( on the outskirts of the thing that sufficed as a city because it didn't quite look like a town, all was dusty roads and beaten earth saturated with the runoff of some company's drones. not particularly visible, given the state of things out there, though it always struck sela even as a child to be inherently wrong. rain was rare but came; he would know, laying out jars like they'd regressed centuries, to catch the fresh water. and earth was earth. wasn't it?
the way four is now, he doesn't remember that. but he had these questions: why won't anything grow? what can i do differently? what can i do? even if it isn't the best way.
even without the memory, something of that question idles under the surface in layers: where elan ceres reaches through ice and water and the curious cat's cradle of negative space and connections that would as soon strangle as save. despite the earth still being mostly, even more so, ocean, four of course has never seen it. but after he started his education with peil, he would sometimes find himself drawn in by images and information about it. depth. temperature. pressure. distance that was also right in front of you. lightless unless you knew how to look or would be close enough to the surface.
he doesn't remember this either even though it was never taken from him: when he stopped asking questions, when he stopped trying to know about things he could not reach and replaced them with philosophy that also felt unreachable but less...
...less?
it hurts.
like he's drowning.
elan ceres grips him tightly but four can't feel it. with spotty vision and disorientation, he grapples with awareness: a hand on his face, a hand on his shoulder. doesn't it burn? don't touch me. a voice that is not his voice that is his voice that isn't saying:
alone.
need.
do as i say.
do as i say.
sometimes what a person needs is not what's objectively good or right. in his desperately unmanufactured display of fear and humanity, elan ceres —
— says the right things.
the problem: tenuous supports holding four together in an ill form of control and decorum and the mirage of not-wanting could be likened back to water but instead of an ocean, a river that breaks the dam. he couldn't stop himself even if he wanted to, held at bay by something that was good until it wasn't. walls aren't boxes. cages are not homes. no matter what four told himself. elan ceres says all of these things and these things are breaths and blood and the honesty to bear them safely.
somewhere in peil's most buried and locked archives is four's real name, where he came from, and the procedures to follow if or when he runs up his usefulness.
he doesn't have the wherewithal to think of that or even how it doesn't matter. four can only manage and poorly, what is in front of him.
blood. the taste of it in his mouth. saturating his sense of smell. nonsensically: is he hurt? four thought it was poison but had it caused some external rupture? that it is himself gets lost as he looks at the face he took on and only sees the differences through his blurry haze.
i need you.
the permet does not relent, but the tension that looked like shocked inertness gives way. four collapses and murmurs an apology in his head, not unconscious but not exactly coherent either. his mind feels like the frayed candle wick that won't light. his heart wants to leave him. if elan ceres catches him it is a shame in a way because four cannot feel his own body except the livid heat in his blood and the sense of the permet prying his head apart to better use him than peil or anyone else ever could. despite his temperature, he shivers inconsolably. sweat mats his hair to the back of his neck, the side of his face. he is so tired.
but,
he is alive.
he is,
needed.
elan ceres says do as i say and...four does. he "stays".
no subject
the way four is now, he doesn't remember that. but he had these questions: why won't anything grow? what can i do differently? what can i do? even if it isn't the best way.
even without the memory, something of that question idles under the surface in layers: where elan ceres reaches through ice and water and the curious cat's cradle of negative space and connections that would as soon strangle as save. despite the earth still being mostly, even more so, ocean, four of course has never seen it. but after he started his education with peil, he would sometimes find himself drawn in by images and information about it. depth. temperature. pressure. distance that was also right in front of you. lightless unless you knew how to look or would be close enough to the surface.
he doesn't remember this either even though it was never taken from him: when he stopped asking questions, when he stopped trying to know about things he could not reach and replaced them with philosophy that also felt unreachable but less...
...less?
it hurts.
like he's drowning.
elan ceres grips him tightly but four can't feel it. with spotty vision and disorientation, he grapples with awareness: a hand on his face, a hand on his shoulder. doesn't it burn? don't touch me. a voice that is not his voice that is his voice that isn't saying:
alone.
need.
do as i say.
do as i say.
sometimes what a person needs is not what's objectively good or right. in his desperately unmanufactured display of fear and humanity, elan ceres —
— says the right things.
the problem: tenuous supports holding four together in an ill form of control and decorum and the mirage of not-wanting could be likened back to water but instead of an ocean, a river that breaks the dam. he couldn't stop himself even if he wanted to, held at bay by something that was good until it wasn't. walls aren't boxes. cages are not homes. no matter what four told himself. elan ceres says all of these things and these things are breaths and blood and the honesty to bear them safely.
somewhere in peil's most buried and locked archives is four's real name, where he came from, and the procedures to follow if or when he runs up his usefulness.
he doesn't have the wherewithal to think of that or even how it doesn't matter. four can only manage and poorly, what is in front of him.
blood. the taste of it in his mouth. saturating his sense of smell. nonsensically: is he hurt? four thought it was poison but had it caused some external rupture? that it is himself gets lost as he looks at the face he took on and only sees the differences through his blurry haze.
i need you.
the permet does not relent, but the tension that looked like shocked inertness gives way. four collapses and murmurs an apology in his head, not unconscious but not exactly coherent either. his mind feels like the frayed candle wick that won't light. his heart wants to leave him. if elan ceres catches him it is a shame in a way because four cannot feel his own body except the livid heat in his blood and the sense of the permet prying his head apart to better use him than peil or anyone else ever could. despite his temperature, he shivers inconsolably. sweat mats his hair to the back of his neck, the side of his face. he is so tired.
but,
he is alive.
he is,
needed.
elan ceres says do as i say and...four does. he "stays".
the heart on the threshold, looking back. )