Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

When she told him she loved him, he wanted to die. Caleb has never been a good man. He has always been good at being a brother, but he's not sure if that can extend to his entire person hood. In pure and honest truth, he looks at his sister with a mix of crushing joy and longing. Like a man, like a brother, and he's never been able to get rid of one or the other. If I love her like a man, I can't be her brother, and vice versa. That's what Caleb thought, that's what Caleb knew. In order to play a good man, one has know the rules, and he took those rules to heart.

Who knew three words were all it took for this carefully crafted persona to crack. "I love you." She says to him while she sits on top of him. The room becomes hazy from the nervous staggered breaths from the both of them. It was as if they had sucked all the oxygen in the house and were now choking on their desires completely unveiled. If he was a bad brother he'd lift his body off the mattress and hold her arms down to kiss her. To devour her in whole and taste the skin of her neck, to bite down and feel her warm blood drip down onto his tongue. Discover her, record down everything about her inside and out.

But he was an amazing brother. Since she, of all people, had assigned him as such. So, he smiles at her as he always has. It was worship, it was bowing three times at the temple in front of golden gods and whispering your name, address, and wishes. "I'm your brother. I can't give you what you're asking for." He tells her because those were the rules. When she leaves, he debates cutting off his dick from getting hard from her thighs caging in his. When she leaves, he thinks about a lot of things.

"I love you."

Her voice anchoring his mind to life in Deepspace as he slowly suffocates to death. Who would've known his death would be so unbelievably painful? Days spent out, hoping for rescue in the dark on a ship that was floating to nowhere. Was it karma for not returning her feelings? Was it karma for making her cry? In that moment, was he meant to forgo being a good brother? It was getting increasingly difficult to think rationally. With his breaths growing more shallow, he remembers that time in his room with her. Perhaps he died in that bed, she might've sucked all the air from his lungs and left him to die.

It was all entirely possible.

"Do you have any attachment to Earth?" They asked him, and instantly, he knew they would use her to erase him. If it wasn't now, it'd be later.

Please, let me see her.

Like a joke, he saw the sun rise in black space. The light engulfed him and he drank in warm memories from a source that only belonged in his dreams.

"Caleb, meet my little sister." Gideon pats him on the back leading him to a young girl.

She smiles shyly, as you would to a stranger, and offers him a meek bow.

"Say hi! How will you make friends with that attitude!" Gideon points at his sister with glaring eyes.

"I didn't know I was meeting your friend today! You should've told me so I could prepare!" She argues with her brother.

No. He wants to cry. No, this was the last thing he wanted to see. Was life so cruel but to give him visions from another life to comfort him before he accepted his death? He wanted this life. The life where she handpicked him to be her only brother. How could he die peacefully under these circumstances? That's just impossible.

"Gege," she called out to him in the dark, she was so sick she could barely move. Only able to move her fingers, he decided to tie their pinkies together so he could wake up to satisfy her every need without her needing to speak. She found this mildly embarrassing so, when she could find her voice, she'd use it on him.

He didn't bother scolding her for tearing her throat by speaking. "Yes?" He said groggily, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"Bath," is all she's able to produce with her weak throat.

He nods and moves the hot towel off her forehead, that he continuously replaced every hour, and carefully lifts her out of the bed to carry her to the bathroom. There, he runs the water first so it can get hot, just the way she likes it, and begins stripping her down. Everything is meticulous, all of it was learned and etched into his mind with her needy huffs and overgrown fingernails. He wanted to make his own personal monster, one that didn't need to roar or beg for love. He made a girl who walked on soft grounds flourishing with love so whenever she fell, she'd be reminded that he held the world underneath.

Slowly, her sweaty body nearly slipping out of his arms, he gently sets her down in the tub. He tries his best to hold a groan in from the amount of strength he has to exert to take care of her. The most he has had to deal with, at this point of his life, were playground scraps and dirt in his eyes. She looks like she's about to fall asleep, but uses her remaining strength to put her palms out to him and motion him to join her. They're too old for that. He's seventeen now, he knows that brothers his age don't share baths with their sisters, but when she looks at him with her head lopsided because she's too tired to hold it up straight, he can deny her nothing. He is, after all, the best brother in the world. Her words, not his.

Entering the bath with her, he uses her body soap and lathers it onto her while she falls in and out of sleep. I smell like her. The only looping thought in his overwhelmed mind as their naked bodies meet each other in warm clear waters. She holds him close to her as he gets her back. Arms around her neck, hands inching down her spine. Her chest is touching his and he bites down on his tongue to stop himself from having a reaction. What she needs now, more than anything, is a brother. There is nothing that can stop him from being perfect.

He moves his lower half away from her. She's too dizzy to realize why. This is a deplorable scene, he thinks whilst hunched over her like a rabid animal stroking down her back. She doesn't seem to mind it at all. He feels something drip down his chin. Blood. He nearly stands up to pull her out of the tub now dirtied with his blood until he realizes, he has a full hard-on. Fuck me. The single drop from biting down on his tongue too hard, feels like it has infected the water. Something meant to clean her has become disgustingly him, if she were fully awake she'd beat me, but he knows that's not true at all. His mind, however, is only able to conjure up images of the things he deserves. Not the things he wants.

