OMG, You Found an Author Egg!
He thought Seth maybe loved this person, but he didn’t think she had loved him. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t. She had a book with notes on all the pages about how to make people do things.
In the Basement, #63
I wrote this to get a better idea of where Seth was coming from, preparing to give him more focus in Soldier On – or possibly a prequel set during the siege, I hadn’t decided yet. It has music and everything, ‘cos I wasn’t sure if I was going to use it as an instalment. I still might, but that’s for the far future.
In the meantime, I will reward your intrepid clicking ability with more context for why Seth freaks out in the basement during magic storms! It’s about 7000 words, so pour yourself a good-sized coffee and enjoy! And be on the lookout for more eggs!
◈◈◈
[Illustration pending! Sorry!]
He gave a reflexive groan. It already hurt. It shouldn’t hurt, not yet, he knew that, but it did.
Knowing hurt. Just knowing he was going to go through it again and again like a broken record until someone else’s hand removed the needle or just smashed the whole machine in frustration.
Sometimes he thought about doing that himself.
But that would upset everyone and people would die. That… That would be a cruel and selfish thing to do. They needed him.
Well, not him.
But he was accurate and strong enough so, yeah, actually. Him. Alba was the only one good enough to pick up his slack if he quit, and he couldn’t do that to her. She was a child. Nicky…
It was her arm around his shoulders. He knew it by the feel. He couldn’t move or open his eyes or say thanks.
Or tell her to go away and leave him alone because everything hurt.
“He’s gone, Seth. I know you’ll get the hang of things soon, but I need you to drink this for me. Then you can rest. Hein?”
He kept his mouth closed against the metal rim of the cup. He could manage that. He didn’t want anything. He’d just puke it up in an hour or two.
I can’t rest, Nicky. You know that. Casse-toi, you bitch.
He made only a soft sound, little more than a sigh.
“I know you’re in there, I can feel you being annoyed,” she said teasingly. She shifted, curling her arm a little tighter. “Come on, cher. Pour moi?”
Nicky was a real Southerner, not just a spoiled rich kid who vacationed down there half the year and picked up a few words. She had the cutest little accent, but she only turned it up like that when she really needed something from him.
He still didn’t want to give it to her, but he felt sorry, and then frustrated, and then so damn angry that he had no agency or ability to express any of this.
“Shh.” She rocked him and stroked his hair, like she knew he liked. He did like it but… But he didn’t like why she was doing it. It felt dirty.
“I know how it is,” she said. “You know I know. I’m sorry. But if you don’t drink something you’re going to get me in trouble with the boss.”
He just didn’t want it. He wasn’t doing it to hurt her, even though he was mad. It hurt. He didn’t want to be hurt. Did she know that? He blinked open his eyes and saw the tin cup with clear water inside, her hand holding it steady for him.
“Would you rather have a soup?” she said.
“Uh-uh,” he managed, faintly.
She nudged the cup against his mouth again. “Come on. I got him to fix it for you. Lemon, cucumber, and a little fizz.”
He shut his eyes again, pained. That isn’t what I want from him. That isn’t what I need. I don’t want any fancy nail-salon water de merde, I want a shot and I want to sleep!
He couldn’t say it, but the tears ran from his eyes.
“So tired,” he said.
“I’m trying so hard to help you, cher. I promise I’ll do what I can. Tu dois boire.” She paused, as if she didn’t want to say it, but she did anyway, “Or else we’ll have to hook you up to that saline drip maudit…”
He cringed. His hands came up, trembling. He folded his arms around his middle, clutching the rough military-issue blanket against him like a frail old gentleman trying to hide under the eiderdown after a bad dream. Maybe the one about the ghost of Yuletide Past.
It wasn’t Yule. The figure on the cot in the infirmary had no idea when it was. Only they wouldn’t stop shelling and he couldn’t stop vomiting, and he had this needle jammed in his arm that was dispensing nothing but goddamn useless salt water and he couldn’t move or do anything to make it stop.
He was haunting himself.
He sobbed. “I don’t want to feel anything, I don’t want to remember…”
She pulled the pendant necklace out of her shirt and dangled it in front of his eyes. A frowning silver sliver of moon held up a single pale stone — an opal. A little of the pain fell away. He just wanted to look at it.
Circus, thought another, crueller part of him. This war de merde is a circus and I am a trained seal. Did you know you signed your favourite nephew up to be a trained seal, Auntie Di? Ha, ha, and I helped her do it to me. Smartest seal in the universe! Powered by a vial of heroin! Chosen to protect mankind!
But he didn’t want to think anymore and he didn’t have to. She would do that for him, he just had to let her.
