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all of a sudden you're a hostage to things you thought you wanted
( open for messages, action, overflow. )
( open for messages, action, overflow. )
( open for messages, action, overflow. )
( open for messages, action, overflow. )
no subject
in another instance, elan ceres' words would deluge four, bury him under water weight and airless lightless nothing.
paint it any way one wishes; certain things are immutable. for example: four serves elan ceres, even if he would default to peil between the two of them. with only one of said parties in front of him, it's not even a choice that needs making. four's gloveless hand is cold the way a person's hands only lose temperature when they cannot maintain it. he touches the back of it to elan ceres' forehead. considerable fever. unsurprising. unnatural breathing. unfocused vision. collapse. it would point to sickness if elan ceres had shown up as such; but he hadn't.
then...
the graduation ceremony, the various to-dos involved with it. the congratulatory gala. plenty of opportunity.
before it became clear the clones would need to be used in of all things, school attendance, peil had included in their long list of potential purposes for them: protection. there are a multitude of other reasons than gundam piloting for a high profile ceo and heir apparent to need a body double or seven, as it turns out. and, when he was first informed, enhanced person four bowed his head and murmured, "i understand". it's been long enough that the memory jars him even as he's all too sure that is what he's looking at.
or perhaps he's being dramatic.
the hand that touches the center of elan ceres' forehead, smooths to the side and four pushes his fingers into his hair not terribly unlike elan did quite some time ago. he brushes his hair back enough to be out of his eyes to get a clearer look at him. how bad is it? the heat radiating off of him stings. )
You should lie down. Do y--
( briefly four feels like he sees tears but he's not sure then, if it is or isn't, if it's not the sheen of the abrupt fever wreaking hell on elan ceres' entire frame. he doesn't have a handbook anymore of course. why would he? and he hasn't any other device. he shakes his head and tries again, )
I need to call someone to help. May I use your phone?
( polite. almost formal. not quite mechanical.
later, five will be angry with him. five will corner him more with his tenacious energy than his physicality. five will ask him what he was thinking. and four will tell him the truth: that i should save him, if i could.
if anyone else were there, they would find the overloaded cart behind four to be a strange and striking backdrop to this scene. the not yet ripe tomatoes, one smaller than the other. the books, a bit askew after their journey and also four bumping into the cart however lightly. clothes. the ceremonial blade. like the trappings of a life much longer than a high school student. something to pull out of an estate after they've been dead for fifty years and try to find out how much it is worth monetarily since no one's left alive who'd find the sentimental equivalent in it.
the hand not still holding elan ceres' hair back, goes carefully to his opposite shoulder in case he seems he might straight up keel over entirely, which he might.
a thought comes to him. the pinhole of something different than its surroundings.
yes, softly softly softly, it matters.
and in some ways, that in and of itself? is enough.
unnoticed: four's own heartrate too fast again, his own pallor disconcertingly off, as if echoing what he sees. none of it deters him from his methodical quiet actions though, and it would be hard to tell the difference in this and his natural deterioration. the frayed rope, unable to hold onto much; though it tries. )
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He could have been more careful, never stepped foot inside Peil's headquarters again. He could have lugged the cart over here without the robot's help. He could have effaced his own name from the diploma instead of asking them to do it for him. He could have, he could have, he... couldn't have done that, if Elan's being honest with himself, because he wanted them to try doing him in when the conditions were just right, to let the attempt take him by surprise -- or so he'll tell himself in recollection, because the truth is unbearable.
He fucked up.
His right hand's still fisted against the button down beneath his blazer, as if the pressure might prevent his chest from aching with each inhale, when Four's cool fingers brush against Elan's hairline. Don't, he thinks. Then yes; yes, don't as he leans into Four's touch, forehead coming to rest against the palm of the other's hand. Elan recalls Four's said something about his phone as another hand steadies his shoulder. ]
N-no, [ he manages, a tinge of panic in his voice as he repeats, ] no, no, I'll -- be fine. [ He focuses on the weight and feel of Four's hands on his skin, his suit, inhales and exhales until he's almost used to the stinging that follows them before speaking again, less unstable. ] I'm prepared... for this, whenever I'm here. Taken some precautions.
[ The best his money can buy, that Earth and space and all the hubs between them have to offer: Now-daily injections against respiratory and contact-based poisons; pills in his inside breast pocket for neutralizing anything he might unwittingly ingest. Elan's still got sense enough to know that whatever they've plied him with this first time around must belong to the former category and can't be fatal, was administered sometime after his arrival so as to hit within this precise reaction window when they knew he'd come knocking at Four's door. Of anything they could've messed with that only Elan would be in a position to handle -- robot, crate, diploma -- he's only touched the latter.
