Chapter Text
==> EMC: Begin.
==> Karkat: follow the strings
The first time it happens you’re four human years and seven months old, and the pain wakes you up screaming. Your right arm from forearm to elbow is stabbing and clawing at you. That’s not even the worst part though; the worst part is how you feel your flesh separate as if it’s being mauled apart by some terrible creature. You stare down at your arm as three deep gashes drag down your skin and another scratches down the side of your arm.
Bright red blood wells up and the horror of seeing it makes you scream again, just as Psiionic bursts through your door in a halo of red and blue.
“Karkat?! What’s—what’s wrong?” Psii demands, slapping the light on with his hand.
You can’t get the words out from crying too hard, cradling your arm to your chest to try to stop the pain somehow. Psii rushes to you and snags you up into his arms. For a moment, everything in your room glows red and blue as a deep territorial growl rumbles through Psii’s chest.
“My arm.” you sob.
“What happened? Are you hurt? Was someone in my house?” he growls, peering out of your windows, still holding you tight to his chest.
You don’t get to answer because there’s a scream and a bang down the hall from you, one that makes the Psiionic jump. Someone else is crying, either Nepeta or Sollux, you’re not sure who. Psiionic walks to the door with you in his arms and you manage to see your mom running past you into Sollux’s room, your dad comes out of his room as well and looks around in alarm.
“What’s going on?” Signless asks, looking at Psii and then at Sollux’s open doorway.
“I don’t know, he said it’s his arm but there’s no one in there. No one’s in the hive or outside.” Psiionic says, still growling a little as he talks.
“Oh sh—Psii, he’s bleeding!” Signless gasps and pulls at you to try to see you better.
You bury your face in Psii’s t-shirt so that you don’t have to see all of the blood, but you still hear your dads react to it.
“How is there so much? What—there was no one there!” Psiionic insists.
“I don’t know, we need to get him cleaned up and see how bad this is. Ablutionblock, now.” Signless insists.
Moments later, Psii gently sets you on the bathroom counter as Sign opens the first aid kit and hands something medical-looking to Psii.
“Karkat, it’s ok, you’re going to be ok. What happened?” Signless asks in a soft voice, his hands in your hair turning your head so you look at him and not your arm.
“I was sleeping.” you sniffle; you weren’t doing anything you weren’t supposed to.
“Then what happened?” Signless continues, keeping your focus on him.
“It’s like a hand, these are fingernails or claws…” Psiionic mutters as he wipes at your arm.
“It just—it opened. It was scared.” you try to tell them, you had FELT something then, now that you’re thinking about it you’re sure of it. It was scared.
“I’m sure it was very scary. But you’re saying this happened all by itself?” Signless asks.
“No way he did it himself, not even if he was dreaming. I keep all of their claws too dull for that, look.” Psii says and moves to touch your hand with his much larger one.
Signless leans over Psii to catch your uninjured hand. He stares at it for a moment and then at your arm.
“He’s got blood on his hands but there’s nothing under his claws, you’re right. He didn’t do this, but that’s definitely claws or something that dug into him.” he says, but he doesn’t get it!
“There was no one there.” Psii insists again.
“We have a situation!” Disciple yells from down the hallway, Sollux is still screaming down there.
“So do we!” Psii yells back.
“Mine is psychic.” Dis says sharply as she looks around the door, but her eyes widen as she sees you.
“Oh no, kitten.” she whispers as she looks at you.
Your ancestor takes a steadying breath and then goes all leaderly, like you see when he preaches, or when people argue at the community centre. He’s leading.
“Dis, clean his arm. My hands are—it’s a bad pain day and I don’t want to hurt him. Psii, take Sollux.” Signless says in his leader voice.
Your parents nod, Dis and Psii swapping seamlessly. Disciple leans towards you with a reassuring smile and grabs a washcloth from the shelves by the sink.
“Hey kitten, bad night, huh? We’re gonna get your arm cleaned up, what happened to your face and your arm?” she asks.
“His face?” Signless asks.
You reach up and touch your face. Your cheek throbs with pain but as you touch it you feel…
No, no, no! Don’t take me—don’t leave her!
Your skin feels rough and sticky as the feeling floods over you.
“It’s scared.” you say again.
“That just opened up.” Signless whispers.
“Out of nowhere.” Disciple adds.
You try to ask them what’s going on but they just keep telling you that you’re fine. They say it as they clean your arm up. Down the hallway, Sollux is still crying but Psiionic is talking to him loudly enough that you can hear him now.
“There’s no stairs, no one fell. It was just aaaaaaa DIS!” Psiionic skids into the doorway with Sollux in his arms.
“What? What’s—oh.” Signless says.
Psii has Sollux’s… uh, his left arm in his hand, and you can see something on there. Something purple and big around his wrist.