Just this once then, when she's too sick to notice. His little secret— he already has so many— what's another one? So, he washes her like this is normal, like he's not bleeding and also hard from being so close to her, from her scent, and from the pain pulsing inside him. In many ways, he was sick too. With their pinkies still attached, he puts her body back down on the soft sheets and sits on the floor, his back to the bed. She taps his shoulder. He knows she's asking him to sleep with her. He swallows the blood in his mouth down.

"Ok." He slips the string off his pinky and grabs a new towel to set down on her head. Before he even enters the bed, she lifts her blanket up. She wants him underneath with her. He obliges, he can do nothing else. Here, they lay. His body curled around hers as she stays still closed eyes to the ceiling like a corpse. Animals waiting to die.

The train home is often quiet. It was only you and your brother drifting into unconsciousness as the sun peeked through the windows. Every couple of seconds, a building would block out the sun and the cart would drown in shadow. When he reemerged into light, his face would change. Two men's ghostly apparition possessing a featureless body. Their faces purposefully scratched out from your memories. You want to ask: Who are you? Yet, you cannot identify what answer you would want. Is brother not enough?

Gideon fixes his tie before getting on the elevator back to the living world. He pulls his gloves on while walking through the flickering hall. When he finally exits through the door, no one is waiting for him. Did I die? Am I dead? He wonders as he stares at the closed door that lead him to hell. If the door remained, then what happened was all real. There was no longer a point in denying something more sinister stirred below. The water was muddied by the fleet and EVER was hiding their treasure deep on ocean grounds. The question now becomes just what lies beneath? The strange malfunctioning technology: red screens, black text, and noisy radios.

He checks his watch which he had placed underneath his wrist. Time hasn't moved. It was as if it never happened. Part of him wants to head back through the door to confirm that the room was real, that she was real, but the memories of her shaking her head rush back into his brain. What was the point of this then? Did she want him to save her? Could he even save her? Exactly what was he saving her from? There's too much to process, he has to focus on one thing at a time. First, he needs to figure out who that pinky belongs to.

"There's lots of ways to find out things you're not supposed to." Caleb scrolls through their assignment.

"Goody-two-shoes, don't pretend you're some kinda felon." Gideon checks the math on his paper.

"Hey, you need a clean record to get into this school. You're as much of a 'goody-two-shoes' as I am."

"You really think a clean record means you're a good guy?"

Caleb sighs into a chuckle. "Who am I to deny proof?"

The next day Gideon checks his online account to see a new post under his username that he never made, it read:

[Taking girlfriend applications.]

There were already multiple replies underneath it from his classmates along the lines of, "I hope every girl blocks you for this." It seems the golden boy of the DAA has an interest in hacking into online accounts. Specifically, Gideon's. He leaves the post up. There's no going back. Plus, what if he actually ends up getting girls from this? Always a risk-taker, unfortunately for him, this was a risk that had no reward. That is until Caleb happily greets him in the cafeteria with a plate of dubious meats and rice.

"You left the post up." He acknowledges.

"Yep, so far no girls." Gideon yawns, class had fried his brains.

"Tell you what," Caleb clicks his chopsticks to get his sleep-deprived friend's attention. "I'll teach you how I did it as an apology."

"What did I say? A goody-two-shoes through and through."

"Well, your password was not secure at all."

"What's wrong with b35stfutur3p1l0t?"

"For one, you won't be the best. I am."

Through a simulated machine Gideon is able to get more information out of Lab Genesis. Though, not much. The instinct in him to get worse before he ever got better was difficult to get rid of. Once Caleb opened the doors for him to the world of slightly criminal internet fun, he decided to cross all the lines. Of course, he told no one about the bug in him that writhed underneath his skin. He had to maintain his social status— whatever that was— playing stupid like he didn't understand the intention of people's lies. Forgive and forget. That's how men stay so close for so long; a pack of dirty wolves.

Caleb always stood separate from that. He was clean, every aspect of his life proved him to be. The perfect student who got up early, worked out, studied, remained awake in class, helped make study sheets— he did have a habit of not ever really going out anywhere. No one was bothered by this though, he made the same excuse every time: I need to make sure my sister is taking care of herself. There was no arguing with that. Even after that night they fought, Gideon couldn't argue with it. He wasn't allowed to talk to her anymore and she wasn't allowed to visit, if Caleb was the only person who could make sure she never cries again then so be it.

The screen turns red again. Shit, Gideon immediately moved to abort the mission. He hesitates to pull the flash drive out of the laptop— there would be no going back after that. The information would be damaged and the trail would be found, that is if this red screen was not already indicative that he was caught red handed. Black text appears onto the screen again; crawling through each letter, sifting through numbers and symbols.

[A DREAM]

The last thing he sees before he finds himself laughing in the hall of his old dorm with Caleb and with you in front of him. He chokes and begins coughing violently. Where the fuck am I?

"Woah, did I punch you too hard?" Caleb smirks at him and pats his back.

Gideon just stares. Drool dripping down his chin with a bizarrely stupid look on his face. He wipes away his saliva and swallows down the horror deep into his bowels. "Yeah, maybe." His voice is flighty.

