the soft white carpet as she opened door after door. Some rooms were barely large enough to hold her small frame, while others were the size of grand ballrooms. In the big rooms, she twirled until her head went fuzzy. Dozens of doors she opened, before she got fed up after finding a door that led to solid wall. According to plan, Yin decided to retrace her steps. Slowly she made her way, backwards, down the hall, running her hands along the painted walls. Yin never wore shoes, and while she usually welcomed the soft plushness of the white carpet under her toes, it seemed rough and unfriendly now that she was thoroughly lost in the silent hallways. She turned a corner, expecting to see a set of doors that she left open on accident, but instead found more closed ones. Was the open-door hall down that way? Deciding to leave a marker, Yin opened one of these doors to remind herself that she'd already checked down this way.
It was the silence that was getting to her. All that she could hear was reduced to the dull padding of her feet on that white carpet and the sound of her hands running over the walls. Even the silence of her own space was lessened in significance by the vast openness of the grass and the brightness of the unmoving blue sky. This was a tiny, closed space. Silence echoed.
Yang must have known she was missing, as when she opened yet another door looking for the way out, he was on the other side reaching for the knob. He lead her back to his room, with an uncanny mastery of the halls that all mirrored each other in appearance. "I told you you'd get lost," he said with a smirk as she followed just steps behind him. He slowed his pace and pulled to the right, letting her walk in stride with him.
"How do you know this place so well? Is it just 'cause you live here?" Yin asked.
Yang replied with a shrug as he opened up the door to his bedroom, and the only room in his Void with any furniture. Yin bounded on to his large, flat bed, rolling in the black and white sheets until she was burrowed in them. She wished she'd asked for a bed. While she was huddled up in the sheets, she felt Yang sitting down on one end. Without exiting the little bundle of sheets and blankets, Yin scooted to her brother and rested against him. It was times like this that she wished she could sleep in The Void.
"Well," Yang said, "I guess since Yin is now burrowed deep into the Blanket Dimension, she won't want this present. I guess I could just throw it into the Abyss or something." In a flurry of linens, she was out again. "Present?"
Yang stood up and walked to the desk. He reached down into the biggest drawer in the desk, one probably meant for files, and hefted out a wooden box.
Yin shifted aside on the bed, allowing Yang to sit next to her, her present on his lap. Inside the lidded box there were a few buttons, and a long arm that looked like it belonged to a spider. The spider's arm hovered over a large black disk. "I found it a while ago, but the music on it is kind weird and sparkly, and since you're into weird sparkly shit I figured you'd like it more than I do."
He showed her how to make it play, and that began her love of the funny wooden box and it's shiny black disk. In the beginning, she would play it constantly, running back and forth from her place in the field to the player to start the disk over again. While it played, Yin would twirl and dance and eventually sing along once the words were memorized backward and forward. Of all the funny songs on the disk, her favorite was the one with the girl singing about going over the rainbow. From her place in the big lonely Void, Yin knew the feeling the girl was singing about. Like the singing girl, Yin had been stuck in one place for such a long time, and she was ready to go somewhere else.
The little spirit fumbled around in her pile of papers and straws and half-finished flowers until she found a silver key ring. She lifted a simple black key in the air and gave it a firm twist.
The door formed knob-first, spreading from the keyhole out like liquid, until the staunch grey wood evened out into a more recognizable rectangle shape. Yin pushed the door open and was welcomed by the dark walls of Yang's section of The Void. She knew the way to his room, that was for sure. No getting lost this time. She was certainly not a fan of that.
Yang was perched on the edge of his bed, flipping through sheets of paper and showing little interest in their contents. He perked up upon his sisters arrival, giving her a nod of recognition as she climbed up to join him.
"Whatcha lookin' at?" she asked, peering over at his work.
"Paperwork. Boring stuff."
"Ooooohh…" Yin mused with a wise nod. "Yang?"
"Yin?"