“That is a soulmark, that’s what’s… ok, well, that explains his screaming. That’s very young indeed.” Signless says, trying to keep calm.
“Well, we never wanted to go back to Alternia anyway…” Psiionic mutters.
“Ah, not to steal your thing here honey, but I have a second one here.” Disciple says.
You look down at your arm. Now that most of the blood has been washed away, you can see something purple on your wrist too. A flower, but its petals have been pulled off on… on lines or strings. Or the lines go up into the cuts on your arm, like they were clawed off of the flower.
“Two roses, Sollux’s is smashed, that one’s pulled apart. That’s got to be connected. They’re not supposed to do this to people, right?” Psiionic asks, nodding at your mauled arm.
“No, people don’t get injured. I know they hurt when they come in, but nothing like this. We should probably patch Karkat up as best as we can and take them both to the hospital.” Signless says and tears open a package of something medical with his teeth and offers it to Disciple.
“NOT THE HOSPITAL! DON’T WANNA FALL DOWN THE STAIRS AGAIN!” Sollux shrieks.
“No one fell down anything, you were just dreaming and the pain of your arm woke you up. That and Karkat screaming.” Psii adds that last part with a wince.
“Oh no, I just had a horrible thought.” Signless whispers.
“I hate that, tell me more.” your mom says, rinsing the washcloth off before running it over your arm once more.
“Sollux, sweetie. What happened in the hospital?” Signless asks softly, moving around Disciple to get close to him and Psii.
Sollux sniffles a little, but responds when Signless repeats his question. “He took me away from the—from her an—and the doorway. I tried to grab it but I couldn’t hold an—and he slipped and we fell and he landed on ME AND I DIED!” Sollux is sobbing again.
“Soulmarks work weirdly; it’s almost magical. But that’s not the only thing that does that. Sollux had a dream about dying, Karkat’s skin split open into injuries he doesn’t have. Doom and blood.” Signless drops his voice at the end there, but you don’t get what he means. Disciple and Psiionic look horrified about it though, so you’re reasonably sure that you’re going to die any second now if it’s that bad.
“You’re not telling me they’re going to have to play.” Psiionic says quietly. Why is he scared of playing?
“No, this is way too young. But it’s probably like me, there’s a kind of… hangover, or some sort of cached game data. I don’t know how it works. All I can think is that this soulmate connection runs through the same pathway maybe, or if they’re both connected to the same person it could be almost a fraymotif thing.” Signless answers him, though his words are nonsense to you.
“A what?” you ask.
“This might sting a little!” Disciple says quickly and whips something from the packet that Signless had started opening but not handed to her yet.
It’s a little white square of something, but when she puts it to your arm you SCREAM as it stings and burns in every cut you have. Disciple patches you up with all of the bandages that she has, and tells you that you’re so brave. Even Sollux gets a bandaid and he didn’t even get HURT!
Psiionic gently jiggles Sollux up and down in his arms, like he’s way younger than he is. Even as he does it he’s looking around again and again, he seems… not scared but not right. Signless looks worried whenever he thinks that you’re not looking at him.
“Downstairs you two, now.” your mom tells them both.
Signless and Psiionic both look at her in surprise—you think they’re going to ask questions or argue, but they don’t. Not when Disciple gives them the ‘mom face,’ no one argues with that. They go downstairs and your Mom takes you into Nepeta’s room. At first you think she’s going to leave you there with your sister, but she doesn’t. She puts you on her bed and drapes one of Nepeta’s blankets on you, a fresh one from the drawers under her bed. You wrap it around yourself and peek out of it as Dis grabs another blanket and scoops Nepeta up, wrapping her up in one motion. Nepeta only mumbles in her sleep, and your Mom carefully picks you up in her other arm.
Disciple turns and walks silently out of the room and down the stairs, into in the dark. That makes it even easier to see Psii and Sollux look around when you get to the bottom of the stairs, the glow of their eyes showing you exactly where they are.
Disciple brings you and Nepeta past your dads and out into the living room. She stops on the big green rug in the middle of the room and faces the two of them.
“Make me a cave, somewhere safe. I’m going to scout around, ok?” She hands Nepeta to Signless and carefully sets you on the ground.
“Inside a cave with you two is the safest place on any world. I can make that.” Psiionic says with a soft smile.
Disciple nods and unlocks the patio doors before walking outside. There’s a quiet ping from Psii’s palmhusk as she gets far enough out in the garden that you can’t see her anymore. You know it has a program that watches the house because he showed it to you a while back when you were scared about monsters in the dark. It goes off whenever anything above a certain size comes near your house; he was annoyed about it at the time because there was one MASSIVE possum in your neighbourhood that messed with it for a bit.
“Wait, put Sollux down and take Nepeta, I’ll be right back.” Signless whispers. Sollux is placed down next to you and the sleeping Nepeta takes his place in Psiionic’s arms.