"My bad."

He looks so alive. His eyes are reflective in the dark, as they always were, and you— you were a dream. Smiling like nothing happened. Gideon looks at your clothes, this was the night Caleb and him fought after he snuck you away to see a band. Your face is flushed— how red was it in reality if he could tell you were blushing in the dark?

"You're bleeding!" You announce to the two men like they weren't just at each other's throat. "Wash up!"

Gideon nods. What else was he meant to do?

He closes the bathroom door and stares at himself in the bathroom mirror. He looks considerably younger, healthier. Wouldn't be nice if someone could explain to him what exactly was going on? This is not how the night ended. The night ended with Caleb locking the door while Gideon went out to the garden to smoke a pack in hopes his lungs may collapse before he ever saw the light of a new dawn. What is this new life?

[A DREAM]

An alternative reality then? He thinks back of what he saw in the Deepspace tunnel. He hears your laughter through the door as Caleb explains what happened— why the fight broke out. Gideon wants to lean in. Open the door and set the record straight that your brother was just as crazy as he is and started it all. It's nice to dream. Pretend the life you know isn't the only life you have, take it all back, split the road in halves and witness yourself take one or the other. Pick up all the fruit, take bites like death was impossible. He turns on the lights in the bathroom. He hasn't seen light in what feels like forever. Every second of his life after Caleb was drowned in melancholic gray and wispy shadows. An ocean he couldn't breach the surface of.

Until now. Caleb's voice, an incomprehensible string of sound that bounced on air. Flightless bird jumping from branch to branch.

"Dude, are you taking a fat dump in there?" A knock at the door. It's Caleb.

"Nah. You just really fucked up my face." It's not a lie.

"Don't worry. No one found you handsome anyway."

Your voice rings out. "Is that how you treat your friends?!"

"No, just Gideon." He can hear the grin in Caleb's voice.

Gideon's grades skyrocket, only rivaled by Caleb. He got back into the rhythm of things, stopped paying attention to his online account, and spent a considerable amount of time tinkering with electronics in the empty labs he could find. Of course, his behavior was extremely odd when compared to how he was, everyone commented on it.

Didn't you want to find me? What's the point of this dream?

He doesn't have an answer, precisely because this isn't his dream. In all likelihood, it was yours. After all, out of the three of them, you were the only one that was possibly alive. Why am I rationalizing this? He stands at the white table with the insides of a computer strewn out. He has been gutting out school computers like they're fish. What am I looking for? It's like he's fighting himself. Two versions of himself living in this one body, both with highly differing values. One second he's delving into the body of a machine, another he's punching shoulders with everyone scrolling through his phone to find a shitty candid picture he took of his friends to send to the group chat.

The fight was forgotten. The exam that killed Caleb is coming up. If he saves Caleb, what happens to him? What happens to you?

I realize now that, I don't know what lies at the other side.

Neither does he. At the Deepspace tunnel he saw the sun rise. It was yellow, not anything like the pictures from their incredibly powerful telescopes that roamed space. Perhaps, because the sun he saw was not real. Was anything real? What had he been grasping onto for all this time? In that moment he was engulfed by this unknowable light, he saw a world blossoming with yellow daisies. With each hand of the wind yellow petals flew upwards towards a clear blue sky. When he tapped the flying petals with his fingertips they would unfurl into small beads of light.

Planets, stars, galaxies. All of them, climbing up into the world of the living. At the very edge of what he thought was an unending field, a monster— a machine?— stood ominously in all black. It had no eyes, only an open drooling mouth with spikes for teeth. The petals that Gideon had turned into light would shimmer against the demon's black body, shattering in brief reflections, telling stories of loss and betrayal. The tragedy that brought life.

Gideon opened his mouth to ask:

Where are they going?

A river of blood falls from the monster's mouth drowning the once beautiful grounds of an imaginary paradise in red. It mouths something, but chokes on its own blood. Gideon shakes his head. Instead of frustration, the machine gives him a closed smile.

A horrific thought is plucked out of his dissolving mind as it transitioned to wake. Caleb?

"When winter comes, do you cease to exist?" You joke with your brother once the weather starts to grow cold.

He shrugs. "I think I'll only die if you forget me."

"That's impossible."

"I hope so, but anything is possible, as long as it's you."

You don't ask him what that means.

These days, ever since you went to that party with Gideon, your dreams have gotten more vivid. In mirrors, you swear you see a man in white pointing up, but it all fades with a blink. Your grandma was so concerned by your deepening eye bags she brought you to a neurologist. Nothing came up. Now, you lay in bed reminiscing in the dark. Tonight was going to be one of those nights, where you remain awake for hours until finally you surrender to your primal urge to hide under your brother's covers, even if he's not there. His room no longer has his scent. Your sweat is on his sheets and all the trinkets, tucked away in cabinets and desks, had the stale aroma of memory.

Sometimes, when you're brave enough, you pick up the paper cranes the two of you folded together. His were always crisp, you used to worry that your birds were jealous of his. Those straight edges and sharp wings guaranteed they could take flight whenever they wanted, meanwhile yours were wonky. They stood slanted when you put them on flat surfaces, giving them a clueless look. Caleb only chuckled in response to your very real anxieties, exerting: Why would anyone leave such a wonderful home?

