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Post by Lacarinus on Nov 25, 2015 16:30:45 GMT -5
Fueled by the endless questions no one can answer
Skye had been very withdrawn lately, hardly speaking a word. When Ada questioned him, he didn't reply, but she heard Varus talking to him quietly at night through thin walls in hushed voices, apologetic and guilty.
"What's been upsetting him?" She asked Varus one night, after he'd slipped back into the room, looking older than his twelve years.
Varus glanced at her for a moment, before he let out a sigh. "He won't like me telling you—he's not proud of this at all—but you have the right to know. Skye's family, His dad doesn't quite aprove of his friendship with us. He, uh, he and Skye don't exactly get along in the best of terms-"
"He hates his son?" Ada asked, looking horrified at the prospect.
"That's mostly my fault." Varus rubbed his arm a little nervously. "But Skye is worried that he'll come up with a way to get rid of us, save the family name and all. I met the man a handful of times, he wouldn't hesitate to kill us if he thought hencould get away with it. "
How could such a ruthless man have had Skye for a son? "Are you sure he isn't adopted?"
Varus laughed a little hollowly. "It would've been a lot easier if he were."
Ada can't coax a better reply from him (Though she's not entirely sure if she wants one) and she senses that, sometimes, he was Varus-and-Skye rather than simply Varus. It's a strange thing, being an –and-someone, Ada knew because she had been Ada-and-Varus for so very long before Skye, still is Ada-and-Varus sometimes.
And –and-someone secrets are very different than personal secrets.
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Post by Lacarinus on Jan 2, 2016 21:27:26 GMT -5
Face down in the dirt, she says "this doesn't hurt".
Sometimes he wonders. Late at night after a drink that became two and then more. When the stars in the sky are blocked out from the smoke spouting from other chimneys and street lamps no one put out.
He wonders if he'd be like this, if he'd worry about what he worried about, if he'd make the decisions he's made, if it had never happened. If the person he was supposed to be would look upon he person he was with scorn or pride. If he would have wound up this way anyway, had he been born to a little more money. If the man who he kept looking over his shoulder for whenever he heard a sound, whenever someone called him 'Hey, Collins!' had been a little more generous? Could he have been raised as Skye's brother and not his servant? A posh git like the brunette was, with a house and a family name that carried more good memories than bad?
If maybe he'd have found a girl he could stand and married her for publicity and maybe not have been happy but been safe, been able to go without washing his hands for more than exactly an hour and fifteen minutes. Maybe he'd have a kid who would rifle through his desk drawers and scatter papers from it's surface and his first thought wouldn't be 'They're back'. He might have been able to stand the scent of cloves without getting sick, the name 'sweetheart', olive oil. Wear clothes that didn't drown his form in fabric and colors because then no one looked too long.
Maybe someone would notice. They'd notice the hand washing every exactly one hour and fifteen minutes and the fear in his eyes. They'd see the subtle flinching and the shapeless clothes and the bitten nails on shaking hands.
They might even ask him how he was doing, if he had slept in the past three nights or why his table lamp was always on at night and his door and windows locked. Maybe he'd have someone to tell him he didn't need to check the records on every worker he had on his ship, just to be sure. Because even if they were in the air and his door had 4 locks and a deadbolt and his windows were welded shut he still woke up in a cold sweat shivering and desperate for a shower to scrub away the lingering feel of hands on his skin.
He'd have someone there to talk him through it. He wouldn't have to sit curled at the bottom of his bed with sheets around his shoulders, head in his hands to hide the redness in his eyes because no one wanted to know and he wouldn't let them.
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Post by Lacarinus on Jan 11, 2016 8:57:01 GMT -5
'Cause in the Future these'll be the Good Ol' Days
Varus liked his tea warm, not hot, fresh out of the kettle and intense, after it had sat out for awhile and cooled off. He'd add sugar and honey and cream and Skye would look on with fond exasperation and tell him he was going to rot his teeth. But he finished the cup every time, a layer of sugar and honey along the bottom of the cup left behind.
"Really, half of that cup must be honey Varus, can you even taste the tea?" The blonde would look up at him and huffed in embarrassment. "Its too bitter the way you drink it." He'd dip sweets into his cup of sugar and his brother would chastise him. Ada would be laughing with her cup held close to her chest, warming her palms, leaving them pink and warm.
She drank odd blends of spices and foreign plants she'd buy from a stall at the market, cinnamon or roses, fragrant and milky white with cream. It'd be hot like stones out in the summer day. Bitter and complex in every way that she wasn't. She'd tell them what it was supposed to do, every time she saved up for a new one; this one cured a headache, that one helped you sleep. She never told them if they worked or not.
He'd asked her if they did once or twice, there was no reason to drink them if they didn't, but she'd smiled and told him "That's not the point." But she'd never explain further, leaving her half-finished cup, spoon submerged in the pale mixture, behind on the table.
Skye drank his dark and hot, the way that was proper with just a dash of sugar to take the edge off. He'd play with it, swirling his spoon, bright and catching in the hot amber color of the tea. It was the way his father drank it, the way his mother drank it. He'd always start the cup and get distracted, leaving it behind to grow cold while he worked.
The first time someone tried to kill him, it was with his tea. A vial poured into the warm liquid, the red-brown color of Ada's eyes. He'd abandoned it in favor of writing down an idea for suspension cables or something similar. Ada found it and poured it out on the flowerbed after chastising him for wasting food.
If it hadn't been for the dead flowers, he'd have never even known.
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