Your dad hurries off, leaving you and Sollux to watch Psii do his thing. He waves one hand almost lazily and the sofa comes apart, cushions and pillows stacking themselves neatly off to the side along with the few blankets that had been left there. You watch in awe as he moves the furniture about and it stacks itself at angles to make a little roof. The coffee table and even the dining table balance themselves just so, cables coming in from somewhere upstairs to tangle themselves around legs of furniture and keep everything together. Dining chairs float in the room in a neat line and set themselves up in careful rows in time for a blanket to flick itself over them and tie itself up just right.
“Psii, lights!” Signless hisses from down the way and tosses something at all of you.
Psiionic catches them midair with a flick of his finger, and you realise at once that it’s all of the Christmas lights, strings and strings of them! You and Sollux stare in awe as they wind themselves through the furniture, through the…
“Fort. It’s a blanket fort.” Sollux whispers, even though this is nowhere near the three-sofa-cushion forts that you three have made, all of which had fallen in on you almost immediately.
Sofa cushions and little pillows slip inside the fort as even more float down the stairs and join in. Disciple steps back indoors, and when she comes near you it’s like she brought a cloud of cold air in with her. She clicks a few things on a remote and the TV suddenly shows a campfire that crackles and pops as it burns.
Psiionic waves at the fort and Disciple nods in approval. He floats forward on his front and, with a glance and a funny eyebrow move, he levitates you and Sollux in with him. The inside of the fort is sturdy and safe, but soft and cosy too. Big heavy furniture closes you in, but the little lights in between everything make the place feel calm. Even Nepeta has woken up, blinking sleepily as she looks around.
“Incoming.” Signless calls out quietly and crawls into the fort.
Sitting down in the biggest area of the fort, Signless starts taking things out of his sylladex, little sandwiches and warm cocoa in kiddy thermos cups. He pulls you into his lap and leans over Psiionic’s legs to hand Sollux a cup and a little sandwich, but you’re close enough to get your own for yourself. Disciple crawls into the blanket fort just as Psii gives Nepeta her own midnight snack.
“No one’s out there, and we’re all safe in here.” Disciple tells you all.
“Yes, we’re all… we’re safe.” Signless smiles, but it doesn’t seem entirely happy.
He’s looking across the fort, over the other side of Psiionic’s legs to the space that’s just Sollux and a bunch of cushions. You don’t think he’s sad about Sollux, but he’s the only person there. Looking back up at him you see that he’s looking at you sadly, his hand goes over the bandages on your arm lightly.
“I will always keep you safe.” he recites, like the words are old and don’t belong to him.
“Love, I didn’t mean…” Disciple whispers, looking at your dad like it hurts.
“No, it’s fine. She’d want this for them, not that she’d even have imagined them at all.” Signless laughs softly and brushes your hair from your face.
“Who?” Nepeta mumbles sleepily, but Psiionic just buries his face in her hair and whispers soft and reassuring things to her.
Signless’s hand moves over your bandages, so you look at your own arm again, you remember the pain and the mark that’s still there.
“Why did it hurt?” you ask.
“Well… you know our blood is different,” Signless starts and you nod. “Well, Psii has special psionics too, he’s different. He can hear people right before they die.”
“I’m pretty sure you two share a soulmate, so your blood and Sollux’s psionics might mean that weird stuff like this happens. But what Sollux saw didn’t happen, because if your soulmate was really dead you wouldn’t still have this.” Psiionic says and touches Sollux’s arm.
“I didn’t make it up.” Sollux insists.
“No one said you made it up.” Psii intervenes quickly.
“Maybe you see the things that nearly happened, like a… a warning!” Disciple says cheerily and Sollux pouts a little less.
“But it’s the same person?” you ask, looking at your arm and then at Sollux.
“The marks are really similar and the timing is the same so… I don’t really know how this works. Hold on.” Psiionic pulls his phone out and starts tapping away on it.
“You’re probably different quadrants, or something like that.” Disciple says.
“I don’t wanna share with him.” Sollux scowls at you, like this is your fault!
“You break things we’re meant to share!” you accuse him.
“Boys, please.” Signless sighs.
“I don’t!” Sollux argues.
“You wouldn’t break a person.” your mom points out.
“Wouldn’t download a car.” Psiionic says under his breath.
“You do, and even when I let you use something you don’t give it back!” you snap.
“Mom wouldn’t let this happen in her caves.” your dad mutters to himself, but you don’t know what your mom has to do with this. Your mom’s right there, this is her cave!
“The point is that your soulmate is alive. I don’t know if it’ll hurt like this every time. I hope not. But you’re safe right now.” she tells you both.
“So this is really early, and I’m guessing that whatever happened at—you said it was a hospital, right?” Psiionic says, looking away from his phone to Sollux.