You agreed with him at the time, but as you stare at them now in this empty room, you wonder if that's really the case. Wouldn't they want to see the world? Birds were born to fly, paper or feathers, their purpose was the same. If they could, if they were created with a want folded into their bodies, they'd twist their wings to make their way up to the stars. Who in their right mind would want to stay on ground? Who would choose to descend? So, when you told your brother you loved him, to compel him to sin, he had every right to reject you. He was better than you, some holy angel that wrapped his white wings around your trembling body to swear a life of service to you.

Love, devotion— those were par of the course. Sex was not. Sex and love when merged becomes something entirely new. An acceptance of a new entity that disturbs your own stillness. So, when you told him you loved him, love stood in the way of selfishness. What a terribly shameful thing you did! To ask your brother to drown with you in this wickedness that possessed you, that became a part of you. You wish you had something to point to, an origin that doused you in this sin. Yet, you had nothing. Hand on your hammering heart, this malformed being was you. There was nothing to blame. You and him shared no DNA. His cells could not produce the same torment yours did.

If only! You begin crying, hidden from the world under his blanket. If only he wasn't my brother!

The world splits.

In her dreams, Caleb holds her face under sunny skies in perpetual summer days. He kisses her cheeks, her eyes, her nose, her forehead, all before he ever reaches her lips. His eyes swirl with love, indulged in her drumming devotion buried in her chest. Here, he is otherworldly. A concept larger and beyond space. Everything that will happen, has already happened. Hands clasped together, in her right, a compass nestled in her palm so she can distinguish right from left, up from down.

"Where are you going?" He asks her tapping on the glass of the compass. It clinks three times.

"Where do you want to go?" She opens up her hand to offer him the compass.

He closes her hand. "Wherever you'd like."

"What if you don't like it there?"

"I'll always like it as long as you're there."

"Always so romantic." She teases, but her eyes have floating beads of light reflected in her pupil.

"It's how you made me. Could I be anything else?" Her reflection in the purple pools of his eyes.

He's smoking again. Old habits die hard. Or did he ever stop? Was he possessing another version of himself or did he go back in time?

Can I tell you a story, Gideon? New Year is coming up, Caleb is about to disappear again— oh, unless you changed his odds? Playing with fate? You really are a bad man! Almost as bad as I am! In another life, we could've been brother and sister. Would you have liked that? Then allow me to begin:
At the origin of the world there was an Egg of Chaos. As time chipped it away, a girl emerged. Her arms reached out first, pulling the rest of her body out, pushing away the shell. The amniotic fluid spilled out of the egg and in that split second it touched nothingness it carved in rivers of stars etched across the black space. The first color the world has ever seen was purple! Yet, despite the glory of a universe being unfurled from her clumsy birth she was oh-so-very lonely. She procured a compass from her rib and went searching for another being just like her. In her dismay, there was no one.
Ah, how then would she measure the vastness of her world? So, from her other rib she stored another soul. A soul so warm he would go on to create a season known as summer. Purple and orange, the sky welcoming dawn. Thus, life was born as a ball of fire that would erupt over grassy hills lovingly watered by her brother.
But life is so short. What happens if you can't let go? Gideon, do you know?

A letter found in Caleb's locker. He doesn't know why he went snooping. In a way, he can't believe Caleb is alive. They discuss becoming pilots: instructing students, doing airshows, impressing their loved ones. A future, something Gideon had stopped thinking about ever since Caleb went off into that tunnel, only to come back as nothing. How does someone live on after that? When the sun goes out and the sky is swallowed up by a beast you had only ever imagined, all he could do was stare at the corpse and wonder, do I belong here? Caleb had banished him from seeing you. Stared at him with a disdain that settled into his bones and soured everything he ate. For the first time, in a long time, Caleb had no aversion to Gideon's presence.

You would've fought tooth and nail to keep me from coming, Gideon thinks while staring at the pale face covered in white flowers.

He lights the red letter up with his cigarette.

"What are you lighting there?" Caleb joins Gideon at the balcony.

"Nothing important."

"A love letter?"

"In a way."

"I assume since you lit it up you didn't like her."

"Hm," Gideon rubs his scruff. That can't be further from the truth. "Actually, I have a question for you."

"Oh? The closed-off studyholic wants to talk to me all of a sudden?" Caleb perks up, a seemingly genuine gesture.

Gideon can no longer tell the difference between truth and lie. He gave up trying to read Caleb a long time ago. "Do you want to kill yourself?"

No one says a word for a very long time. The night is filled up with the sound of Gideon inhaling and exhaling smoke into the frigid air.

"No, I have someone I have to take care of." The best future pilot finally answers.

"Are you the only one who can take care of her? Or do you want to be the only one?"

"Gideon." His tone is dangerous. In this particular moment, Caleb feels more beast than man.

He used to be nothing.