Yin hopped off the bed, deciding this was a conversation best had face to face. She put her hands on his knees; this was truly very serious business. "Let's go down to Earth! We could pick flowers and eat bread and-"
"Yin-"
"We could play in the park with real grass and you could kiss all of the pretty ladies!" Her milky eyes were eager as she leaned closer with every word. Yang stared down at her, his thick eyebrows furrowed and his lips naught but a thin line of stern brotherly concern. "Come on," he replied "Yin, we've talked about this. We can't go. Every time we go down there, we manage to screw the hell out of something. As much as I'd love to go down and-" he noted his sister again, amending his next choice of words, "kiss the pretty girls, the answer is no."
"But Yang!" she said with urgency as she balled her hands up in the fabric of his clothes, "My record is warping, and my hands hurt from making flowers. Can't I just go down for a few minutes and bring some real flowers up?" She smiled, hoping it would convince him.
"Yin, no," he said, a clear strain to his voice, "you know if we get separated for too long we'll-"
"I know!" Yin didn't like talking about that, or even thinking about it. This battle was lost. Perhaps she could sneak out by herself, pick some flowers, and show them to her brother? Surely a feat like that would convince him that she was more than able to venture out for just a few minutes. Maybe she could even have friends on Earth! Friends she could only visit for minutes at a time, but friends all the same. Yin's mind began to wander much in the way that her body yearned to. She knew that Yang really liked humans. What if she brought up a beautiful human lady for Yang to kiss. No, even better! A human princess! After they kissed here in The Void, Yang would have to bring her home! That, of course, would necessitate another Earth visit! Yin daydreamed of a lovely princess in flowing purple robes kissing her brother on a cloud.
Well, not a cloud, since you can't actually sit on those. Something nice, though.
That clinched it. Yin had to go down to Earth. It was no longer a desire, nay, it was her duty as Yang's sister to bring a pretty princess for him and pretty flowers for herself. She realized she'd been staring off into space, freely kicking her legs on Yang's bed. He'd been watching her with some strange amusement this whole time. Now was the time to act natural. This had to be a secret plan.
"Okaaay, Yang." Yin sighed, doing her best to sound completely and utterly defeated. "I'm gonna go back to my place now!"
"Don't you want to-"
"Maybe we can do it some other time!"
"Wh-"
Yin made a wild chattering noise, similar to that of a frightened cat, in an attempt to distract and alarm him while she shot her own white key up into the air, and went tumbling back into her fake flower field.
The sudden tumble would have normally been rather jostling, but now it filled Yin with excitement. Soon she could roll around in real flowers! Real sunlight would dance on her cheeks and warm her skin. Yin held her face and squealed audibly for no one in particular to hear.
She needed a place to go, though. One cannot simply open a door in space-time and land wherever it spits them out.
Yin remembered one other item of interest that Yang had collected from the void. Some strange tangle of lines and words called a "subway schedule and transit map." She would read it from time to time, but there wasn't much to read. Numbers and times and names of places she didn't recognize. After pouring over it a few times, she stopped paying attention to it. Now her mind searched to remember the words from it. If she could focus on a place from the map, she could show up there.
What was the name….
Yin lifted the third key on her ring, the one she wasn't supposed to touch unless it was an emergency.
It was a park…….
She held it steady and gave it a turn.
A park right in the middle…..
A door formed just as it did with Yang's. This door was ornate, with opals embedded in swirling steel forms. The center held a spinning version of their symbol. The knob seemed to be made of cold glass, but was warm to the touch. Yin took her key out. No need to lose that.
Something Park….
The door was nearly formed.
"Central park!" she said aloud. "Take me to Central Park!" she closed her eyes and concentrated as hard as she could on the picture from the map. Right there. Take me right there. The big green shape right in the middle.
With a lurch, the door snapped into full solidity and swung open. The force of it toppled Yin over. Cold wind whipped through the open portal, but there was nothing to see. Everything seemed white, and not what she expected from a park, but Yin didn't linger on the thought. She'd only done this a few times before, but as a safety precaution, the door didn't stay open long.
In a grand movement, Yin went sailing through the door moments before it slammed closed.
(((For Ashlee's birthday, I killed someone and made Aldric cry. Enjoy <3333)))
Death wasn't a new thing. It was all around him. He worked in the business of life and death. He'd seen strangers die before. He'd been right there as the light faded from the eyes of family members now put to rest. He didn't cry when his patients died. Not to say that he didn't do everything that he could. That was his job.