“I was at the hospital and I fell and died!” Sollux insists, even though he’s obviously alive right now, you can see him!
“Right, so that nearly happened to his soulmate and whatever happened to Karkat’s arm is probably related to that. Something really big and traumatic—something scary can make this whole soulmate thing start early. But they’re definitely alive still.” Psii adds.
“How do we find them?” you ask.
“It’s supposed to be fate—you’re meant to meet them when the time is right.” your mom smiles.
“The symbols mean things about them, when you find them and you touch your hands, then you get a ring. You’ve seen this on TV, I know you have.” Signless reminds you.
“I know that.” you groan.
“But how do we find them NOW? I died! They died! Didn’t—nearly died!” Sollux insists.
“Shh.” Psii shushes him, nodding at Nepeta who has fallen asleep with a sandwich still half in her mouth.
“You can track anyone, right Mom?” you ask slowly and hold your arm out to her.
“Not like that, kitten. But maybe one day when we know more, maybe you’ll bump into them in the middle of the street!” she smiles at you.
You eat your sandwich slowly as Sollux goes through a round of “but why” over and over with Disciple. It’s not getting him anywhere, as usual. Your arm hurts really badly and you felt so scared when it happened, you think your mark—you think they were scared too. You swallow the last of your little sandwich and rest your head against your ancestor’s chest.
“I just wanna help them.” you whisper, and you feel Signless breathe in sharply.
“I know, love. Here, drink this and try to sleep, you’re safe in here and you’ll feel better when you wake up.” he tells you ever so quietly and passes you your little thermos cup. You take it in your hands and carefully sip at it, and the warm cocoa does make you feel the tiniest bit better.
You must have started to doze; you only stir as Signless moves you, he’s curling up against Psii’s side with you in the gap between them. Disciple is leaning against Psii’s bent legs and looking out of the doorway to your blanket fort, the crackling fireplace on the TV lighting up your brother’s sleeping face from his place in your Mom’s crossed legs.
“You ok?” Psii whispers as sleep starts to pull you back down.
“Yeah, I… yeah. I miss her. Sometimes when he talks I think I must have been just like that. She would have known what to say to him.” Signless whispers.
“She had plenty of practice with you, I’m sure.” your mom chuckles from the doorway to your fort.
“Dolorosa definitely had a way with words, but you know she’d have loved them. And she’d have thought you were doing a great job too—you know that, right?” Psiionic points out.
“She’d think that for you too,” Signless points out. “Sollux won’t have to go through what you did. That’s because of you.”
“Oh yeah, low bar.” Psii says with a grin you can hear.
Your other parents are obviously trying to keep their voices low as they tell Psii he’s wrong for what he said, but it’s in that really nice way they do, so you think they forget to whisper. They call him things like “honey” and say sweet things to him. It’s hard to stay awake to pay attention, especially when you’re cosy in your little blanket fort with your whole family. Cuddled between people who love you, in a place they made, with soft bedding and twinkling lights. You don’t know what you’re going to do about your arm, but right now you’re safe and loved, and that’s enough.
==> Dave: Bounce
“My name is Dave Strider and it’s my birthday.” you tell the nurse.
“Oh my goodness, happy birthday to you both. Aren’t they so cute? Twins! And they’ve got twin siblings being born today, how sweet! I’m sure we can get some cake from the canteen, can’t we?” one nurse says to the other.
You open your mouth to tell them that Rose is NOT your twin and it’s NOT her birthday, but she steps sharply on your foot and you shut up.
“I’m Rose.” she says sweetly and holds out her hand for the nurse, who shakes it and fusses at her.
“And how old are you two today, Rose?” she asks.
“Five.” Rose replies shyly.
Rose is a goddamn liar is what she is. She’s four months younger than you and not shy or sweet AT ALL. The nurse tells you two that she’ll be right back, and Rose smiles sweetly until she’s far enough away.
“There’s cakein it for you, stupid.” Rose hisses at you.
“Yeah, but you’re not five.” you point out.
“And if you tell her that I’m having half your cake.” she says with that tone that lets you know she means it.
Whatever, you’re convinced by the argument of more cake, so you’ll allow Rose to fake being five today. The two of you sit back down in the area of the hospital daycare that you’ve claimed as your own and go back to building a fake town together with anything you can get your hands on. Both of you take a break when your cake arrives, and you’re really glad that you didn’t have to share since there’s not a lot of it.
When you’re both staring glumly down at empty plates, Rose groans, “We’ve been here forever! How long does it take to have two babies?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know why Bro has to be there either.” you frown. You’re not really clear on how he could help at all. He’s not going to cut her open, because if he did they’d be done already.
“I don’t want him here.” Rose mutters.
