The hands will not stop shaking.
Typing difficulty increased: 500%
But he has to be sure. He has to make certain Flyndt understood. Gestures sloppy. Possible miscommunication. Karran’s spoken words, misinterpreting him. Making assertions, implications. Implied: trying to choose for Flyndt.
NO.
Deny, deny, deny.
Implied: thinking Flyndt incapable. Untrue. Deny.
He wants to scream. He can’t.
What if Flyndt listens to Karran first? Speaking: envied. His communication: inefficient, slow, difficult.
But Flyndt had said: talk? Share? I want to know.
Know me. I know you.
I gave him my name.
Known.
These are facts. But the body will not listen to them. It is inefficient, and has been compromised by the day’s previous sympathetic nervous activations. It shakes. And the mind doubts.
Status: uncertain. Set task: achieve clarity.
Flyndt needs to know.
When the Omwati boards the ship again after presumed swearing of apprenticeship to Karran, Foxen has his statement written. He leaves the original message to Karran available to view, so that Flyndt can know. His words are not verbatim; he tried to make them clearer than what he’d said before. He waits, molecules vibrating, by the hatch.
Set task: obtain permission.
Can. We. Talk? Can. I. Tell. You. Something? he shaped carefully as behind them in the cockpit Minnie began her takeoff checks.
Hiss-click.
Air whooshed sharply for a second as it was forcibly pushed out of the hatch frame, sealing the internal compartments of the ship as the door sealed. It left Flyndt standing in front of it, unblinking sunset eyes looking up to meet sanguine. He shifted minutely to watch the careful messages.
A sigh.
He wanted to tell him it was fine, that he understood. Yet when he went to speak, the words stuck to his tongue. So, the Omwati nodded, stepping a bit closer.
“Yes.”
Something like sick relief might have flinched across the hybrid’s face, were one able to tell. As it was, he held as still as he physically could in that moment while Flyndt neared and extended the pad.
Critical intel. 25 kg over half his mass. Omwati bones light, thin. Like bird. Break. He is trusting you.
I said: It’s your choice to train how and with who you want and whatever you choose, I’m with you. I know you will be amazing. Whatever you need for transport, schedule, weapon, supplies (rice), etc, we will accommodate. I’m not angry at you.
NOT trying to make choice for you. Only your choice. Giving intel. I am sorry I revealed something about you. It isn’t mine to share. Errored, betrayed. Terrified he will make the mistake I did not knowing. Accept that you will choose pain in this process. Just do not want it to be unintended.
Your choice. Support you. Trust you.
It trembles in the air between them, because the hand shakes.
The avian’s brows softened as a small frown tugged at his lips, a breath sinking into his chest at quivering hands. Slowly, he raised his hand and gently rested it on the Nautolan’s wrist, attempting to steady quietly. His feathers flicked as he finally made out the words, taking time to read and reread to understand.
‘Break’
His grip tensed, breath catching as the memory of impacting against hard sand, of pain cracking along the very arm holding the man who’s blood had trickled down onto him that very moment, time stopping, freezing. A shudder ran up his spine and shook his shoulders involuntarily. Flyndt forced himself past it, to read on.
‘…isn’t mine to share. Errored, betrayed. Terrified…’ ‘Your choice. Support you. Trust you.’
“It…O.K.” he finally answered, around the knot in his throat. His averted gaze shifted to stare at the hull beside them for a moment, warring with the churn of bitterness from earlier and the now insight into Foxen’s fears. He chewed on his inner cheek before exhaling a low coo and glancing back up to the taller man, lips twitching in the barest of a solemn smile.
“Understood…I…am not so fragile as transparisteel…” the Omwati frowned, pausing, his thumb brushing the back of a hand twice his own. “I know what I wish…to train, know the risks of it, accept it…I need to. I can not do just forms.”
And I can not bring myself to spar with you, nor you I, he thought to himself, recalling trembling hands and uptick in heart whenever he nearly asked. A question dropped and replaced by something simpler, lacking. ‘Foxen, would…would you pass canteen please?’