“I keep trying to tell myself I’m a superhero, but I’m just in it for the fish,” he muttered, and he didn’t care what he meant. Probably it didn’t matter. It didn’t seem like anything mattered much.
She kissed his cheek. He blinked but he didn’t turn to look at her.
“You are a human being doing your best in a messed up situation, and you are my friend,” she said. “You let me be in charge of you to help you, and I am going to bend over backwards to earn that trust you’ve given me. I’m the one in the circus. I’m your acrobat!” She leaned into his vision with a smile. She was in soft focus, he was looking at the necklace, but he knew her smile.
He made a wobbly little smile of his own in return. “Merci.” His voice didn’t want to work anymore — not that he couldn’t speak, but there didn’t seem to be anything worth the effort to say. She already knew all that nice stuff like “I’m sorry” and “I don’t mean it, I’m just tired” and “I love you.” Yeah. It was okay.
“Bois ça, cher.”
“Dois je faire, Nicky?” he said weakly. Do I have to? But he already had his hand out for the cup.
She let him help her, but she didn’t let go. “Fais de ton mieux.” Do your best.
He had installed a light switch in his brain — for her convenience. Sign and countersign, like a spy with a suitcase. That shut it off.
He did what she asked and when she said he could sleep he believed her.
It wasn’t really rest, he couldn’t rest, but it was a dark place without thought or memory and it would do.
◈◈◈
They were shelling again. It was probably something Taggart had done. It was always this way. Taggart used him to set these wheels in motion, and when he left they continued to turn. Sometimes for months. It was always so loud and all this fighting going on when he just wanted to sleep!
She held the bucket and he threw up into it. “Oh, gods, no more. No more-no more-no more. I can’t. Arrête ça. Nicky! S’il te plaît, s’il te plaît, s’il…”
“I can’t, Seth. I’m sorry. I…”
“Yes you can, you bitch!” he cried.
She shrank from him. “Don’t hit me!”
He drew his hands to his chest, suddenly cold. He didn’t…
He dropped his head and twisted aside. It didn’t matter. He’d wanted to and she saw that and he scared her. She was such a little thing. She wore a civilian coat because they couldn’t find an army one that fit her. Her bones were like bird bones. When he grabbed her arm to support himself…
Or, or to lift her up and shake her…
He slid into the small space under the bed and pressed both hands over his face.
She put her hand on his arm and he edged back from her until he hit the wall.
“Don’t,” he said, very small. “Please.”
She crawled under there with him. It was always this way. Anyplace big enough to fit him would fit her too. He couldn’t escape.
“Don’t touch me! Nuh… Nuh… Ne me touche pas! Laisse-moi! Laisse-moi, laisse-moi…”
Another shell hit and plaster fell from the ceiling, a sound like brief rain.
She stroked his hair. “Shh, Seth.”
“Please stop, I don’t want you to do that! You nuh… You never listen! It’s like I’m not even here! I’m a real person!” He began to weep, still trying to draw away. “I’m-I’m-I’m not one of those things that only exists to violate people and drag them around. This… This is my body, this is me, and I hurt and I don’t want you to touch me!”
Her hand was in his hair and she didn’t take it away. She leaned closer and spoke gently, “I’m sorry, Seth, but you don’t get to decide that. I am your handler. I am in charge of you. You trust me to make these decisions for you because I have judgment and a lot of the time you don’t.”
“Please!” He was shaking. He couldn’t stop. “I-I-I am scared, and I’m tired, and I’m sick, but I’m not high and I’m not stupid! A… A human being is allowed to ask his friend to leave him alone and give him room to breathe.” He couldn’t look at her. His voice had faded to a whisper. “Please.”
“I’m sorry, Seth. That’s one thing you’re not allowed to do.” She pet him.
He allowed it. There was no other way.
“Je t’aime,” she said hopefully, after a time.
“I want to be dead,” he said numbly. He laughed, but his voice had no humour in it. “Let me out of here. I want to take a walk outside. Let’s go to the fucking beach.”
“Don’t,” she hissed. “Don’t scare me like that! I’m scared too.” She sniffled. “Don’t scare me on purpose, that’s mean.”
He dropped his head with a sigh. A moment later, he reached up and held her hand. “Hey, Nicky? Comment dire… «the fucking beach»? Hein?”
She blew out a breath. “Je ne sais pas. A lot of ways. Depends how mad you are about it.” More plaster fell and she shuddered. “«La putain de plage.» «Allons á la putain de plage.»”