You are both firmly in agreement that Bro sucks. Your mom also sucks but at least she’s nice sometimes, when she’s not drinking. Not that you want whatever it is she drinks, it smells gross. Bro is just… sometimes he’s cool and sometimes he’s the worst. Mostly he’s the worst. At least you have Rose, and Mom and Bro were really focused on these babies so maybe things will be better now.
“How do you even get them out?” you wonder.
“Babies? Everyone knows that, Dave.” Rose huffs, which means she doesn’t know either.
You both know how they get IN there, Mom explained that a lot, with x-ray drawings and everything. Also with explanations from Bro too. You wish you could un-know that, actually. You’re really sure this only happens to girls, but you’re still creeped out just in case you’re wrong.
“Maybe they spawn in, like a game.” you suggest, that sounds kinda cool.
“Maybe it’s like in Alien.” Rose says darkly and you shudder. You don’t like that movie at all and neither did she. She’s just pretending it didn’t scare her too but it DID.
The two of you finish your city, play several violent games of snap until the nurses break it up because Rose tried to hit you with a chair, have gross hospital food, and eventually sleep. You end up sleeping in the same bed as Rose because it’s obviously for adults and it’s the only one out of the way.
You startle awake at some stupid time in the morning as Bro pulls you out of bed. In fact you end up kicking Rose by mistake as you jerk in alarm. Oops.
“Move it.” Bro tells you.
You open your mouth to say something and stop when you see the thing in Bro’s other hand. Other arm, really. Wrapped up in blankets so tightly that you can only see a little pink face is a baby, your…
“Which one is it?” you ask as you start walking at Bro’s side. Behind you Rose rubs her face and hurries to her feet.
“Dirk, your brother.” Bro says stiffly.
“Mom’s got the girl?” you yawn. There was supposed to be one of each. It makes sense if Bro had to come get you that he couldn’t be holding two babies, duh, since you and Rose can be trusted to follow him but he probably needs a hand free for—well, for signing stuff like he is now.
Rose stands next to you, trying to wake up as much as she can. She’s always been slower at it than you and Bro hates that. You step on her toes as subtly as you can to try to jolt her awake; she elbows you back but it looks like you did the job.
“Sorry sir, and—” the nurse starts.
“Don’t call me sir, I’m fuckin’ twenty three.” Bro argues with her.
The nurse looks like she has some thoughts about that, but Bro looks like he has some thoughts about breaking her face, so she doesn’t say anything about it.
“You need to sign them both out, it’s just the law.” she says instead, tapping at the paper on her desk.
“No.” Bro says.
You don’t think that “no” was an answer that made sense to the nurse. Or to you, but that’s not the point, and also you didn’t super understand the question.
“You have to sign your son and your daughter out in order to leave with them.” the nurse tries again. Oh, that makes sense, even though Bro is actually your brother.
“Yeah, and I’m not taking her, so there’s no problem. She’s staying with her mom.” Bro says flatly.
“What?” Rose asks, looking up at him with wide eyes.
“I—you’re coming back once you’ve…” the nurse doesn’t finish what she’s saying because Bro hasn’t given any reason why he’s leaving Rose at all.
“No.” Bro says.
You blindly grab Rose’s arm with your free hand and she clings tightly onto you. There wasn’t a bit of doubt there, Bro isn’t coming back for Rose. You don’t know why or HOW he can do that but you know what Bro sounds like when he means something.
“No, wait—” Rose tries, but Bro ain’t listening to her. He turns and walks to the door, dragging you in one hand as he holds the baby in the other.
Rose holds on tight to your arm, stumbling along the floor after you. You keep your grip just as tight, she has to come with you!
“Wait, you can’t—” the nurse tries.
“I only signed for this one, that other one’s your responsibility.” Bro says and jumps the kiddie gate that blocks half the doorway off. He does it in one cool motion of course, but jerks his arm up to pull you over it after him in a very uncool way, especially with Rose’s fingers digging into your wrist.
Rose bangs into the kiddie gate but she’s no stranger to running and climbing over stuff to avoid Bro fast, she’s already scrambling over it and you’re pulling your arm up as much as you can to help her over it. The nurse sprints over and grabs hold of Rose who screams and does a good job of kicking her in the gut. She’s trying to pull you apart, but you can’t let her!
“Let go.” Bro hisses at you.
For once you’re not listening to him at all. You cling tight to Rose’s arm, trying to pull her closer as she kicks at the nurse. The nurse and Bro are both bigger and stronger; you’re only just five and Rose isn’t even that. Her fingernails bite into your skin, you’re yelling her name and she’s shouting yours and begging to not be left behind.
Bro pulls you away from her, and as he does, Rose’s fingernails break through your skin and claw down your arm. You scream, but not because of your arm.
“ROSE! ROSE, NO!” you scream, as she screeches your name back at you. The nurse pulls her back in the room and the door slams.