When his childhood friend was admitted to the hospital, he honestly didn't make much of it, and "not making much of it" isn't something a wise person does while working in a hospital. But at 26, Aldric Wynn still wasn't as wise as he thought he was. He thought that somehow, he'd be okay. He'd make it out alive.
And when they were running the tests, he didn't want to look. Aldric would find something else to look at in case, by some childish stroke of magic, not seeing the tests underway would prevent the result.
"Hey, David, so I was thinking once you heal up, we could take the big scar on your chest and turn it into a face thing, since it's a perfect line, right, then just have you stand in the hallway showing only your stomach for a while after hours and see who you freak out." Aldric says at 3:45 PM, April 28th, the fifth day that David was in intensive care. It makes David laugh, albeit weakly. An empty, gasping laugh that begs sincerity, but is held at bay by rapidly failing lungs. "Nothing like a little morbid humor at the expense of me being a dead guy."
And when Aldric's smile at the comment fades a bit, he adds "Okay, an almost dead guy. Anyway, maybe my nipples could be the eyes. I could make a movie of it."
"You're not gonna be a dead guy." the young doctor says with a false conviction as he looks not at David, but at charts and monitors. Beeping things and moving lines and a laundry list of Very Bad Things that were happening inside the guy who used to be his best friend. David and Aldric were much closer when they were kids. Years had pulled them apart, with Aldric rocketing past the normal pace of grade advancement, and David starting film school while his friend was neck deep learning how to prevent people from dying.
But Aldric never let a person leave once they'd sealed a friendship. He never forgot to talk to his friend when he could. Even if the only chance he got was every year when he wished him a Happy Chaunakah, which he'd purposefully mispronounce or call by the wrong name. "Happy Guernica, dude!" "Hey, Dave, just called to wish you a happy chimichanga!" Happy Chanakit-kat bar was Aldric's personal favorite. David always expected it, and he always laughed.
So, as Aldric looks at his friend with the ruined lung and the multiple surgical scars and the IV and the 25% mortality rate, he foolishly pushes away the idea that he might not get to wish David a happy Chameleonakah this year. Of course he would.
Aldric was a doctor. Doctors save people. And he would save David.
"Hey, so," David say after a moment of hospital silence, or silence penetrated by beeps and whirrs and hallway noise and a breathing apparatus. "Do you remember Harvey?"
"Harvey," Aldric muses, "Short guy? Kinda slimy? Long legs? That Harvey?"
"Yeah, my frog."
"Well, maybe I didn't get it at first because you didn't call him by his full name: "
After the bout of gasping and wheezing in place of laughter, David held one hand to his hair and brushed his hair out of his smiling eyes. "How in the hell do you remember all of that? Jesus, never collaborate with your friend when naming your frog."
Aldric began to retaliate with "Excuse me, but I think Harvey truly benefitted from being the Hero of Cool Bloodmouth Mountain," but continuous coughing stops him. His labored breathing is slow going in and fast and hitching going out, and his hand flying from his head to his chest as the wheezing escalated to dangerous hacking.
"David. David!" Aldric said, stooping near the bed, his face growing hard and his entire being shifting back to the doctor he was trying to be. "Where's the pain? No, don't talk, just breathe for me. Just focus on breathing. Shit, where are they, oh god. Hang on." and he runs blindly into the hall because dammit why aren't there any analgesics for chest pain in here, and as he flies down the hall, other forms of medical staff fill the room with panic and people. Nurses and doctors who weren't off looking for the wrong thing work quickly and the room blurred with would become a futile attempt to save a life. A blur that Aldric catches the end of when he reenters with medicine that would not do any good anymore.
4:25 PM. April 28th.
---
He rode the bus home alone. As he slumped against the window, he observed all of the people who didn't see people who used to be friends die every day. Aldric was a doctor. It was his job to save people, and to see them die when he couldn't. But, somehow, it always hurt a little. And yet he couldn't let this one go. He couldn't just forget it and see David get swept away by the undertow because he broke the rules and made him laugh.
Unlock the door.
Close it again.
Notice roommate sleeping on the couch.
Like a child, get scared.
Check your friend's pulse.