Ah. It figures. ]
Two birds, one stone.
[ Will Four catch his drift? Is Elan letting his paranoia get the better of what little's left of him at this moment, thinking they'd meant to frame Four for murdering him -- out of jealousy, resentment; some desperate, last-ditch effort to escape by taking Elan's place, with a piece of paper from which he's scrubbed his own name? Elan would be as good as dead, too, if he hadn't put two and two together with all the resources Peil had been dedicating to Seven in the months leading up to "his" graduation. The family trusts are properly his, now -- only a fraction of the Ceres fortune, but Peil knows it'll increase with each passing year, through his own efforts as much as his family's plans for their collective finances. It's like Peil's getting Elan back for what a shit he's been to them since he concluded real cooperation wouldn't pay.
Under normal circumstances, Elan would quit, but -- his fifteen-year-old self had signed a contract making him exclusively liable for the company's experimentation with permet enhancement and clones, thinking it'd give him more control over a business deal that he'd understood to be inevitable. Yes, the truth is unbearable. He fucked up -- and this is Peil's way of letting him know he is so, so fucked for it.
Still gratuitous, still alone. A sweaty hand wrenches itself off the floor, grasps Four's arm, wrist, presses the other's hand against his face as something between laughter and a gasp rises unbidden from the throbbing behind Elan's breastplate. ]
Sorry. [ Stronger, now, because the pain's subsiding -- be it because it is, or because Elan's grown numb to it. ] Could've been you. [ Too. ] Should be glad I have such a terrible personality.
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a light flickers inside four's head at the anomaly of panic housed in the frame of the voice belonging to elan ceres. a stranger in the home. he sees it for the first time: striations like strings, not the same color as those that move the clones but strings nonetheless. because elan ceres says "no" — as good as a command four must receive —, says "i'm fine" — a lie four must receive and see how imperfect mirrors really are —, says "precautions" — a perspective four must receive and consider. it saves four from unraveling, enough to process in his mind that the way elan ceres leans into his touch has considerable competition for the confusion and well buried response in him: this...this...this...
two birds. one stone.
if one were to grade four's intelligence, the score would be high. if one were to grade four's wisdom, he would fail over and over. the problem at hand asks the former of him more than the latter.
inhale. exhale. an ordinary pain.
he blinks once, only for his eyes to go improbably wide. they seem to want to be a slightly different shape, rounder, distinctly not elan's eyes.
the feeling of elan's hand on his arm, his wrist, the back of his own hand where the permet lies ominously dormant still. one curse to another, perhaps it doesn't care for competition. not a thought four has, but not out of hand. mined. concocted. intruders to the body. one to acclimate to or die from. one to reject with "preparations" and neutralizers and antidotes pre-administered or die from. vaguely he's aware of how clammy elan's hand is and how it contradicts the burst of strength. that four was not about to rescind his hand anyway, hardly matters.
right?
more than the touch, perhaps, it's that word.
sorry.
four sighs.
he doesn't try to parse if elan ceres means it. it is not as though he would be able to tell, or what he would do with either answer; it's not his place. surveying elan ceres again brings four no particularly new data — struggling breaths, spike in body temperature and the resulting sweat that mats his hair and the collar of his shirt to his skin in a way four has never seen. poisoned. how? for a moment, four hesitates. again: it is not his place. at the same time, he detests inefficiency and absence of logic. this time when he blinks, the wideness disappears like it was only an illusion.
maybe it was.
his gaze is familiar, what little elan ceres can likely see of it based on how his eyes fail to focus still. )
Your jacket.
( it makes sense to remove it. four does not know if he should help. his complete disregard for the piece of paper elan set down may as good as tells his origin point that he's not thinking about it, much less putting the pieces together. if he did, he would even feel some doubt. peil has many easier ways of ridding themselves of him. but perhaps not elan ceres himself, and once he worked his way to that conclusion he might understand. for now, there is no such comprehension, four's fingers unconsciously flexing slightly against elan's subtly sharper cheek, his own hand completely covered by the other's.
such a terrible personality.
he's not sure that it is. what makes it terrible?
four thinks of the books on the cart that he only just denied being his own, the tomato plant, the diploma.
terrible?
terrible. selfish.
perhaps they are more alike than he guessed.
no.
he stops the thought, folds a new box around it and puts it into the old room behind the other rooms.
no. )
Please...tell me what to do.