Bro yanks you off of the floor since you’re fighting him at every step and carries you under one arm like a basketball or something. You’re no fucking quitter though, you keep your eyes focused on the doorway that separates you from Rose. There has to be SOME way to get back to her!
Blood runs down your arm and over your palm, wet and hot in awful ways. Bro kicks open a fire escape door across the way from the room where Rose is still being held back. There’s two nurses trying to pull her from the kiddie gate now, but she’s not giving up either. The doorframe of the fire escape passes you and you lash out to grab it to try to stop Bro taking you away—you just need to get away and get to Rose! Your grip trips up Bro’s stride, but then the blood on your hand makes you slip and lose it, when you were so close to holding on!
Bro stumbles and the world lurches around you. Your face bounces off of the wall as Bro catches himself on the first step on the staircase. He gasps sharply, and you do too; he nearly fell, and you’ve NEVER seen him slip like that. It only happened because you grabbed the door. Bro stays still for a second there as you both take in what just nearly happened. The anger is rolling off of him so strongly that you don’t dare try to get out of his grip again, but Bro decides to make sure of that.
Cal appears out of his sylladex and lands onto his shoulder.
With the puppet’s dead-eyed stare freezing you just as much as Bro’s anger does, you don’t even dare touch your stinging cheek in case the movement makes everything worse. Your blood drips down your arm onto every other step as you go down the stairs. When Bro gets to the bottom, he kicks a door open and marches towards the car. He comes to a stop at the side of the car, you can just reach the door handle to the back.
You don’t want to open the door because that’s the opposite of getting back to Rose, but Bro has his hands full and he’s clearly not in the mood to ask you to do something twice. Or once, actually. You fumble with the handle, which slips out of your bloody grip a couple of times, but manage to open the door, which earns you a thrown entrance to the back seat of the car at speed. You land awkwardly between your booster seat and the seat in front of you—you think they’re stupid but Mom always insisted on them. One time Bro got a ticket for you two not having them, and he got really pissed with you about that.
In the front of the car is a baby car seat, and another one is set in place between your booster seat and Rose’s. Bro stares in at you for a moment, his body completely still. All at once he shoves the baby into your arms and disconnects the baby car seat in the front, pulling it out of the car and leaving it on the floor outside. You guess if… if you’re not going home with the other baby, then Mom would need the other car seat. She also needs a car, but you can’t help that.
Bro shuts the back door of the car, and you crawl up onto your booster seat without upsetting the baby. Bro goes around to the front and opens the door, getting in the car with Lil Cal still on his shoulders. When he looks over the seat at you, you hold up the baby—you hold Dirk up for Bro so he can put him in the baby seat at his side. For a second Bro, looks like he’s going to take him from you, then Cal’s head flops onto his shoulder with that grin on. Slowly, Bro buckles Cal into the baby seat at the front and turns his back on you.
In a panic, you buckle your own seat and hold Dirk tight as Bro starts the car and screeches out of the hospital parking lot. You’re trying to hold the baby tight but you don’t know how tight is too tight! Either way, he’s not happy and he starts to cry, which is bad news for you since you can see Bro getting more annoyed by the second. You don’t have anything else to do so when Dirk cries next you just kind of poke your finger in his mouth and somehow that works. Like, okay, you’ve got a baby sucking on your finger now but Bro doesn’t look like he’s going to toss you both out of the car. That’s good.
Bro drives you home recklessly, which isn’t new but it’s still scary. When he gets there he parks up, unbuckles Cal, and opens the back door so that you can get out with Dirk in your arms. You follow him inside, dying to know what’s going on. Why did you leave the others at the hospital? Why are you home now? But you know better than to ask Bro questions. When you step inside your apartment, Bro takes Dirk from you and kicks the front door shut.
“Pack all your shit,” Bro tells you. “We’re leaving.”
You open your mouth to ask a question and realise that it’s gotta be a good one, and you can’t back down now that he’s seen you’re asking something or that’s chickenshit.“Where’re we leaving to?”
“We’re going home.” Bro tells you, like you’re not standing in your home right now.
You nod, like this makes sense, and bail.
After a hurried scamper into your room, you shut the door and try to think. If Bro says you’re going then you’re going, there’s nothing you can do about it. If you’re going now then you’re leaving without Rose. She’s going to come back to your shared room and find you and your stuff gone, she won’t know where you are. You need to do something you—
Bro kicks your door open, making you jump in the air. He throws something at you and you catch it with your face. Once you’ve peeled yourself up off of the floor, you see that it’s a bunch of yellow cards all stacked up. As soon as you touch them they fill up into a—a thing that you didn’t have before but you’d seen your parents use plenty. You have your own sylladex now, no more carrying things like a chump.
“Learn to read better.” Bro tells you, then vanishes again and bangs your door shut behind him.