And Karran is your size…
Flyndt shook his head and reread the last paragraph, nodding after. “Thank you, for support.”
The touch on his wrist is.
Is.
Thumb brushing over his hand.
His knees shook, along with his unsteady hand that the Omwati steadied.
I know what I wish. Accept it. Understood.
Thank you.
It O.K.
O.K.
Okay.
Nothing felt okay.
It felt like. Like.
Thumb brushing his hand. Holding it up. Steadying unsteady. Sunset eyes avert but they come back. They come back and smile for him no matter how small.
They forgive him. For this part.
Something cracks.
The gloved thumb makes circles and he wants it so fraking bad he wants to beg those gloves to come off he wants skin he wants warmth he wants to collapse and bury his face in the Omwati’s neck and feel warm and skin and breath in that feather smell and be held not just this hand not just that just fall apart he wants he wants he wants just–
Too much.
Disallowed.
STOPITGETAWAYFROMHIM.
Thank you, he signs, incredibly slowly, because the shaking where Flyndt isn’t holding him is worsening in magnitudes. For everything. Know you are strong. You can do this, anything. Trust you.
Then he pulls his hand out of Flyndt’s grip, before he can try to grab back and cling. Control compromised. Control compromised. Retreat.
Minnow has been watching them, and he signals for her to take off. He doesn’t even stop to get the pad back from Flyndt; he’ll just drop it. He waves to offer the other seat beside Minnow to Flyndt and skirts past without touching, shuts himself in the tiny refresher compartment.
His horns force him to turn his head and his headtails still press into the ceiling. Contact with walls on both sides, compressing ribcage and shoulderblades to wedge into the space. There is not room to breathe because the chest cannot expand fully. When the door slides shut, it is confinement.
The lights flicker on automatically, burning directly into his face.
Light and confinement standard for correction.
Sweating resumes. The body knows. The mind goes quiet.
“Foxen, it is–”
O.K.
The man had already disappeared, deeper into the shuttle, locking himself away. The datapad left in his hand felt twenty times heavier that Flyndt nearly dropped it when the quivering hands of before vanished. He just felt so tired, his voice betrayed it, he knew. Did Foxen just assume he was placating him?
Chicc'dkk.
Who is really the chicc'dkk here?
A short rumbling chitter of his beak, his lips pull into a frown. Frustrated. Tired and frustrated and, and he did not want to sit next to Minnie! And he had to pee!
If his stare could burn through that lock, but no.
Flyndt released a heavy exhale and shifted to fall into the co-pilot’s chair, arm propped up on the armrest and head on his fist. He stared out the window and did not speak. The slight twitching of his feathers the only communicators of his thoughts and feelings.
Equally exhausted, still puffy seafoam eyes darted to the right and back forward again at intervals. Minnow didn’t know what the feathers twitching meant, not like Foxxy maybe did. She could only guess from similar things in other animals. Puffed up meant mad or scared, right?
But it was obvious otherwise that the Omwati didn’t want to talk. She chewed on her raw cheek, twisted around to glance back at the refresher. That room was not big enough for her brother. And it had been like, fifteen minutes.
She was starting to worry he wasn’t actually using it. Unless it was just a really bad shit.
Again Minnow looked to Flyndt. As they crossed Ussun’s skies, she commented, “Sooo…we don’t have to talk about it, hon, but…we can if you wanna. Ever. Okie? I’m here for you too. Sister’s honor.”
You are not my sister!
Flyndt wanted to snap, jaw locking as the comment drudging up emotions and memories. Memories of white downy feathers and blue-gold eyes, of laughter and the widest smile despite everything that happened, mother leaving and her falling sick. No, Minnie can speak on any other honor of hers but not as sister to him. He stared out the window harder, brows furrowed.
But…the woman was Foxen’s sister. She knew him, maybe could talk about that.