( please. it should be easy shouldn't it? to reinstate the roles, to match the pattern set out for him and move just so. please. in this abnormality return to the norm where even the way elan ceres prolongs touch in a way that burns worse than the permet eating away at him can be explained explained explained until it makes so much sense four no longer has to contend with the alternative.
please.
underneath it all, elan ceres' words repeat both a promise and a curse and in no voice four can recognize:
i'm fine. really. just fine.
don't hate me. please.inhale —
— exhale. )
no subject
Tell me what to do. Even here, at his lowest and most desperate, even now. Please. Suddenly, no amount of air feels like it could suffice. The hand gripping his shirt scrabbles up to the base of his necktie, pulls with all the force he wishes he could put into that single, simple word. No. He takes another deep, shuddering breath as soon as the tension's gone -- so excruciating that he gasps and tilts forward, held where he is only by Four's resistance. Fuck. The hand clutching Four's to his face spasms, squeezes it more tightly against his cheek as the one that had wrenched the tie from his collar moves to cover his mouth, his eyes. His shoulders start to shake. Don't. He thinks he hears himself say it, this time, as a sob begins to wrack his body.
No. No, no...
... Gradually, Elan's focus shifts from anticipating the ache that had followed every expansion and contraction of his chest to Four's breath -- a barely-there sound, all the better for how it solicits Elan's concentration. Inhale, exhale -- exhausting, but painless, now. Other sensations follow: His dress shirt, sweat-soaked and stuck to his skin; a dull pounding at the back of his head and just behind his brow; his hand on Four's on his face, so still -- so unlike his, despite Peil's attempts to shape it otherwise. With his other hand covering his eyes, he can almost pretend it's someone else's. His thumb strokes the back, just once, before the rest of his hand slides down to settle around the wrist -- at which point Four's rapid pulse calls Elan back to where he really is.
Plans. He has to make plans.
The diploma's got to go, the bedsheets it's on, too -- does Peil even give his clones more than one set? He'll just grab an extra from his own rooms. The biometric lock system he'll modify into something more sophisticated at the earliest possible opportunity, after his requisite meeting with the hags about this internal assassination attempt's out of the way. They'll tell him to fire the culprit and her entire unit -- they can't do it themselves anymore; he's in charge now, after all -- but he'll reason it's better for Peil to keep all personnel with knowledge of its cloning program close. Wouldn't the people at human enhancement like to experiment with selective brainwashing, for once? If they succeed, then he'll fire his would-be assassin and her cronies for some other infraction: It's a win-win for them both. Speaking of which, he would like to speak with Belmeria Winston, actually -- human enhancement's work with Six has become so advanced that he's got no agency to speak of; a perfect puppet to shuffle back and forth between Peil's headquarters, his parents' house, and whatever functions require Elan Ceres' presence in-person as he bunkers down in the proverbial lion's den. Inform his parents? No, they don't need to know (what's happened, that he knows what's happened). They won't notice a difference -- and Belmeria won't cross him; Belmeria feels guilt and shame enough to keep it secret, despairs to such a degree that he's sure she'll believe this gambit might stand to correct at least a few of her mistakes. How's Seven, on that note? Still can't see him? Oh, that's fine. Send Five to all the duel friendlies, he's got the good sense not to die and he's more similar to the man the rest of them met at graduation anyway. Good talk. See it through.
Four?
GUND-ARM could use some competition. It's about time Peil experimented with technologies that reverse the deleterious effects of mobile suit piloting. Use Four for that, and when it's done -- that'll be enough, won't it? Elan Ceres doesn't need more than a couple body doubles. Graduation -- for real, this time.
It's then Elan realizes how firmly his hand has clenched around the other's wrist. He lowers his other hand from his face, finally, raises his head and opens his eyes as he relaxes his grip. You. An indexical, for lack of an empty sound where a name would be. I shouldn't make this decision by myself.
Unbidden, Elan remembers Four's -- his, their -- expression when he blew that eyelash away. Perhaps it's a function of having survived contact poison, but when Elan looks at Four's face now, the stress that had bubbled up in him as he'd schemed himself sane gives way to -- nothing; a stillness that suffuses his bones. He's broken (himself) from script once, twice, three times over already today. Maybe, if he has the courage to do it one more time, he'll get what he wants -- even if he can't explain why it's become so important to him. ]
I...
[ But. ]
Take them off. Please.