“Everything is whores with you picturesque rustics,” he said with a smile. “There…” The war interrupted him, but only briefly. He spoke a little louder, like he was trying to get the kids to calm down, “There must be something worse than hardworking people who sell a thing it’s perfectly respectable to give away!”
“Not actual whores,” she said. “You do know mince literally means ‘slim,’ right?”
He laughed, as disarmingly as he could manage under the circumstances. It came off a bit hysterical. “Oh, thin whores. Yes. Surely the worst of all whores. Putains mince de merde.” He peeked past her, wondering if it was better to come out or stay under the bed in case the ceiling caved in.
“Minces,” she said. She gave him a little nudge — playful but very gentle, she knew he was sore. “You have a filthy fucking mouth, schoolteacher.”
He feigned anguish, “That’s so unfair. I’m a nice, polite, educated rich person, perfectly suited to a career in politics or the clergy. I have a filthy fucking mind, and you don’t let me have any boundaries.” He laughed again and shrugged. “So what’s the point?”
She pressed a finger over his mouth, closing it for him. “That thing about going to the beach is why I don’t let you have any boundaries. When I give you an inch, you scare the hell out of me. That is not okay. You sounded like you meant that.”
He shook his head, looking down. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to scare you. I just don’t feel well. You know I… I’m just an overgrown stupid spoiled brat who can’t handle being sick.” He tried a smile. “With no judgment!”
She kissed his cheek. “It’s not your fault. That’s why I take care of you, cher.”
“We’ll be okay, mon amour,” he said. “I think they’re backing off a little.” It had been nearly five minutes without any earth-shattering explosions.
She offered a hand, “Then can we stop hiding under the bed like toddlers?”
“Yes.” He sniffled and turned away to wipe his nose on his sleeve. It wasn’t more crying, he just leaked like a sieve when he was sick. He tried to smile again, but it was even harder this time. “I think I need the bucket.”
She scampered away on cramped legs and got it for him, like a good acrobat.
◈◈◈
“…earth to teacher? Woo-hoo. Okay, I’m going in for the Sleeping Beauty treatment in three, two…”
He woke with a start. “Luh-Laisse… Oh.” The girl leaning over him did not have Nicky’s pale yet ordinary human complexion. She was chalk-white, with white hair like him. The gods liked to label their favourite victims, and they alone knew why. It seemed a little unfair that Alba didn’t get any fun rainbow-hued contrast — although he was only a few shades away from military blue himself, so he shouldn’t be patting himself on the back about contrast at the moment.
She didn’t look plain or unassuming, though. She could be terrifying when she set her mind to it — or someone else’s mind. She had endless potential, like a blank sheet of paper.
There was a smear of gold paint across the cape and collar of her coat, with evident brush marks. The kids thought little uniform code violations like that were cool. She’d been clever with hers; if anyone dared mention it, she could say it was a stain. It wasn’t as if they’d requisition her another coat in the middle of a siege.
“I’m sorry, my dear,” he said, “that really…” He stifled a yawn, that hurt too. “Really hurts.”
She had been resting her hands on his shoulders. She let go and backed away. “Gods! Everything is ‘dear’ with you! You apologize for me hurting you, and then you swat me upside the head with another damn ‘dear’! You rich people have the weirdest goddamn manners, I swear. Even in the middle of all this bullshit.”
“I’m sorry, d…” He closed his teeth on his lower lip.
She regarded him with her arms folded, waiting to see how he’d finish.
He shook his head and put a hand over his eyes. “My brain isn’t working.”
“Yeah, no shit,” she said. “If Mordecai tried to pull that crap with me, I’d have Georgie blow his fool head off. Why do you let her do that?”
He sat up slowly, rubbing his cheek. “It’s hard. I’m really tired.”
“That doesn’t make you any less tired, you’ve said so yourself. It just makes you…” She twitched a dismissive gesture. “Quiet.”
“It hurts less.”
“No it doesn’t. You just can’t think or remember it. Your body is still frigged up from Taggart and your brain is still in it. You wanna know why you’re still tired? That’s why you’re still tired.” She frowned. “And you know that, Teach.”
He sighed. “She can’t be in here with me all the time, she needs to eat and sleep, and help run this stupid war. She can’t leave me alone, I’m not safe like this. I-I make bad decisions. I’m not going to make her pay attention to me all the time just so I can be conscious, that’s… That’s being a bad friend.”
“That woman is not your friend.”
He cast his eyes aside. That was true. And also not something he wanted to discuss with an eighteen-year-old girl. “It would be different if there wasn’t a war.”
“Yeah. If your Aunt Di had balls she’d be…” Alba paused and considered. “I don’t know. I guess she can have balls whenever she wants them. Geez. No offence intended, but it got way weirder around here when you two showed up, and that’s saying something. Can I sit? Is it going to mess you up any worse if I jostle the bed?”