His sunset eyes flicked in her direction a couple times and he raise this head a bit as if about to say something. Then shook it and resume staring out the window. Only a small flash of hands to acknowledge the offer sometime.
O.K.
NO!
It wasn’t anything said, but she felt it, clear as the tropical ocean water on a bright day looking down on the sea floor. Her headtails all curled and pressed to her skull with it, with the sudden ripping twinge of grief and rejection and anger.
She let out a little gasp, quickly clapping a bandaged hand over her mouth to shush it. A glance over at Flyndt revealed him glaring out the viewport, not looking at her, posture all tight. Biting her cheek to keep back tears she couldn’t possibly have enough water for anymore, she swallowed bloody and forced her face to relax, turning forward to keep flying like nothing was wrong.
What had she said? Maybe he just really didn’t want to be bothered right now. That was fair. And she’d already caused so much mess and stress, and Foxxy was…was…
Man, what was all this about training with Karran anyway? Foxxy loved sparring. And she’d bet her foot he’d like to spar with Flyndt. They both seemed like weapon nuts too. God, she could taste the UST in that gym just thinking about it. But Karran had to do it? Was it a Force thing? Was it Foxen? Why didn’t he ask her? Granted, Flyndt obviously didn’t trust her yet, and that was okay, but…this obviously upset Foxen so much…
What was she missing?
Foxen’s words from on the way here haunted her, seeming like days ago, not two hours.
Because …he is alone, without his people, staying with me as a fraking convenience… fraked up power dynamic…The answer is no…
…He might not be here in a month, Min, not if I can scrape my shit together…
Minnie caught a few of the glances sent her way while they flew, but she pretended not to notice. Only out of the corner of her eye did she see a positive flash of letters.
Well, sometime then, maybe. If they ever got there.
- Her grip on the yoke tightened.
Night, she thought, throat closing with the grief she’d picked up off the Omwati, I don’t know what to do here without making it all worse.
The ocean spread wide before them. Crystal clear.
She steered them home.
The ship lands.
The body feels the deacceleration-lifting-touchdown. The stomach commences evacuation for the throat.
Refuse.
The body uses the shoulder and elbow to jab at the door panel. The hand cannot lift to reach while enclosed. Space insufficient.
Respiration: increased. Heart rate: increased. Sweat: profuse.
Set task: exit.
Set task: check on your goddamn sister goddammit frak.
The body– he turns. He lingers, holding the body in place. Looks at Minnie as she approaches from the cockpit with obvious intent to check on him. He does not let himself look at Flyndt. Deny deny deny. Not deserved. Needs to do this on his own. Wanting is violation.
It’s O.K.
Sure, but doesn’t mean it’s okay what I’m feeling right now about it.
He focuses on the white spots on Minnie’s cheek that they share, that she does not know came from their mother. He asks her with a frown, do you want to come in?
He does not know how to handle her invasion right now. But it’s his baby sister. She has had multiple episodes of strong emotion today. She has been hurt on his behalf, and he has hurt her.
Minnow looks at him with visible sadness, shaking her head and offering a smile that is too wobbly to be anything.
“I’m okay, Tolly,” she says, and then, “I’ve spent the last couple years comforting myself. You don’t have to. I’ll be okay.”
To anyone else this may seem harsh. But she is assuring with intel. It is pain, but it is also affirmation.
He nods to her and descends the ramp. It is a fast walk. Then it is almost a run. The front door was still open. He pushes in.
- The house is not his home and it blurs around him.
Their refresher is not small or confinement. The clothes and belts and weapons stay on this time because he does not have the capacity to remove them. His palms make contact with the shower wall.
At the touch of water, the body buckles. The caf tastes even worse and burns twice as much coming back up. The morning’s tea and single bite of scone from before takeoff are indistinguishable from acid-mucus. The knees hurt from slamming into the tile as the body shakes. Bends. He catches himself from concussion via drain on hands that slide in the mess and violently quake.
Heart rate: elevated. Respirations: can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe.
Gag, spit.