Gideon watches Caleb carefully. For the first time ever, Caleb felt deeply discomforted by Gideon's presence. An apprehensive expression took over his features, meanwhile Gideon looked at him like he pitied him. Bags under his eyes, cigarette ash tapped out with his thumb betwixt his pointer and middle. When did he change? Caleb anxiously riffles through the memories in his head. That night you found them beating the shit out of each other is the most likely contender. He assumed Gideon would begin to ignore him, but he didn't think he would go ahead and isolate himself.

Gideon used to shave daily and trim his hair whenever it grew out even a centimeter. He was meticulous, always focusing on the details. Girls like guys like that. He said to them. At the back of Caleb's head he mused if Gideon was anyone if he just kept behaving in the favor of a future girlfriend that didn't exist. It suddenly occurred to Caleb that him and Gideon were not so dissimilar. This discovery filled him with immense dread. If he had done one misstep, if you had not come up to him in that lab of horrors he would have been peeled away into nothingness just as Gideon had. Without you, was he anything at all? If that's the case, could he say he was any different than the man who stood in front of him who was polluting his body to death?

"Sorry, maybe I'm just nervous about tomorrow's exam." The now unfamiliar man turns away. He heads back inside after squishing his cigarette into a stub and dropping it into his ash tray on his desk.

Caleb is left in the dark.

In the morning Gideon is gone. Caleb checks his phone to see he received a message from Gideon early morning:

Keep all systems online.

She dives into the ocean, it's as cold as winter. Her brother is able to warm a little spot for her with his body wrapped around her, but the ocean remains freezing. She realizes then, he is not enough to create life. They could mold suns, but the fire extinguishes too soon. Life so very faint, so fleeting.

"I have an idea." He tells her one day.

"What?" She looks at him as he stays watching the brilliant constellations.

"To make life, I can split myself in half." He finally looks at her.

"Huh?" Her smile drops.

"I can't burn forever, you'll grow lonely right? So, why not have one part of me here with you and the other one light up the sky?" He's being serious. With that same patient smile, waiting for her answer, as he casually discusses sacrificing himself as he is now for the sake of something more. A future neither of them could ever imagine, stories filled with destinies woven by mortals. How easy the world is to understand when it's just the two of them.

She shakes her head. "No! You can't! What will happen to you then? Who will you be?"

"I'll still be yours. The whole world has always been yours." He holds her hands, grinning.

"I won't allow it." Tears welling up in her eyes.

"But I see how much more you long for. What's the point of creation if no one is here to enjoy it?"

"You're here, aren't you?"

"I'll always be here. So, let me do this for you."

Gideon remembers his first night dorming with Caleb. They talked about constellations, although Gideon knew next to nothing about them. "Orion is visible in the winter. It's the most recognizable constellation. Can you see it?" Caleb points up.

At first, Gideon wanted to shake his head no, but then he saw three shining dots in a row that make up Orion's belt. "Oh," he says in surprise. I got lucky with random assignment, he thinks to himself after Caleb goes back inside to get ready for bed. Still stunned, he stays under the blinking stars. Despite choosing to be a pilot he never truly concerned himself with constellations. They were things that told fables, lives that were myths with no relation to the people that stood below them. Heroes, hopes, and dreams— possibilities that were simply impossible to the average man. Caleb was a dreamer then, Gideon deduced. A romantic.

They shared the same nature. Starving for love, the only distinction: Caleb only looked to one person for love.

Yellow rivers pass through the world in his death. You will be only the witness to it. As you sob for him to come back, you realize you had never given him a name. Only life. It hurt all the more, your selfishness stay still in his warm blood. For it all was yours from the very start. When did you begin to forget? How long have you been chasing death? In all that time you've been running, you have long passed it. So, when you wake below the Earth in a machine that kills you just before the hour runs up you think: this is life.

Each death, a supernova, energy that can fuel every machine. Energy that can keep Skyhaven afloat. Weapons in a time of peace is so useless, why kill the people men so badly want to control? Instead, sell them peace in a girl's body. Paradise with just one cost, and what did that cost matter if she couldn't die? After all, isn't death the worst thing that could happen to anyone?

This is life.

In-between those forty minutes where peace is sanctioned to you, only briefly, you dream of a different life. One where you are loved. Although, you're not sure what it really means. Your brain in these minutes of life is attempting to reorient itself. The first instinct of a baby is to reach up for a face, find kinship in something that shares the same soul. It's dark where you are, yet you imagine light. You are something that hopes for love, even when you don't have a face nor a language for it. Until you die, and die, and die, and…

Keep all systems online.

Caleb looks at the box Gideon left him. It has bloody fingerprints over it. He does feel bad for that night, despite popular belief— the popular belief being from you and Gideon. It's just that, when he heard those words again, uttered to a man who never belonged in your life with him, he wish he could beat the secret out of Gideon's head. Violent, yes, not his best moment. He is your older brother, someone who stored all the bad in himself to keep you safe no matter how far you strayed. This important string that attached him to you, so that you'd come back around to him to remember your roots.

That love, born from his sin, should have been kept in him and him alone. Yet, despite being born flightless, you fold feathers from paper and hope to go soaring into his heart anyways. There was something larger than life between you two, but every time he wished to acknowledge this, he remembers his blood in the bathwater and your sticky skin.

