FICTION: iconic conetl

[xihe]

 

THERE WASN’T ANY WATER IN THE WISHING WELL

ICONIC CONETL

10.5 sweeps / 24 years old | somewhere in the continental core

^{2191 words}

“Sweetling,” you say, “d’you figure I’m just bad at this?”

The bathroom smells like bleach and copper, sharp enough that it makes you want to gag. The cool of the tile against your forehead’s some help! It’s a distraction, at least, for a few moments at a time. And then you hear the scrape of metal on metal, and your gorge is back up, heavy as a softball in the back of your throat.

You’d known what you were getting into! But, oh, knowing your intolerances didn’t mean you’d realised it’d be quite this bad. If anyone’s going to be pawing at your ports, though, it might as well be Sipara.

She was the first to see them after they were installed. Why shouldn’t she be the first to see them now that they’re broken?

“Bad at what?” she says idly. When you glance back at her, she’s still digging through her toolkit, pulling things to the side and setting them on the sink. Her little sterilisation box is behind them, its mouth half-open and waiting with a patience that nearly feels palpable.

When you look at it, it winks at you.

“Don’t ask me. Oh, everything? Bonnie’s off in space. Vadadear is -” You drag your tongue across your lips. “- a bad idea,” you decide, slowly. “A terrible idea. Steamy’s - well, Bonnie’s off in space. D’you think she would be, if I were, y’know - better at this?”

“I think,” she drawls, “your face’s going white, nerd, so, like, stop watchin’ me set up?”

You turn back to the tile, closing your eyes as you rest your head against it. This isn’t Sipara or Hadean’s apartment, you don’t think. Maybe the little brownblood dawdling in the living rooms? The walls are all green and white, painted up in something that edges uncannily close to jade, and if you stare long enough, you think you could dig up the hex code. “So bossy, sweetling.”

“But fine! I’m looking away.”

“Good.” All you have to listen to is the clink of metal as she moves. A message from Cramel pops up in the corner of your vision, but it’s as scrambled as everything coming in from your wetware’s been, lately, so you blink the notification off. Oh, if it’s important, she’ll call. “And, umm - Bonnie’s your rail, yeah?”

“Mm~!” If you just focus on the conversation, this is all nearly tolerable. There’s something nostalgic about this, for all that you’d never let Sipara work on you back when you were still quadrants. Shepherd would’ve skinned the both of you if she’d so much as nicked any of her hardware, and the scars had still been fresh, back then.

No, it’s not the portwork that’s familiar. It’s just the feel of her, and the comfort of being near. Sipara’s practically a weight in any room she’s in, and it’s soothing enough to fall into her orbit. You’d mostly combed through her problems! She was a pupa. But that was a sweep ago, and she’d always wanted to try, at least, for yours. “Mm. She’s gone all the time. Policeradicator business, y’know,” you say, and you hear the twitch of her ear. “Which is fine, I’m not exactly a clingy sort of fellow, but - well - it’s just kind of wretched, isn’t it, when you don’t know when someone’ll be there, or when they’ll be gone?”

Your words are getting a little heavy. You roll your shoulders, letting your eyes drift up for all that no one can see it. “How did you manage with your dear fourprongs, sweetheart?”

She doesn’t reply. You give her twenty seconds, then thirty, but the silence is just dragging on, getting heavier with each passing moment, and then you give in. “Sipa?”

When you turn around to look at her, her shoulders are hunched in, and.. oh. She’s not looking at you. You step over, careful, and each step feels like weights are tied to your feet. (How do people ever manage without psionics?) “Sipa,” you croon, reaching out. Her hair’s covering her face, thick as a curtain. You have to tuck your hand under her face to tilt it up, one thumb on her chin, and -

- she’s crying, the sort of runny brown tears you haven’t seen since she was little. “Oh, no,” you say, alarmed. “Oh, no, sugarpop - Sipadear - what’re you doing?”

She snarls at you, baring every last one of those fangs, and just like that, you withdraw. There’s plenty of old scars on your wrists and arms from her snits as a pupa, rings of weals and chalk-white skin. You don’t need to add more. “Sipadear,” you scold, but that doesn’t bring down the threat display; she just whines instead like a broken car engine, with the sort of rasp that you don’t know where she got. “What’s wrong? C’mon, sweetling, you’ve got words. What’s the matter?”

She sniffs. You croon at her, voice pitched low and soft as a lusus. “Cinnamondumpling,” you half-sing, “c’mon, now, spit it out -”

She opens her mouth.

There’s a sharp knock at the door, loud as a gunshot, and just like that, Sipara wilts.

“Sips?” Hadean calls a moment later, and you’re going to strangle him.  “You okay in there?”

“I -”

Oh, for fuck’s sake, she actually sobs, before she clamps both hands over her mouth.

It’s a little too late. If it was anyone else, you’d be impressed by how quickly the door snatches open! Hadean’s certainly got a mind for dramatics; if he wasn’t as ruint as the rest of you, blood-dark shadows marring his skin and hollows in his cheeks, it’d be almost striking. His horns are up, his lip is curled. He looks like a hound stepping in front of his herd, after it went and got hit by a car.

It’s pathetic.

“We’re fine,” you drawl, stepping forward. There’s blood streaking down his face again, a sticky cherry river creeping down those cheekbones, and if Sipara wasn’t here, you’d lick your thumb and wipe it right off.

But she’s right here. It’s a shame, really! If she wasn’t, you can’t help but reflcet, this would be a nice enough opportunity to get rid of your little clone, once and for all.  (Even down to the initials - every time you’re over it, something reminds you of exactly how subpar her replacement for you was.) “We’re just talking, sweetheart. Y’might’ve heard of it~! It’s what folks do when they’re not cracking heads with strangers online, mm?”