[ He lets go of Four's wrist to tap his own earlobes, all while taking the jitters in his hands to be from fatigue. ]
no subject
for now, four has:
the debilitating calm that keeps him grounded, a flicker of pain when elan ceres' hand encircles his wrist, awareness when the shift happens and though elan ceres is in no way "okay" something has given way, and —
— no idea of what to do.
the seemingly unrelated direction confuses him. please from that mouth confuses him. elan ceres confuses him, and four —
— four hesitates.
not that it matters.
after all, it's only a second, two at most, but unignorable in how it is dissimilar from how he would normally respond: doing so immediately, naturally. wordless, he does remove them, setting them on the floor, keenly aware of the glass-like clink of the beads on the industrial floor. one rolls askew from the other but he doesn't make any effort to grab it. instead, his gaze moves again to elan ceres' shirt and then, coincidentally, to the piece of paper on his bed, then back to elan ceres, this time meeting his eyes directly. this close, and after the unavoidable collapse of would-be death throes, it would hardly surprise anyone to see him looking haggard; but it's not just that.
though not a people person, four has not survived on reticence alone though he might have tried if he could. there was also observation.
refined down to the shape of his nails, four can see the tiny inconsistencies all the clearer. the lay of his lashes, the now normalizing breadth of green in his eyes, the set of those eyes, even the angle of his nose, shape of mouth. nothing is perfect even if six approaches that and a rumored seven even more so. that's already three removed from the project four was at the time. and it's not like he doesn't read his own reports; his shortcomings and disappointments are well known to him.
not that it matters.
elan ceres' eyes returning to normal is a good sign. his breaths somehow matching to four's might also be a good sign, though he isn't one hundred percent certain of it; it sounds less like a struggle at least. despite his outward calm and inward calm — useless if not, if not, if not... —, his pulse races even now that he's been let go. it trips over itself in his chest and makes a mess of the many neatly sealed boxes stacked just so.
not that it matters.
subconscious stress, four's weakened constitution, it's a tightrope walk over and over, but he hasn't lost his balance in any way he can't take back just yet. strangely, he doesn't feel what his body cannot help but belie: red and white the lengths of his arms, up from under his collar, the glimmer of it making him all the more translucent. yet his frame remains normal, all of his well disciplined nothingness that often gets mistaken for a kind of bizarre poise, all in a moment that does not call for it.
unconscious unconscious unconscious: i don't know / i am not afraid to die / i don't know / i'm worried/ i don't know / i don't want someone else
youto die, that's why i — / i don't know.he does the only thing he can think to do, kneeling on the floor and ready to catch elan ceres if need be: he waits. )
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Elan's a hair's breadth away from defaulting to script when he catches Four's moment of hesitation.
Clinks on the metallic floor, one after the other, a fraction of a second later than Elan hadn't realized he'd been expecting until they strike him as the echo of an action as good as finalized, finished, in his mind. He watches as Four lifts his gaze to focus on something behind Elan, shifts his attention to look Elan straight on and scrutinize his countenance: His eyes, his nose, his mouth. Changes that would be imperceptible if Elan weren't confronting what might as well be his reflection in a hand mirror, held right up to his face. To think they'd never looked more dissimilar than when he came in, and now...
He takes a deep breath. It doesn't hurt anymore, but it doesn't calm his nerves. ]
Do you understand the situation I'm in?
[ It's becoming clearer to Elan by the minute. His plans will only constellate just so if he's able to use this assassination attempt to force Seven out of testing, sell him to the rest of the organization as a species of bodyguard in a manner that'd show Peil's hand if they refuse. It'd be a waste of Four to use him for this when he's half-dead already; Five's too conniving for it; Six is ideal as liaison due to his obedience. That leaves Seven to sample all of Elan's deliveries, handle his correspondence, try every substance they'd like to slip past his door -- and if Elan's hunch about Seven replacing him is right, Peil won't risk harming (either of) him. Stalemate, since it's not like they can kill Six while he performs his duties outside of headquarters just to make an opening: It'd be a bitch to explain how Elan Ceres came back from the dead.
With enough time he'll blow the lid on this whole "human enhancement" operation. The real Elan Ceres will get off scot free; Peil will be shut down; everybody and his parents will spend the rest of their miserable lives in jail; and both companies' coffers will be his, no strings attached... He couldn't ask for a better opportunity. (What? Is he forgetting something?)
Clink, clink, clink. The tip of Elan's nail tapping against the floor as he looks into the space just beyond Four's shoulder, at the books askew in the crate. Nervous habit. ]
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( a quiet, lackluster answer. no elaboration either. enhanced person number four does not know though: what elan ceres wants him to do with that so-called information. that someone has tried to kill him, that someone will try again, that someone has before. present. future. past. what can four do with the information, what should he do? questions. no answers. four's i believe so hangs like a cat's cradle between them, not much space; no room for error.
the sound of elan ceres' nail against the floor falls like a physical weight into four's chest. it seems to not only be noise but a form of strange contact, a form of taste, a form of honesty he can't quite parse nor understand. objectively: nervous tic. subjectively: ...
as is his own habit, four swallows down his sigh into utter silence, and though he does not turn his head, he does close his eyes, trying to find an answer that elan ceres could probably outright give him if he felt like it. abruptly there's an absence: a hollow space where the odd adrenaline surge collapses out of him like a held breath. it has that odd effect being depleted sometimes does, makes his mind a fraction clearer, almost detached from himself. when he looks again, it is at the bed behind him. )
Should I dispose of it?