The Omwati hung back as the siblings conversed before the ramp, giving them space. When Foxen left, he finally stepped up and paused beside Minnow. His gaze tracked the other man’s retreat before flicking over to her. A small tug down of his lips, he exhaled, sympathizing with her even though he did not truly know what she was feeling. Yet, her tone with her brother had seemed off though.
“I am sorry.”
Sorry for her family not being as it was, back long ago before he disappeared. He had noticed here and there the whisps of pain and longing, of wanting to be close and help but…sunset eyes dropped, shifting back to the house before them. A stray thought wondering if this as a sign, if he and Gaile reunited…
Flyndt took a breath, turned to give Minnie a final slight nod, and slinked off the ship and into the house.
-
Water splashed against tile, the spread and cadence of the droplets dispersing was that of someone – Foxen – shifting beneath the spray. Even with damaged vocal cords, the unmistakable sound of retching still reached his ears as Flyndt leaned back against the hallway wall, refraining from tapping his head against it twice. He wanted to burst into the bathroom – the door was open – and join him, turn the water off and fan on and just sit. Yet…he could not will himself to. His chest constricted ever time he tried, arm felt heavy and leaden.
So he sat there and listened, breath catching anytime the Nautolan’s did, picking at his talons and staring holes into the wall across from him.
Eventually he stood and willed the Force over him like a cloak, a temporary hide from no one in particular, a moments respite from being perceived as he shifted to the room he was offered here.
The spray hurts.
It’s a million tiny bullets, it’s belonging, it’s memory, it’s foreign, it’s betrayal. It’s a flash of then-now: another shower, another moment, the first touch of water in five years and lives and deaths he lost count of, feeling like his skin is being picked off; but that one was not alone. It came with strange but solid comfort, an olive hand, battered but gentle, careful around the raw edges of where a shock collar still scraped.
Now there was no hand. No help. Alone.
This is something I need to do.
O.K.
The body didn’t have any bile left to vomit, so the muscles only spasm in agony. He curls on the floor, less a choice than a giving out of tendon and bone. Water flows up his nostrils, causing more choking along with the closing throat; it’s no good in the air, to have lungs like this, aching for things they can’t have.
Vaguely, barely he registers the sound of clacking talons on hardwood, but can’t see anything in out in the hall, not at the angle he’s at. No shadow passed either. No knocks, no hoots coos anything. Just the water drumming into his skull violently. But the clacks are a tell: Flyndt is present in the house. His own aloneness…is Flyndt’s choice.
Understood.
Affirmative.
Have to do this.
Myself.
Affirmative.
Both of them do.
…He could be gone tomorrow…
The mind drifts. It wanders teeth and claws and heavy stomping feet and pincers and razors and whips and tearing and heated irons and dust and feces and blood. The hole in his abdomen aches. All of him aches. The body is heavy.
The water runs cold, and he doesn’t even notice.
Bullets don’t have temperature.
The body moves again when the degree of luminosity in the doorway indicates time passing. Dim to dark. There is not a window in that hallway. Assessment needed to determine hour minute seconds.
The body does not shiver. The muscles have no strength left. The cold stopped being acknowledged input long ago; the mind knows the body can survive colder and more prolonged exposure to submersion.
Each piece of clothing weighs a million tons. They slap wet and heavy onto the floor, crawled and dragged out of. The weapons need attention. The datapad is specifically waterproof and fine. The glasses were crushed.
crunch
This is the why.
The body drips down hall and to room with pool, locker, closet. The eyes fix on the pile of bedding beside the pool and resist moving off of it for 189 seconds. The mind intends to take the body and dress, go to the kitchen, prepare the food. But every step is even heavier than the clothes were. The nest looks warm and it smells like Flyndt.
Deny.
Step forward.
Deny.
Step forward.
Deny.
The knees touch the blanket, the arms hug the pillow. The body is a traitor and folds over and looses a sob that smells and tastes like feathers.
Deny deny deny deny deny.
You don’t get to have this.
Let go.
Let go.