“So don’t worry!” There’s the smaller brownblood peeking out from behind him, dull eyes wide as saucers in the dark. “You and your little sap-eyed potoobrain can just settle down.”

“We’re fine,” Sipara echoes behind you, scrubbing at her eyes with a palm. “I promiiise -”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure!”

He glances your way with a derisive flick of his eyes, and then he clicks his tongue, pulling the door shut.

You give it thirty seconds, then you tilt your head at her. “Sipara,” you coax, soft. “Sweetheart! What’s got you started, hmm?”

“.. Pheres’s dead.”

Oh.

You don’t think congratulations are what she’s after, exactly! Or, well, no. Of course it isn’t, for all that it’s warranted, and for all that he isn’t her quad any longer. But that’s alright. You can say something comforting, the sort of things she’s waiting to hear. You open up your mouth -

- and what comes out is a crackle of static instead, as the censoring device kicks in.

If you could, you’d scalp Raphae for this. But he’s over two hundred miles towards the sea, and you can’t focus on the swell of rage, not when Sipara’s right here. “Don’t cry over it,” you try instead, and this time, when you reach out, she doesn’t growl. Her hair’s wiry under your palm, the way it always was. Has been. And when’s the last time you had to comfort her when she cried? “C’mon, now, chin up, sweetling. What d’you think that’s gonna do?”

“It’s not fair.” She leans into your hand hard, eyes fluttering shut, and if her voice’s ragged, her expression’s just tight. “It’s not fair, Ico, it’s - he’s dead, and I couldn’t do anything - nobody even knew to do nothing - and - and Riccin’s hurt, and -”

“Everyone keeps leaving.” Her voice’s getting thick. Your throat’s tightening in response, a cold weight hanging in the back, somehow so different from the way you were gagging before. “Hads almost died, too, and - everyone keeps leaving, and so did you, and now you’re trying to pretend we’re normal.”

“I thought you were dead!”

You’d have preferred to stick with the gagging, you think.

Her eyes are shining red, now, that rheumy cusp-hue that you’ve never been sure what to think of. It’s trailing sticky tracks down her cheeks, for all of her swiping; there’s tears dripping off of her lashes and rolling down her nose, and it’s awful, because through it all, she’s watching you. And you don’t know what to do.

With Bonnie, you’d have papped her. Or shooshed her. A sweep ago, you might’ve done the same with Sipara, properity be damned! How many times is your fledging going to swing into the nest, singing her sad songs? These are the sort of things that her moirails should be dealing with, but..

Well. Sipara’s always had wretched taste in that sort of thing, hasn’t she?

So you ruffle her hair, running your fingers through the ironed-flat strands, letting your nails scrape at her scalp in the way you know she appreciates. “Oh, my poor little hellion. D’you want an apology?” Her eyes are so red. “Because I’m sorry I left you,” you say, warm and soft and carefully, meticulously free of your usual contempt. Sipara’s all shining light and brittle edges, right now. The wrong word could shatter her like a pane, you think, without even trying.

So you keep it docile. “I would’ve brought you with me, if I’d thought about it - but, gosh, I didn’t, and that was downright cruel. But I’m here now. And I’m not going to leave again, how’s that?” You free your hand from her hair, give her ear a little tug that sets all of the rings to jangling. “It’ll be you and me, from now on,” you half-croon, lusus-soft, but she’s just.. staring at you.

The last time you’d had to comfort her like this, she’d been round-cheeked and moptopped, nearly a whole sweep younger. Her face’s got angles, now. She looks older, and the shade of her pupa-self rests in the twist of her mouth, the cant of her ears. It’s painfully familiar. It’s distressingly new, too, and like a routine set to new music, you’re not sure exactly where to set your feet.

“Sipa -” you prompt, and then she flings down her tools in a clatter of metal, and throws herself at you.

Her face fits neatly into your collarbone. She’s just small enough that her curls tickle at the bottom of your chin, and her hands, when she wraps them tight around your back, are entirely too warm. She’s too warm, really, to be touching you; you can feel the heat of her sinking through your skin and burning each of your scars, wedging its way in like brands on your husk. You’ve gone stiff as a rod, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

You hate folks touching you like this, but it’s Sipara. You pat her head, awkwardly, twice, and you give her a moment before you start gently prying her off. She goes, grudgingly, ears drooping so low that they’re brushing her shoulders. “Don’t strangle me,” you tease her, once she’s finally loose. She looks like a half-drowned rat, poor pupa, so you sling an arm around her shoulder, haul her in as close as you can tolerate.

“It’s understandable you’re upset, sugarhorns.” There’s a fine line to dance here, between true sympathies and false, but you can manage it. Haven’t you spent sweeps learning how? “And I’m sorry for your loss. For everyone’s. But you’ve still got your little red-mite out there, don’t you?” A beat. “And you’ve got me.” You give her shoulder a tug, then you let go. Her hair’s all a mess from your tousling! Fingers through it straightens it out neat enough, at least. “So don’t fret -”

She exhales, deflating under you, and then she pulls back. “I don’t believe you,” she says, quiet. “I dunno how I can.” She’s not looking you in the eyes as she turns away, shoulders down, her ears still drooping, and.. oh. Oh, damn it all. “Sipa,” you try, coaxing, “hey -”

“We got work to do, dude.” Her voice’s getting steadier, now that she’s not looking at you, and somehow that hurts. It used to be that you could comfort her out of whatever ruts she was in, as easy as soothing your lusus.

But you suppose a lot changes, in half a sweep. “Go ahead and take off your shirt, and we’ll get started.”