( there is no thought of 'mine' or 'don't'. four's shift from viewing it with unmanageable hurt and damning wordlessness to someone else's problem to be solved is invisible and sincere. if elan ceres tells him to get rid of it, he will. if elan ceres tells him not to get rid of it, he won't. if —
— ?
the person who he was before being remade by peil technologies learned early on how to be obedient, and that there were different ways to achieve this; not just by following direct commands but anticipating what might be perceived as ingratitude or like-minded behaviors. where enhanced person number four boxes and buries that dreaded word "want" without looking at it, sela looked at what he wanted and hoped to preserve and took his own quiet steps to achieve that, even if it often meant holding a little too close to the heart ways to be wanted by not being unwanted.
clink.
it occurs to him that there is a sense of expectation from elan ceres and it feels, now that he looks at it closer, feels it more finitely: very different than the collective expectation of peil. strange, given his role there; and not strange, given his role there. four ignores a sweep of dizziness, tethered to his neutral ground by an intersection of fulfilling his role and...something else. its shape eludes him and so too its name. this frenetic, uncontrolled anxiety like a trapped impulse before a fall.
and, somewhere at the foot of that cliff: a heartbeat that is his heartbeat.
oh.
i'm...worried?
not a thought he can pursue, and indeed he doesn't. but the throbbing in his skull worsens when he looks up again, gaze less focused but calm.
unnaturally, carefully, too patiently. )
elan ceres' kira moment
The nail stops tapping; the nastiest little thought comes before Elan's mind. Doesn't the woman who tried to kill him have a daughter at the artificial intelligence department? He could run into her in the hallway, ask her for a favor -- "Oh, do you have a minute? I'm not feeling well today. I'd like you to frame something..." So strange and unfortunate, what happened. Heart giving out on her at dinner, just like that. No preexisting health conditions. What could have possibly been the cause? Stress? Everybody works ever so hard...
... But her mother would know better.
Elan knows better, too, than to retaliate or entertain pointless fantasies of revenge when keeping others in suspense about the consequences of their actions would make for a sweeter torture. Right when the woman starts to feel the tension go from her shoulders and relaxes into that ever-present, pervasive sense of "something should've gone wrong, yet..."
That's when the call from human enhancement will come.
Yes, when Elan approaches her daughter about hanging the diploma behind his desk later, he'll do it with a pair of gloves. A small reminder; a perverse commemoration -- ]
I'll take care of it.
[ -- a flight of fancy from the issue at hand.
It's a relief that Elan doesn't have to explain, walk Four through the obvious, reevaluate his belief that this person is -- somehow; yes -- someone he can rely upon. Four's question is indication enough of it all.
For a moment, Elan almost permits himself to think, That's why. He'll need an ally (who is functionally useless) while he's getting his footing (avoiding the opportunities for missteps and extortion said ally facilitates simply by being alive). It makes sense (that is, none). It's fine (it's ludicrous). Almost permits, because swinging between extremes of reason to avoid whatever abyss lies below them sets Elan's stomach churning again; almost permits, because Elan recognizes that unfocused look in Four's eyes, that preternatural calm from --
It's the strain, isn't it.
-- before, in his bedroom at Asticassia. (There the whole time.)
Not again. No 'but's, this time. The words are out of Elan's mouth before he realizes they'll do more harm for having been spoken, half-whispered, sprung from his own intolerable sense of unease. ]
What's wrong?
[ I need you to -- / want you to -- / have to -- / don't -- / wish -- / can't have you -- / won't have you -- / require you to -- / demand -- / please --
Elan touches the back of Four's hand.
-- stay / listen / don't fall. ]
those words continue to crit me
four doesn't know if he knows what he's doing, doesn't know if he himself knows what he's doing either. action. inaction. call. response. he's never been the type to take two steps forward. neither has he been the type to take two steps back. is this the way to be closer to the version of being that moves irregardless of his successes and victories? the line between stagnancy and balance blazes under the back and forth rock of four's feet at any given moment like a trapped falling star: already certain to die but it could go somewhere arguably better before that, if he let it.
what's wrong? from that person he never thought he would hear those words from. he's presented with the memory of elan ceres slipping his fingers under his glove not so different than the way one might press fingers checking for a pulse, even if that was not at all what he was doing.
it really is hard to breathe.
but four is four.