Drink something.
Do a piss poor job of holding back a sob.
While he was standing there, in the kitchen, five hours and thirty-seven minutes after David Riles died, Aldric heard Yang stirring on the sofa. He reached up and shoved tears out of his eyes. Nothing wrong here. Just standing in the kitchen and drinking alcohol. He'll buy it.
"Dude, are you crying?"
He didn't buy it, but Aldric smiled anyway. "Yeah. No, I'm not. It's. You know. Allergies, and shit…" and then his eyes welled up with tears. Tears, that like so many other things, he could not control. "I was talking to David and-" he tried to play off that sob as a laugh, "did you know that people can just shit out and die? Right in the middle of a conversation? Really. It's rude as fuck, Yang."
Aldric set his beer down and put his hand over his eye. His eyes were closed, so he didn't see Yang walk from the sofa, and put his hands on his best friends shoulders, but he felt it and the touch actually made everything worse. It made it more real. David really died and other people were gong to find out.
"We weren't even close anymore! You know? God. Like I hadn't spoken to him in like six fucking months, right, and-" an honest sob now. Aldric hated his own pathetic display. This shouldn't hurt as much as it did. People die every day, but this one was his fault. "Like he was a smoker and he had pneumonia on top of his COPD and they were like 'Aldric, maybe you shouldn't take him! Maybe you should not be an idiot so you can sit and cry because a guy you haven't talked to in months is going to die! Even though people always die!' and fuck, Yang, people always die and I thought 'Okay, I'll be a doctor, and I'll keep people from dying-" Aldric didn't remember when Yang started hugging him, just that he was letting him sob into his nice jacket like damn idiot who isn't used to this. "but I can't stop it! All a doctor does is make it so you don't die horribly, and then-oops!- he died coughing and with his stupid fever spiking and I couldn't do shit to stop it because I thought: 'oh chest pain let me help you with that!' I made him laugh! Why did I think any of that was a good idea."
And then he quieted for a moment. Apartment quiet, with the TV on and the coffee pot gurgling and two guys in an odd semi-hug. Aldric took a deep breath, stepping away from Yang and taking a drink that was deeper than the breath. "And I didn't know that he was getting married or anything because I didn't talk to him enough! You know? But they mentioned how they had to let his fiance know. Maybe if I'd talked to him I would have been more serious about telling him to stop smoking because god dammit!! Who the hell smokes with COPD! He's an idiot. He was a dumbass." He swiveled around to glare at Yang, who was absentmindedly rotating a sponge in a little circle. He looked pained. "But you know what? He made great movies. Like, this one time, I said 'Happy Chaunakit-kat bar' instead of Chaunakah? And he thought I said 'happy haunted kit-kat bar', and we laughed and he made this fifteen minute movie about a candy bar that was really happy, despite being possessed by demons. But you know what?! He was better at movies than I am at saving lives. He's never failed."
Aldric chuckled. He was staring down into his drink, thinking about that stupid movie about the stupid candy bar that his stupid old, dead friend made.
"Aldric," Yang said finally, "I'm," he was searching for words, "I'm sorry, dude. I don't know…"
His distressed friend held up a hand to stop him. "No, I'm sorry, Yang. This is stupid. Let's not mention this--"
"No, no, it's fine. You're upset. And kinda drunk. And I dunno. It's okay, you know, if you have to be upset. You know, some days are just really shitty and this is probably gonna be one of your shittiest. So it's okay if you're sad. But you know what? You save a lot of people. You save people every goddamn day, and you give people things that make them feel better. Hell. I'm not even sick or anything and you usually manage to make me feel better just by being the idiot that I chose to be friends with." and this almost brought a smile out of him. "So, yeah. He died. But you said it yourself, people always die. Sometimes, there's nothing you can do."
Aldric actually laughed now. "Yang…" he said quietly, "That is really awful advice." he said as he wiped his face with his hand. "You suck at this."
"Well, I'm bad at advice, but you're pretty good at being a doctor."
They embraced again, deciding to spend the rest of the evening letting Aldric feel as shitty as he needed, and watching rugby, and probably drinking more. A friend who'd grown distant was gone, and the world spun madly on.
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