He failed the moment you loved him back. Staring up at you in the dark, tears catching the light of the moon as they fall onto his stomach from your chin. Everyday he asks himself what the right course of action was that night. Even after all this time, he still has no idea. How horrific that is, to be an older brother who has no clue how to take care of his beloved sister. He wondered what face Gideon saw when you spilled your secret. If he could, he'd possess Gideon's mind to take back every second he had with you and burn the image of your eyes at the moment of your drunken confession into his brain.

Except that's impossible.

When you saw them at each other's throats, he realized how stupid he was being. Gideon told no one of the monstrosity stirring between you two. He was a good man. Something Caleb had to pretend to be. Something Gideon naturally was.

He opened the box. His thumb on the bloody thumb print that belonged to Gideon. Inside was a chip, each silver line was replaced with tiny veins pulsing with life. Any man with his senses would throw it out the window, but Caleb only felt like sobbing. Although, he did not understand why. Underneath this terrible thing was a letter.

I hid a tool kit in your plane. Take off the board and insert that chip. It'll bring you home.

The day before you confessed to him you held a jewelry box in your hand. "It's for you!" You say, but you made no move to hand it over to him.

"Well, are you going to give it to me?" He doesn't make a single move to accept the gift.

"Nope! It's for when you come back. So, make sure you come back, alright?"

"Alright." He nods.

If you had given him that gift then, would things be different?

Gideon watches the sky from the roof of the library. If they catch him he'll definitely be arrested. Connected to the tracker of ship 13— Caleb's.

Caleb, where did you go? Just what did you do?

"Ok, so if everything that is going to happen has already happened— what's the point?"

[So, what's the point of all this?]

A woman was attempting to comfort Gideon after the funeral. He doesn't know why exactly she thought it was necessary— he wasn't crying. He was just alone, but maybe a child left alone after a funeral ceremony was worse. Gideon had asked this very question after she explained what eternalism was. Why she thought it was a appropriate topic to discuss with a child is beyond him, he was so confused by her that her face was blurred after all these years and countless dreams.

"I don't know." She answers him earnestly.

"That's not very comforting." He kicks an invisible rock on the ground.

"Very few things are."

She's sitting on the bricks by the flowers. She looked like a corpse, just like his parents, surrounded by petals and wild colors. Although, they'd be ash soon and put into boxes in the temple they prayed at. He never liked it there. The statues were too big, they frightened him so much he became paranoid. You have to close your eyes when you pray. His parents whispered to him, but he couldn't help it. He'd squint through one eye to see if the statues came to life or winked. Maybe that's why they died. He didn't follow the rules properly. What was death, but punishment for the living?

"Thanks for trying anyways." Perhaps, he'll try to be good to make up for his sins.

"Thank you, I'm always trying. But I feel like kids don't like me very much— I'm a teacher."

Am I supposed to be the one comforting her now? My parents just died! She saw them in the casket! "That's nice."

"There's this one girl, she used to be so smart, but now she comes into class with nothing to say. It's like she forgot everything. I wonder if I have the right student sometimes."

Who cares? "That sucks."

"Oh, sorry. Bad manners. I shouldn't be venting to a kid whose parents just died."

You don't say. "Probably."

"What do you think?"

"About what."

"About my student!"

"I think she just doesn't like you."

"Hm."

"Or maybe she's just that stupid."

"Really?!"

"Yeah."

"What if I told you I made that whole story up so you'd stop thinking about your dead parents?"

"I'd tell you that you just brought them back up!"

"Oh! Sorry!"

The weirdest part? She looked genuinely apologetic. Her hands were over her open mouth as she gasped in shock at her own mistake and she visibly wilted. What a bizarre woman! Suddenly, his dead parents seemed like the most normal thing in the world when compared to her. Even if it was for just a second, Gideon had a thought:

I can make it out to the other side.

And it was that second that brought him this life. Whether that was a good or bad thing, he wasn't sure.

Caleb had comically bad taste in movies. You'd always fall asleep on the nights he picked the film. Despite your efforts to stay awake, you'd wake in the morning tucked in your bed.

"Kick me awake if I fall asleep!" You commanded him.

"Ok." He smiled.

He never did.

Sometimes you'd wake up when he was tucking you in. He'd give you a kiss on your forehead after pulling the covers up. You'd grumble, but you'd lose the battle and fall right asleep. If you were really defiant he'd explain the plot of the movie until you couldn't take it anymore and let the darkness take over.

"A man meets a traveler in the desert," he would start.

"What was he doing in the desert?" Your voice groggy.

"He's looking for someone."

"Who?"

"You're not supposed to know."

"Not even at the end of the movie?"

"Nope!"

"Hmm. I think you didn't watch the entire movie."

"I did!"

"Liar."

"Then who do you think he was looking for?"

"His girlfriend I bet."

"At his age he should have a wife not a girlfriend."

The night would go on like this. Just the two of you prattling about semantics until you lose consciousness. None of it mattered. None of it would be remembered. Love like this was the sky, the ground, the ocean. An overflowing garden, a conversation between a woman and a boy. It was nothing. It blended in with the nuances of life like the sound of pigeons taking flight. Love so intertwined with life that it is so often forgotten, only remembered in stars and explosions that echoed through the empty fabric of space. Bouncing on yellow threads that made the world so easy to traverse.