even all but discarded for a nameless disappearance in the depths of peil's further research, it's more than the contract at work; it's the damnation of habit and...something else. since elan ceres brought him those books. since all of his messages at weird hours. since...
just because the precautions he has in place saved him from the poison does not mean all is well. if elan ceres does not want him to get rid of the diploma then what does he want of him in this moment? what is four's role?
unbeknownst to himself, the lines of permet glare brighter along his cheeks and neck, as if aggravated by his denial of anything happening, his own gaze hooked and hanging from the disheveled collar of elan ceres' shirt. the messiest he's seen him by far. involuntarily, his head falls forward just a little, but they are close enough that his forehead touches elan ceres' shoulder. hardly a second passes before he jerks back, apology muddling the answer he fails to give into silence except for his breaths, forced to a quiet note. as if that could fool anyone, much less the person in front of him.
despite all this, he hasn't reclaimed his hand, hasn't moved that part of him at all, as if it is independent of him, losing the gentle violent kind of war: trying to understand. )
no subject
A cold thought, there and gone like the calm Elan had clawed out of all his manic planning. Liabilities are chips to play when they belong to other people; disposed of -- much like the pawns that others are -- when they're recognized in oneself. Therein lies the harm in Elan's question: What's wrong?
Peil must have taken Four to be a liability for him -- and after today they might have proof of it, a hundred times over.
That thought's cold, too, and leaves Elan feeling cold himself -- an effect of how he's sweat through his clothing, of the air that recirculates throughout the room. His paranoia supplies the rest before he can ask himself if it's true: They've had access to the messages on Four's side, surely; they knew he wouldn't throw away Four's things, even if they might not have known which object to tamper with until he'd put in that stupid request to modify the diploma... How had Elan never thought to wonder -- check! -- if they'd installed cameras in his clones' rooms? They've heard everything, seen everything, are still watching now, and it'll be game over if he doesn't --
-- Four's head falls on his shoulder. Elan's become so tense that he twitches slightly when he feels its weight, withdraws the fingers he'd all but forgotten were touching Four's hand. Instinctively, he raises his head to scan the ceiling, finds nothing; glances at the walls and can't discern anything there that could glance back. No, he thinks with a sigh. Peil would never dream that Elan Ceres could treat its products as something other than commodities or playthings, because Peil belongs to the same world his parents do. Its own artificial intelligence attests to that fact: How could the less capable minds of Peil have possibly imagined Elan in a situation not even he had anticipated?
In spite of himself, Elan pities his copy. In spite of himself, he resents Four with a persistence that owes itself to some heady mixture of frustration at Four's weakness and disappointment in Four's obstinance about letting himself die as if nothing matters to him -- a failing Elan takes personally because it's so obviously untrue. In spite of himself, he wants Four lucid, ready, available, because he doesn't want to do this alone --
... Ah.
-- and, yes, he's tricked himself into thinking their cont(r)act is something like friendship, company. Tricked, because it wouldn't -- couldn't -- make sense if it were otherwise. It's all vanity on Elan's side, a vanity that explains everything.
Go on, then. Tell him what to do.
An echo from his training, and one that -- bores him; the peace it brings nothing like the one he'd felt after his body had worked through the poison and he'd gazed at Four's face, so still. Checking an inconvenient train of thought before it leaves the proverbial station is the nail in Elan's coffin. He finds himself drained from the way his emotions have kept pace with his frenetic scheming as much as from the physical strain of having survived an assassination attempt, aches to close his eyes. It's not like he can order the permet to stop ravaging Four, anyway, and -- well, he doesn't want to see it.
He scoots away, barely suppressing a shiver as he lays down on the metallic floor. It's really hitting him now that he's stopped thinking: Dull pain throughout his abdomen; that pounding sensation in his head; the knot in his throat. Elan feels that he should say, do something --
(You don't even take anything -- not even when his forehead accidentally touches another's shoulder. You have no idea how lucky you are -- that his own defenses revolt against him, even with mixed success.)
-- and he doesn't, other than to lay an arm across his face. ]
no subject
to say nothing of the fact that elan ceres hasn't asked or told him to do anything at all.
four's bigger problem.