You wish you could point out that you only JUST turned five and you read pretty good, actually! Whatever, you don’t have time for this. You need to let Rose know what’s going on and you need to pack your shit. You grab all of your drawers on your dresser and empty them out into a heap on the floor, you try to kick them into a pile of some kind and give this a go.
You go to pick the clothes up with your sylladex and realise that it wants a name for it, that’s what Bro meant by learning to read. Or you guess in this case, learning to write. Okay, name this thing then.
CLOVS ( 2 + 2 + 1 + 2 + 2 = 9)
You’re… not sure you spelt that right but it doesn’t seem like it cares, so you’re not going to ask questions. You look around for the rest of your stuff that you want to take, not really sure what you’re supposed to take when you move. You weren’t born in California, but you don’t actually remember moving here. You were just a baby.
Your eyes fall on yours and Rose’s craft stuff in the corner, colouring books and stuff like that. Wait, there are pens in there, you could leave Rose a note! You’d have to hide it somewhere that Bro wouldn’t find it though, hmm. You grab the pen and—oh!
PEN ( 2 + 1 + 2 = 5)
Uh, ok then. You could have just held that in your hand but alright. You scurry over to the drawers again and open one of Rose’s, you shove her shirts aside and… how do you get something out of this thing? You want your PEN—
The pen flings itself out of your sylladex and at close range it bounces off of the drawers and hits you in the forehead. Great. Ok, message time, what do you say?
bro says we gos home
You squint at that. “Go” not “gos.” You scribble out the extra “s” and shove the shirts back in place, because if Bro catches you then you’ll be in super big trouble. If you think of anything else to add, you can come back and do that. You drop the pen on the ground with the craft stuff and decide that you’re going to take that stuff too.
CRAFT STUFF ( 2 + 2 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 2 + 2 = 8)
Ok, what else?
Oh, you definitely need your sword. Bro said Mom would have kittens if she saw any of you with swords in the hospital, which seeing as you have a brother now and not a kitten you guess that worked. Mom doesn’t like any of you having swords—not that you like it either. She says it’s dangerous, but she has guns in her room so you don’t get that. You’ve picked up one of her guns, they’re really heavy!
Anyway, you don’t want your sword but if you have it Bro will be less mad. And you definitely know how to spell it, so you’re fine.
SORD ( 2 + 1 + 2 + 2 = 7)
There is nothing wrong with your reading or writing, what does Bro know?
Gotta pack more. Ok, oh! You need shoes! You can’t just have the one pair that you have, you’ve got your sandals here and your rain boots, another pair of shoes like the ones you have on… just group these all together aaaaand…
SHOES ( 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 8)
The shoes vanish into your sylladex just as your CRAFT STUFF is shot out of it against the wall. Pens and paint splatter and shatter against the wall, and a fine mist of glitter fills the air. What the hell? Oh, it looks like they were both in the ‘8’ space. You guess you can’t have two in the same spot.
You’re just gonna… back away from all of that glitter, or else you’ll never get it off of you. Mom says glitter is the “herpes of the craft world,” and you don’t know what that is but if it’s as hard to get rid of as glitter, you’ll stay clear of it.
You grab a few other things, like your GAME BOY (2+1+2+1+2+1+2 = 1), the BLANKET (2+2+1+2+2+1+2 = 2) from your bed, and some supplies from your drawer. You and Rose go to the CalTech daycare when Mom’s at work, and they give out loads of snacks and drinks there, so you two always swipe extras and bring them home. You grab the FOOD (2+1+1+2 = 6) and JUS (2+1+2 = 5).
There’s a squawk at your window and you turn to see a green and yellow parrot fly through your window and settle onto the dresser.
“Kiwi!” you gasp.
Kiwi is… well, she’s not your pet exactly. These parrots live wild around here, especially near the college. Kiwi comes to see you and Rose because you feed her snacks. She’s really clever and you love drawing her. You can’t go and look at your drawings right now since they’re in a crumpled heap on the floor, but a tonne of them are of her. You love art, but you love animals more. Just watching the way she’s put together and how she moves is the coolest thing.
You carefully take the FOOD out of your sylladex and open some to feed her. Kiwi takes a raisin out of your fingers with her clever little feet and chews on it happily. You scatter the rest of the packet out for her and go back to looking around your room.
You wish you knew how far away you were going. Maybe you could ask Bro.
You creep out of your room to find your brother. You only find one of them, though. It’s weird to think that you actually have two now. Dirk is on the sofa like a little burrito, all wrapped up in his blanket. You lean over to look at him, and he gurgles but you don’t know if it’s at you or if he’s just doing that.