Fleeting, temporary bursts of light that burned so hot that life bubbled up to the surface.

Caleb puts the chip in. The veins extended their reach beyond the chip and onto the board. Circuits now blooming red.

Let me do this for you.

The right side of Gideon's head blossomed into a pain like no other.

There is a red desert. Through the shattered glass of his ship he crawls out and finds himself blinking against the whipping winds of violent sands. As he walks he sees a tall figure by the end of the horizon of pure red with no distinction between land and sky. A monster— a machine?— stand there twitching. No eyes except for a giant mouth with razor teeth. Caleb forces his way to the demon. His body covered in scratches, strings of crimson wrapping around his arms and face.

When he reaches the monster, it turns its head to him and offers a tight-lipped smile.

Caleb does the same.

Despite the bizarreness of the situation, politeness was not forgotten. Forgo any of the rules of being human and one may lose face. A beast playing nice, hiding the more peculiar parts of itself behind thin lips. Caleb's eyes shine in this lightless place. Part of himself only ever true in the night, but he has done a great job training himself. A dog who sits by the bowl until his owner commands him to eat.

"You finally came." It speaks, though strangled and slow, it does what it can.

"What is this place?" He looks for any possible unique features of the planet— whatever he was on— but it all just bled red.

"Your heart."

"My heart?"

"Whatever desire lingers in here," the machine taps on Caleb's chest, "becomes sand."

"My heart is a desert?"

"Precisely."

"Why am I here then? Who are you?"

"One at a time." It raises one lengthy finger disjointedly.

"Then… who are you?"

It smiles. "A difficult question. Once you know, you can't ask any other questions. Are you alright with that?"

"What if I ask the other questions first?"

"You're always so interested in the details. I'll always be here, but this is the only time you'll ever see me. How do you wish to proceed with this time?"

The constellation of Orion flashes on its black belly, before mythos of ancient creatures swirl around all over its body. Caleb looks up at the sky. It looks just like the ground. Is there a ground? Well, I'm standing on it. Caleb holds his breath to feel the sand rip away at him. He lets go. "Who are you?" His final question.

"If I answered you wouldn't that be too easy?"

"Why did you give me the option then?" Caleb deflated.

"Let's make it fair then, you ask one question so I can ask one too."

"Sounds good to me, but only if you answer my question first." He folds his arms.

"No can do."

"Then we'll just be here forever."

"You don't have forever, Caleb." It sounded so sad then.

"Fine. Ask away." He needs to return home on time, anyways.

"Who are you looking for?"

Oh, well that was a profoundly easy question wasn't it? Who other than her? The girl who homed his soul and warmth, declared him as her own and pushed into him a yellow ball of light: the courage to practice humanity in a world that gave nothing for free. An eye for an eye, and each part of him replaced as they moved through the world. He knew he was being watched, he knew that something was planned for him. Not a destiny designed by fates, but by men. With their wrinkled fingers knotting each thread together, to ignite it and watch this weak flame bow its head three times down to the end. Nothing was his. Not even her.

"My sister." He nods.

Delighted by his answer, the machine grins with all its teeth. "Come with me, then I'll tell you what you want to know."

Was there another choice? Caleb shakes his head. Red grains fall out of his hair.

You had asked Caleb once why it was so important for the two main characters to kiss at the end of a romance. He didn't really have an answer: It's just satisfying, I guess. You nodded like you understood— you did not.

Wanna try it with me?

That's something between lovers. Not brother and sister.

You nod once again— not fully understanding.

What if I want to kiss you?

Don't say things you don't mean.

Maybe he should've shut you down harder. He knew, from the very beginning, something in you loved him back. He just couldn't, for the life of him, accept that it was you loving him. Because you knew nothing about him. All you knew was his smile. His gentle indulgent love, his scolding unwavering tone when he draws the line, his bad sewing job when he hemmed your pants, his sobbing face when the two of you got in trouble by Grandma, his shaking hand when you held it in yours to comfort him. All of it, learned humanity. For he was made in a lab with you, and you didn't know it, no. That's why you could afford to be human. Your origin lent you this privilege, his did not. Secrets upon secrets, what's a couple thousand more?

Each grain of sand a whisper, a thought, a dream, a wish. A desire. Left to die in boundless lands.

To keep your humanity, he'd die. That love shared between you two must have its wings clipped off. Though it's nice to dream, isn't it?

Except that's impossible.

Yet, it was all entirely possible with you.

[A DREAM]

You were buried in the sand, untouched by the forces of this world, a brilliant smooth face in the red. You looked dead as they stood over you.

"This is what you wanted." It spoke.

Caleb frowned. "I want my sister. Not a corpse."

"You hate that she can't talk to you here, right?"

He nods.

"But there's nothing that she can say that will make you believe this is reality. So, how can she speak?"

Caleb has no answer. He decides to change the subject. "Answer me, now that we're here."

"One track mind." It chuckles. "But I think you already know. You're just too scared to admit it. I can feel it, a new grain in the desert. You'll bury her at this rate."