(right?)
in this way, "sela" was both very similar and very different: waiting to notice what was wanted of him so he could anticipate and act upon it before being asked or demanded. even if four's memories of who he once was were returned to him, he wouldn't understand. he hadn't understood back then either, grasping at the straws of being worthy of being around, of that smile he never saw much of again after that first birthday. to be worthy. to be of use. that four is both the worst and the best predisposed for the job he signed up for has perhaps been clear early on to peil, to elan ceres. well equipped for coloring inside the lines but also prone to forgetting what those lines are, the curiosity shaped loneliness boxed up so many times he's lost track of it.
though certain things pushed him in the right direction.
which might also be the wrong one.
they call them enhanced persons but it's no secret they aren't viewed as people.
except elan ceres sort of has been treating him like that.
hasn't he.
he's bored. he'll stop soon. it's nothing.
things four fell back on. falls.
looking down at him now, it does not even occur to him that there is yet another opportunity here.
instead:
i wish i knewwhat is it you wantedfrom me?ah.
the sinking feeling that falls through the burn of permet like something cold and heavy articulates itself; that sense of having disappointed. it pricks at muscle memory more than five years old at this point, confuses things even more, and leads four to curling his hands on his knees a little too tightly. if elan ceres will not give him direction, if he will not speak to him —
— is it dismissal?
he doesn't quite know what to do with that thought.
there are no hypotheticals in place because four has long believed he would die due to the nature of piloting, the inescapable toll despite four's long game of simply enduring. not even suletta mercury's devastating kindness could change that, or so he had come to the conclusion some time ago. the very concept of being discarded at this stage...
..his fingers curl so deeply into his palms the nails break the skin. he breathes. unsteady.
it's fine.
it's fine. because even when he's made human, four checks for his strings.
what makes sense? what is practical? he scans elan ceres again, gaze cataloging the sweat soaked clothes, the unwell pallor, the collapse of his body in the wake of fending of whatever poison. he blinks, and when he speaks it's soft in a way that could be taken for gentle because when four isn't cold that might very well be his default. though he would not take credit for that kind of compassion.
even if he cares; even if he should(n't). )
Should I acquire fresh clothing for you?
( the unspoken question: won't staying like that make you sick?
won't you feel worse?
if one of them was staring down at the other over the cracking edge of the cliff, it would be impossible at this precise moment to tell who looks from which vantage. )
no subject
Metal at his back, cold through a gown. When he's asked to raise his arms, he crosses them over his face -- against a light that's too bright; eyes that are too many. They lie instruments across his skin and take notes directly on his body. It's an exacting science, but they are considerate enough to pursue it for just fifty minute stretches every day -- at least in his case. He has no trouble being still when he's alone, but it's different -- it's all he can do to keep the jitters out of his legs -- when he's under observation, on or at the table (surrounded by researchers, by family friends). Expectation, all the time. The hand touching his knee tells him he's forgotten to follow instructions again. He'd slam his foot into the woman's abdomen if this weren't for his own good. The more he cooperates now, the less he'll have to cooperate in the future: Only this reminder checks his impulse to run.
Should I acquire fresh clothing for you?
A once-familiar question, delivered in a voice just shy of his own. Elan almost believes he's imagined himself speaking. And then he remembers: It's now. He's lying on the floor in Four's room. They've tried to kill him. He can't doze off; he has things to do.
Elan uncovers his face, turns to prop himself up on one arm -- slow, deliberate. Too caught up in his own mind to pay much attention to Four when they were face-to-face, let alone after he'd initially sized Four up and started taunting him, Elan's able to look -- really look -- again, now that he's become too worn out to tear himself away from what he sees: A tension so intolerable to Four he's made himself as small as possible; so overwhelming even then that any attempt to ignore it could only hasten its breaking point. There'd been a shift when the poison had started going through Elan's system. A call to action. One inert solicitation to assist after another. Expectation, all the time. Once fashioned, a tool is a tool until its (over/mis)use renders it otherwise -- and then...
Elan realizes what he's done only after he's moved to kneel in front of his copy -- a mirror image of their positions from before. In contrast to the incident in Four's bedroom at Asticassia, there is no performance. The opportunity for one passed the instant Elan had reached out to touch Four's hand without guile earlier. It's not that he has the grace to admit to himself that he doesn't understand what's happening or what he wants -- what he's trying to get -- out of this moment. He's simply become too tired for any mental contortions to frame the situation just so for his own sake. There's no avoiding the absurdity of it now. Everything -- everyone -- activates Elan's paranoia, except this person.
He gazes at the red-white glow in Four's hands, steadies himself by keeping his palms flat on the floor. He's not sure if he's arrived at an answer to his own question -- what's wrong? -- that makes sense of Four's behavior. There's no hope of explaining, discussing things now. (And why would there have been? Elan's relentless strategizing is superhuman when it works as a coping method and outright deranged when it doesn't.) Still, he feels compelled to say -- ]
You've done enough.