He lets go of the pillow. Wipes the face eyes nose of snot and tears and smears mess. Assessment: gross. He has dirtied the bedding. It will need washed.
He drags himself to the closet, drying off. The fluffy towels that are nearly silken soft feel like razor wire on the skin. He pulls off all the jewelry from the headtails but can’t take off the makeshift bandage. The pants and remains of the shirt are thrown at the trash with imprecision, falling out the side. He picks something as close to the green he misses as he dares and puts it on, then trudges to gather bedding and laundry and puts it on to wash. Next is kitchen. The house spins slightly on its axis.
He is. So tired.
Movement stirred inside the house tucked on the outskirts of the Erinos compound. The sound of damp footfall drew open one sunset eye to stare into the darkness of his small modest room, the other tucked into the arm cushioning his head. The hallway fell silent, replaced by the oscillating noise of his fan, affixing his attention of the slight clank of the fourth blade.
Flyndt let out a heavy sigh and pushed himself up out of the sheets he had nestled in, feathers falling loose against his ears and in his face. He huffed and pushed them back. Shifting his gaze about the dim room, he picked out the shadows of half abandoned and started projects alike on his desk, of his pack with his basic necessities collected by the door, his polearm leaning beside it, kept separate from Foxen’s armory. He blinked, once twice, then rubbed at his eyes to no success. Exhaustion would not relent it’s grin on him.
The sudden pang of hunger made itself equally known.
Right, food.
Another sigh. Flyndt undid the buttons on his vest, his belts already discarded earlier before he abandoned dressing down in favor of sinking into soft mattress, sometimes too soft but today…was needed. Shrugging off the sleeveless coat and feeling much cooler for it, his gloves quickly joined, one falling to rest beside his tossed sandals as his tunic’s sleeves unfurled freely. He considered the decorative leg sleeves over his pants, but working the knots securing them felt too much.
He flopped back onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling. At some point he noted three things; the constant hum that filled the silence being that of the crooked fan, his own rise and fall off his chest. And the fact that he had not had a productive thought or any at all since he laid back down. .
Dragging himself up and out of bed, Flyndt slipped from his room and quietly headed for the kitchen, as softly as his talons could on wood. He paused near the island, which did not look as much like an island but he understood the concept. Taking a second to try and recall where certain foods were stored, the Omwati shifted to the main cabinets and started hoisting himself up on the counter to reach the shelf a tub of trail mix was stored.
A pause.
His hand lowered slowly, gaze falling to a warped and mutated coffeepot on the counter for a moment. Lowered himself back onto the floor. Flyndt turned and looked to his side, sunset gaze settling on the broad form of Foxen. He was sitting on the floor, head tipped back against the gasser and staring at the ceiling with a bisected-handled knife twirling, snapping with the flick of his wrist. The Nautolan had discarded his clothes and was wearing very…form fitting short…shorts.
And a turtleneck, several shades brighter than his own yellowish olive tones.
Rattle-rattle, clack, rattle snap–
Frowning, Flyndt crouched beside the man with arms wrapped around his knees. “Foxen…” He slowly reached out and gentle touched the jostling arm, “Bapti.”
Rattle-snap! the knife clicked shut, the motion of the arm arrested in an instant when hot finger pads rested upon it. What little of him moved at all, even the rise and fall of the chest, froze.
Pause.
For a long moment, just stillness. Exhaustion. Both of them.
Then like something already crumpled, not crumbling, red eyes canted left, meeting sunset in the dark kitchen.
They only stay a moment. Bare, tiny olive hands draw the– his eyes. They’re clever and calloused and there’s so much of them that he can’t look away, feels himself burning, the heat rising in his chest, cheeks. The one that brushed his arm so gently is even hotter, like an open flame. He can feel himself collapsing into it.
He wants those hands. He doesn’t know how– to watch them move? On him? To hold them?
Yes, to them all. Frak, he wants. He just. Just wants…
Can I hold your hand?