Still, this isn’t the brother you wanted. You eventually find Bro in the bathroom, and surprisingly, he doesn’t notice you right away. He’s standing there, staring at his arm in the mirror. It’s been going darker for a while now, same as Mom’s. Now his mark is totally black, even over his finger, which you can see since he’s got one glove off, it’s sitting there in the soap dish. Standing side on to him like this you can see his eyes. He… he almost looks like he might cry.
“Bro?” you ask.
Bro jolts backwards into the shower curtain, and Cal falls from the railing and onto his shoulder. You see as all emotion drops out of him—that sadness on his face vanishes in an instant. He looked human before, but he doesn’t now. It’s… it’s Cal. He’s always scared you, but you know for sure now that he’s doing something to Bro. Anger starts to twist Bro’s face, and out of panic you start talking.
“A—are we going far away? Do I need my pillow and stuff in the car overnight?” you blurt out.
Bro looms over you and grabs your arm, dragging you back to your room. Kiwi squawks at the sudden intrusion but stays because of the snacks you’ve left out. Kiwi loves snacks.
“Go on, get your shit and let’s go.” Bro tells you.
Oh fuck, he’s watching. You said you were going to grab your pillow and now he’s watching you do it. He told you to get better at this reading and spelling thing; you’d better not get this wrong.
PEELO ( 2 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 1 = 7)
The pillow lands in your sylladex just fine but it flings out what was already in its place. Your sword flies across the room at maximum speed and stabs poor Kiwi, pinning her to the wall. You can’t help but cry out in horror and guilt. Bro is looking at you like he doesn’t like this at all. You don’t know if he’s mad about your spelling, or the sword, or the fact that you’re sad about poor Kiwi, but he’s not happy.
“Get it.” he orders you. You know he means the sword.
You go over to Kiwi, trying not to cry as you do. You climb the drawers and peek up at her. She’s dead, so at least she’s not in pain. Poor Kiwi. You grab the handle of the sword and pull it free, but in the process you cut Kiwi’s wing off of her body.
You’d been so interested in how her little bird parts worked together, but now you wish you didn’t know.
The SORD goes back in your sylladex, dropping the pillow, which you guess you don’t really need, and with that Bro leads you out of the apartment. He puts you and Dirk in the car and starts to drive.
Bro has some kind of milk that he instructs you to feed Dirk. He makes you watch him change him and tells you that you’re going to have to do this. You don’t want to but that probably doesn’t matter. Between stopping to feed and change Dirk, and stopping for you and Bro to eat, you don’t get to where Bro is going until late the next day.
Where you’re going happens to be Houston, Texas. Bro finds a tall and shitty apartment building, pays a man a hell of a lot of money to rent the top floor, and more still to not write down who he’s renting it to. Neither your Bro or the man pay any attention to you while they do this, but Cal’s head is always pointed right at you when you look up.
After doing a bunch of paperwork, Bro leaves you there to just sit around like an asshole in an empty room with a baby until he comes back with things: a futon, a mattress, a TV. He says that other stuff is going to come later.
It takes a bunch of moving junk around, but eventually you put Dirk on your bare mattress and take your stuff out of your sylladex (except for your sword which you leave there). You sleep in your shitty, bare, lonely apartment. Between the noise of the traffic below, how Dirk wakes up every few hours crying, and from the way that you see Cal’s face in your dreams, you get the feeling that you’re never going to sleep well again.
In the morning you wake up to a stabbing pain in your shoulder and that feeling you get sometimes in your dreams. Like how when you trip or something in a dream and flail awake, that nearly fell kind of feeling. The sting in your shoulder is new though. You wonder if it’s a bug or something but it’s December and there’s nothing here.
When you pull your shirt aside to check yourself out, you feel your whole face screw up. On your left shoulder—or technically maybe the top front part of your arm—there’s a purple mark, but it’s no bruise. You can see as you look at it that it has little black stripes and wings, like a bumblebee for someone too stupid to know what the colour yellow is.
It’s a soulmark. You’re only five, you shouldn’t really be getting this yet. Worse still, you know that Bro won’t be happy if he sees this; you saw how he was looking at the mark he USED to have before Cal did whatever he did. There’s no way he’s going to like you having a mark when his is blacked out.
Dirk snuffles quietly and you try to keep calm. It’s fine, you can deal with this. Your shirts will cover this for a while, it’s not like you’re shirtless around Bro. As long as this mark stays—
No sooner have you started that thought than your right hand starts to burn. Something floods over you out of nowhere. Guilt, intense guilt. I did this, this is my fault. It gets in your head and overwhelms the burning on your hand, or it almost does. As the feeling fades, you stare down at your right hand in horror. Your palm and the underside of your fingers are bright red, like you put your hand in paint or blood and made a handprint with it. There’s blank spaces, in the joints of your fingers and the hollow of your palm, but it’s red, red, red. No way Bro isn’t going to notice that.
Nah. He’s going to kick your fucking ass.