[ -- as if it'll make a difference. One small, well-timed push, delivered when Elan has no idea the other's at his mercy. ]
no subject
it isn't fear of death, a thing four will deny upon pain of it. it isn't the desire for death, though four has been playing cat and mouse with it while swapping roles for far too long, all the while having convinced himself it was fine whatever the outcome; because he couldn't remember who he was much less the terms of his role and his presence. except that the existence must have already been a cursed one to volunteer for this real life disassembly. it's worse than both of those things, anyway; far more shameful and idiotic.
what four doesn't remember: sela, age five, planting seeds that wouldn't grow. sela, age six, planting seeds again even when it risked the sin of a waste they could not afford. sela, age seven, planting seeds that, once again, failed to live.
though something grew there anyway.
four looked it up once taken in by peil, given access to their technology and even the scant books.
dandelion.
human beings used to believe they could be wish giving, even after they had all but died. and then, those wishes carried on versions of it somewhere else to be born the same but different.
what four does remember: intermittent messages at all odd hours and some regular ones too, dance lessons that felt uncomfortable with nowhere to hide and comfortable for the same reason, books now on the cart in this room delivered without any fanfare except their very existence,
elan ceres telling him what to do and —
— four not doing it.
the words i don't want to die won't ever come.
a life of economy could not, it turns out, protect much. if he was more lucid right now, four would question himself anyway: what was there to protect in the first place?
instead, a small push is also a small pull: the key place to unravel everything.
a push in the center of a room is safe, mostly. a push before an open window, not so much.
four plummets.
sela, age nine to a woman whose face cannot be recalled: "but i want to help you...can't i help?"
can't i...do anything?
peil never implemented their enhanced humans with a fail-safe; no emergency destruct trigger in their systems. but four makes the spitting image of what it might be like if they had done so. rather than like the time at the school, he stays so completely still one might wonder if he wasn't a disturbingly life-like replica in another way: a model of what not to do, not feeling the blood from his nose or the pounding in his head, not truly registering the black spots in his vision nor the lancing burn of the permet no longer content to cluster in his arms and throat and face, running the whole of him like he's been turned inside-out for better understanding.
not that there is any.
you've done enough.
it hurts. )
no subject
... Hang on, is that...?
It's less conscious thought than lurch of nausea in Elan's stomach. Seconds pass as he inclines his head slightly forward, stares at Four in disbelief -- watches the permet bloom in places he's never seen it before, glowing faintly through the fabric of the other's clothing; notices how only a sliver of green yet rims Four's pupils. At this point, he's beyond checking his impulses, channeling their expression, repackaging them in more palatable form: Elan Ceres may not touch people for any purpose other than manipulation or out of sheer caprice, but Elan is far too greedy, too clumsy with his emotions for any sense of propriety or disgust to prevent him from cupping Four's face in his hand and running his thumb under the other's nose to confirm -- yes, it's blood. Hot and sticky like Four's skin, searing against his palm like it was in Four's bedroom at Asticassia -- and not.
This time, nothing comes at a remove or through a filter. Elan knows what it means when his chest aches as his heartbeat accelerates; when he breaks out into another cold sweat; when his hands -- the one still on Four's face, the other gripping Four's shoulder -- start to tremble with a strength he wouldn't be able to suppress even if he wanted. ]
Stay with me.
[ Soft, at first, in a tone that would surprise him if he were in any position to evaluate its difference from his usual. ]
Listen to my voice.
[ So easy, now, to say what he couldn't moments earlier, to tell the other what to do. ]
Don't... do this, don't let yourself go, don't leave me alone here, don't...
[ Why? Because -- ]
I need you, alright? I need you.
[ -- there's no strategy to it, no plan; he's too afraid. That nothing that's been gnawing at him -- since Three's execution, since Two ran way, since One was pronounced as good as dead on arrival; since they asked him to give everything, everything, away to the very idea of Elan Ceres: a prettier face, a straighter posture, a smoother speech, a sharper mind, a shrewder character; since those parts of the day he could call his (his?) became ever smaller; since the day he was born -- it hits him, suddenly, with all the force of the poison he'd expelled from his system earlier, raises his voice. ]
I can't have you doing this, I won't have you doing this, you have to last --
[ Distantly: There's no coming back from this. ]
-- at least until I can get out of here, at least until they've fixed you, at least until it's all gone, I don't give a shit about what you want or your stupid death wish, you will do as I say or...
[ There's no saving him from becoming like Four, because their similarities are what drew Elan to him to begin with -- they're in the way his hands burn, his eyes itch, in the bile he tastes in the back of his throat, and if it weren't for his unrestrained desperation, the pressure in Elan's head would give way to vertigo and horror at what he's said, what he's shown. He catches on the "or," because -- there's nothing he can, could, do.
Farther still: Is this what you wanted a break to catalyze?
Whose break -- his, yours?
Does it even matter? ]
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. )