So, Caleb, in his pain riddled mind, digs his hands into the sand to begin the arduous process of pulling you out from below.

It hurts. Of course it does. The sharp edges of everything he was ever loved and wanted, burrowing themselves deeper into his skin as he pushes deeper in to reach you.

"Did you know," the demon begins monologuing while Caleb goes through inscrutable pain. "In an other life you died. Did you do that on purpose? In all worlds, I exist. Perhaps, you can never undo that mistake. Although, something interesting happened in the land of the living didn't it? That's why you're here. I know— do you want to know why?"

"You just never stop talking do you?!"

It ignores him with a swipe of its hand. "Because she lives in me. Caleb, I hope you know, death is forever. That's why I'll always be here. If you want to carry her out of your dreams, all you have to do is,"

The wind howls.

He mouths the last words to Caleb.

The sand blurs his moving lips and Caleb watches carefully before he vanishes into the bowels of his heart.

"Are you ready?" Gideon puts a birthday cake down at the table and turns off the lights.

"Totally!" You giggle.

"You'll officially be one year older when that clock strikes midnight." He sits down next to you.

"Will you still love me? Even when I'm one year older than I am now?" You jest with pleading eyes, pulling down at the hem of his shirt.

"I'll love you forever." He brings your hand up to his lips and kisses the inside of your palm.

"No matter what?"

"Just what are you planning? I'm already letting you stay up past your bedtime!"

"Hmm," you pretend to think about it. "A secret!"

Gideon stares at Caleb. Both of them in wading in shallow waters where the ocean meets the shore. Caleb stands in the deeper end as Gideon stays closer to the cave. Finally, Caleb turns around to face him. And it's really Caleb. The boy from the DAA who makes models in his free time and coddles his little sister. The boy who stole his cigarette packs because he didn't want Gideon to kill himself. Except, at the same time, it wasn't him. It was the Caleb that lived in Gideon's heart. Partially truth, mostly a lie.

Could Gideon live with that? Could he let him go knowing he never understood the man he lived with for years? The man he wanted to be ever since he met him.

"Don't leave." Gideon bites down on his tongue to stop himself from crying.

"I don't really think I have a choice." Caleb shrugs— and it's so strange, you know— he looked so much like a normal boy then. Someone who had all the dreams in the world, the best future pilot of all of Earth and heaven.

"You always have a choice."

"She loves you. I know that much."

Gideon shakes his head.

"Come on. Admit it. She can make it with you by her side."

"That's something you decided. Not her."

"Does it matter?"

"More than anything."

"Gideon, you want to know the difference between you and me?"

"Can you just come back?"

"You're a good man."

"I am not. I want her just as badly as you do— even when—"

"But I'm the best brother in the whole world. Her words. Not mine." Caleb steps back, deeper into the ocean.

"If you do this, it'll just continue. Can you really do that to her?"

"Then make a choice, Gideon. The world or her love?"

"They're the same thing Caleb."

At the hill, you watch Skyhaven. Sitting on the metal fence that strongly enforced the no jumping policy. The island remains in the sky, glittering like a thousand moons. You smell of smoke in Gideon's jacket as you wait for him to come out of the car. When he finally emerges into the night you joke that he might've been planning to stay in there the whole time. He agrees halfheartedly, claiming it's too cold for an outing like this. You remind him that it's, our one year anniversary! He huffs, but eventually smiles. Love was hard to fight, he always found himself surrendering to it.

Zipping up his jacket, he kisses your forehead and messes with your hair. Hey! You yelp at him, but he just laughs. You're my addiction now. He gleams, having not touched a cigarette in a year. Though, all his clothes had a lingering aroma of the past. You roll your eyes at the cheesy line, but jump off the fence to give him a kiss anyways. He smiles into it. How sweet. He licks your lips. You smack his face lightly. Pretending like it really hurt, he rubs his cheek with his freezing red hand and pouts.

You'll live! You declare.

He can't disagree with that.

You never tell him you love him. He does the same. Head right above the water, barely surviving grief. Your ear to his chest at night in bed together. On his neck, a dog tag dangles. You rub it between your thumb and pointer, watching it catch the light of the moon.

Gideon?

Yes?

Nothing. I just wanted to say your name.

In the river of purple stars you lay beside your brother. He is so in love with life. With you, the origin of the world and of his love. The love you had for yourself, now severed from your body and belonging in him. The craving for more twitching in you like a cocooning caterpillar. Warm weather carefully unravels lotuses to welcome a sweltering summer bringing a new daunting life.

"Are you ready?" You ask him.

"Not at all." He shakes his head.

"Neither am I."

"If this sun really brings new life, what do you think it'll look like?"

"No idea. It might be dreadful. It might be more beautiful than anything we've made."

"And if it's dreadful— really just the worst— would you still want that?"

You think about it for a long time. Until, finally, you cup your hands around his and inside his palms grows a passionate yellow light. A sun. The first sun for him, the third for you.

"I'll live any life that leads me to you."

A dream. A memory. Melted by the fire, they come together by his hands once split by the former brother. Your gasping breath in those forty minutes.

This is life.

It was all entirely possible.

He pulls you out of the red sand to bring you back home.