Work Text:
How long had it been? Too long, far too long. She was his sister, and he hadn’t talked to her in what felt like ten years. It had been more like six and a half but still. There had been an agreement made the last time they talked; Caelum would call her as soon as he could, and if not, five years from that last call on the day she would call him, or so help her god, she would come up there herself and knock some sense into him.
She had stayed back, political and civic and military duties forced her to, and she would also be missed by their father far more than Caelum, that is to say, she would actually be missed. They both had made or bought some kind of holographic plaque, the magical engineering of which would connect to any other device and would allow them to see each other in semi realistic terms. They each had connected it to their phone (or her fax machine in Leviathan’s case) and they would receive some notification when the other turned on the plaque and tried to call them. Every single time they tried calling each other of course, someone was out of the house and couldn’t answer. Not even on the five year date did they manage, though they both had been intent on calling, a military insurrection in the morning, a governmental crisis in the afternoon and dinner parties neither wanted to attend in the evening had forcibly kept them from their houses.
Now they had forgotten about their call, six and a half years later, but the tech was getting old, and it managed to send out a notification from no one to both of them, so they both picked up the phone.
“Where’s that aux cable I had earlier? I swear it wa- peh! peh! Ugh hair in my mouth”
Caelum had now found the plaque and set it up to power
“Where’s that old guide for this thing? I thought I kept them together!”
Leviathan had forgotten how to work the thing.
“Power, sound, diagnostic came back fine, everything seems to be in order”
Caelum said, counting things off on his hand as the coffee table sized disc on the floor came to life, glowing brighter and brighter orange then yellow then green. The UI came up, asking for a camera.
“Shit a camera! How could I possibly forget?”
The walls felt the sarcasm
“You have a camera! Thediagnosticsaidthecamerawasfinewhatisyourproblem!?”
As if the machine could hear him, the request disappeared and the normal interface appeared. He called, thinking her call had just rang out and ended. Now it turned all the way on, Leviathan had just found the guide, but she had managed to get it fully set up without it. The disc finally glowed green and a call popped up, and she answered it, taking in a deep breath.
On both ends the call went through and each others image began appearing on the hologram, full colour, almost full detail. It was quiet for a moment, typical leviathan had forgot to turn the volume up and was going between the guide and the buttons on the side of the machine, completely oblivious to the fact that her brother was staring down at her, laughing quietly to himself. She finally looked up.
“AAAHHH”
“HAHAHAHA”
“You scared the shit out of me Caelum!”
“Hi Levi, everything working fine?”
He was still giggling slightly
“Yup, everything seems to be in order, especially you! Look how much you’ve changed!”
“Huh? Oh yeah, my hair is white now, I forgot it wasn’t always like that”
“No it used to be like, deep purple, where’s it gone?”
“It’s retreated internally, some of my roots are still lavender, and as I’m sure you remember”
“Your hair sets ablaze the more physically exerted you get”
“Bingo, that hasn’t changed, same colour and everything”
She stood there, admiring how far her little brother had come, he was twenty seven now, five years younger than her but they both looked about three years older anyways from all of the stress.
“Your arm hasn’t changed has it? At least not much”
“Ehh not really no, once I settled on this design I’ve just been expanding and upgrading constantly, real hassle, but when the mechanics work, ohoho do they work”
“Any new systems that might be of interest to me?”
“Well the main new thing that is important is the modularity of it, I managed to make it so that each piece of the arm is modular by the joints, so I can send out two fingers like rockets to go grab something for me”
“And what of the combat applications of it? Anything new there?”
“Well the modularity can work as bullets, each individual finger segment can reach like, uhhh, forty kilometres an hour? So that can really fuck a guy up”
“Uhu”
“And I also managed to get a 50. Cal sized charge in the elbow that pushes out a solid metal bar out of the palm of my hand like a spear”
Quiet bewilderment possessed Leviathan in that moment, feats of engineering she had never even considered, were now being achieved by her little baby brother in such efficient ways (authors note: you do not understand how much of a little itty bitty baba Caelum is to Leviathan (or maybe you do idk you)). Her tone changed now, she had crossed her arms, and Caelum knew what was coming.
“So you got a girlfriend? Or boyfriend?”
“About that Levi, no not really… buuut”
“But what? Don’t fuck with me Caelum, you didn’t do anything stupid did you?”
“In a way, maybe”
“I swear to god, what did you do?”
By now Caelum had a huge grin on his face, like a raccoon that had just found a restaurants bin.
“So her name is Emerald, she is by far the stupidest thing I’ve done and the same goes the other way”
“Ook”
She was more than apprehensive now, seeing the smile on his face, feeling there was something hidden here
“Anything else about this Emerald I should know about?”
“Well about eight months ago, we did get married”
“CAELUM”
“What?”
“YOU DIDN’T TELL ME?”
“I tried, Levi I really did, I must have called you everyday for a week when we got engaged”
The call could now be heard through the house, Leviathan screaming and all. This naturally alerted the person they were talking about, who had been downstairs the whole time, and now hearing the yells from a voice she didn’t recognise and the dulcet tones of her husbands voice, she decided to try see what was going on. She set her tea down, and her book down, and walked up the stairs, taking her hair down and concealing the green roots of her undercut with her brown hair. She didn’t look too presentable, it was warm afternoon and she had just gotten back from work, so she wasn’t expecting to be presented to anyone.
She knocked on the office door, it wasn’t locked but she was still polite to him, regardless of what had happened the night before (and maybe earlier that day), her hips were still sore, and he was to blame for that.
Caelum heard the knock and went to open the door, still talking to his sister. He opened the door.
“Oh heya darling, did you hear yelling?”
“Yes I did my love, why was there yelling? And who was yelling? I don’t recognise that voice”
Her inquiry left him thinking, was this the best time to introduce them? He decided it most certainly wasn’t, but he might not get the chance to do this for another six and a half years so he pulled her into the room saying
“Oh you’ll see, she’ll like you anyways”
She’ll like you anyways? Who’s she? A new work friend