Could you just touch my forehead, maybe? Or stay there? That’s enough, please…
Can…
But wanting things is denied. Asking for things, anything at all, is forbidden. He can’t ask for anything. He can’t.
He looks away, deliberately closes his eyes, sighing out. The knife lowers with the arm, and he knows he doesn’t have the strength to pick it up again, certainly not from under the Omwati’s touch. His other doesn’t want to lift either. So. So tired.
“W-ht. Issit. Dar'ner Ciris?” Name for name, and reminder to the self.
Crimson feathers raised, hearing that rough whisper.The hand retreated, taking its warmth away. The omwati shifted and scooted over to sit opposite of him, back pressed against the island and legs mirroring opposite of the Nautolan’s. Flyndt ducked his head to the side, sunset eyes attempting to catch a sliver of sanguine.
A small crack of a smile.
“Do…” he paused, trying to find the words he wanted to say. He wanted…
He wanted.
Something simple. Together.
“Make crepes…with me?”
“Together?”
A smile.
He didn’t deserve that, especially not right now, and he didn’t know what he’d done to earn it, but frak, could he do it again?
Sanguine met sunset, waiting for whatever would come. Their feet nearly touched. They were mirrors. He wanted to scoot his foot over the 4 cm and poke one talone with his mangled big toe (as if all of the feet and legs and the body are not mangled).
Do what?
“Make crepes…with me? Together?”
Bapti actually blinked in surprise. He’d noticed, in part of his mind, the Omwati climbing up on the counter towards cabinet with snack foods, so hunger was anticipated (good; one of them should eat.) But the request wasn’t.
Together?
Not alone.
His lips curve up.
He wants to card his fingers through the loose feathers, falling beautiful around Flyndt’s chin, brush that ink-blotched olive face and cup the cheek while saying, I’d love that. I’d love…
You.
Instead, he just whispers, “O-kay.” Pushes the body up, and the legs feel a little steadier now, offering out a hand. “Sa-vor-y or swee-t?”
Lips curling.
His crimson crest ticked upon surprise but…pleasantly so? To see that smile and hear again, ‘O.K.’ Agreement, he was open to it and not just because he asked but maybe, just maybe actually wants to too.
Flyndt nodded and his light smile deepened for a few heartbeats, hand taking Foxen’s. With his feet back under him with ease between the two, he considered the options.
“Savory,” he chirped.
The press of their bare hands nearly knocks him back onto the floor, it’s so much. But that’s fine, because there isn’t a floor anyway. There isn’t ground or gravity.
Flyndt’s widening smile holds him down.
“Hmm,” he replies lightly to the decision, knowing it’s time to let go now they’re both up but not wanting to. He stares at their hands instead, draws a circle with his thumb over three smaller knuckles, glances back up to meet sunset eyes.
Holds them, and the hand, for a moment longer before sighing wistfully.
“O-kay,” Foxen murmured back, and let his fingers slowly slip out and away with a lingering gaze as he turned for the cryo. He plucked out eggs, butter, shallots, creamed cheese – but not actual cheese, that had been banished to the back of the dairy drawer – mushrooms, spinach, and paused. Turning to look over his shoulder, he nodded at the counter opposite where Flyndt had been climbing. “Get. Flour? Fish or–” his voice cracked, “j-ust veggie?”
Flyndt watched him turn slowly and start gathering ingredients. When Foxen glanced over and asked his question, he found sunset eyes not seemingly taking note of food items but looking softly at him.
“Hoo? Both, yes,” chirped the avian, who turned to face the counter and tried to recall what was asked of him. Flour, easy. He only had to hop a little bit to grab the container and pull it towards the edge.
Working together, Flyndt retrieving needed items and Foxen handling the cooking – praise the suns! The Omwati was a poor cook. Scooping the crepes batter and pouring it into the pan he could do from his perched position on the counter near the gaser. Crimson feathers raised with each word uttered and gestured alike, sanguine gaze lingering whenever glances caught.
In this moment, things were…
O.K.