He shook his head. “I mean, it’s okay. Sit.”
She did it slowly, making a show of not jostling the bed, like a footman covering a puddle with his fancy coat. “I’m not gonna waste your time. I stole drugs, you want ‘em?”
He brightened, involuntarily. Then he pulled away from her, ashamed. “You shouldn’t do that.” He rattled his head. “You… You shouldn’t even be in here.” He peered at her, as if this might be a trap to get him in trouble. “How are you in here?”
She rolled her eyes. She had grey eyes like his, maybe half a shade darker. They tended to change colour based on the circumstances. Right now they were almost blue. It must’ve been the coat.
“Gods, your brain really isn’t working,” she said. “I pick locks, Teach. I learned it all by myself. Thus, I am able to steal drugs for you, even if I can’t sneak Auntie Enora and get you real medicine.” She sighed. “I’m really sorry about that. Mordecai doesn’t want me to burn myself out…”
He clasped both her hands. “No, you mustn’t ever do that. It’s dangerous. It’s so much more dangerous for someone strong like you…”
She regarded his hands on hers. Then she tipped her head back and brushed him away. “Honestly! I know, okay? That’s why I didn’t do anything for either of you to freak out about, I just picked some locks and raided the medicine cabinet.” She smirked. “Didn’t even need magic for it.”
He flinched at the door; it was hanging ajar. “Oh, no. No. She’ll know you were here. You don’t have the key and you can’t un-pick it…” He glanced at her, aside, “Can you?”
“First Sleeping Beauty and now Rapunzel.” She shook her head. “Yes, I can lock you back in your tower and the evil witch will never know.”
“She’ll know. She’ll know right away.” He frowned. “And she’s not a witch, that’s not nice, Alba.”
“And yet, this level of fear and discomfort is not how people usually talk about their friends. You ever notice that, Teach?”
“It’s not that,” he said, with no abatement of fear or discomfort. “I-I’m scared of the drugs. I don’t like how I feel. I… I just want to stop and go home and get married and go back to teaching like normal when it’s all over.” He forced the next out quickly, it was too scary even to say it, “I don’t want to be an addict.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, you can stop worrying. You already are one — that’s why I stole you drugs — and you’re never going to be normal. So?”
She shooed a hand at his dismayed expression. “Gods, there are worse things to be. ‘Dead’ is what leaps to my mind, but you know we’ve got kids in the infirmary missing arms and legs and kidneys and things. So you miss Taggart and heroin.” She shrugged. “Sometimes I miss Georgie and killing people. I think that’s why they like us — they know we like them and we don’t kill their buzz. We’ll have to deal with it later, if we live, but we can’t do anything now but keep going.”
She smiled. “Hey, thanks for screwing yourself up with drugs for me. For all of us. It’d be brave enough if you were doing it to function and stay alive right now, but you’re commanding troops and stuff. You really leveraged that shit.”
He had curled his whole body away from her like a participant in a prawn salad, and he was seriously considering hiding under the bed again.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. She didn’t touch him or pull him back. She folded her hands in her lap and looked down. “I know it hurts and it’s not funny, but I can’t help trying to make it funny. It’s a thing I learned to do, like picking locks and stealing. I wanted you to feel better, but I guess it’s like I’m being weird and mean for no reason. That’s not how I mean it, I promise.”
“I-I don’t know,” he said faintly, still looking away. “I don’t know what happened to you that you know all these awful things at your age…”
She brayed laughter. “What? You’ve only got nine years on me, Teach, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed the war…?”
He put up a hand. “Please let me finish. You don’t have to tell me how you ended up in a place where enlisting at eighteen during a siege seemed like a good idea, and I don’t need to know, but it shouldn’t have happened. You’re a sweet girl and someone should’ve protected you.”
She dabbed the tears from her eyes with her sleeve and sniffed. “What? Ha-ha. Who? Someone like you?”
He gazed at the wall and spoke with a vague wistfulness that ached, “I could’ve taught you trigonometry.”
She sighed. “Oh. Yeah. That’s adorable. Do you want this stuff before your ‘friend’ gets back or what?” She drew the bottle out of her coat pocket and showed him. “I know it’s hard on your stomach, I’m sorry. I don’t do needles. I got you a soda to take it with. You mind grape? Hang on.” She was rooting around in the other pockets, looking for it. Her coat was like a little bodega. She had a bag of chips, half a sandwich, and three mismatched teaspoons in there, and that was just the stuff she took out.
He plucked the tiny bottle from her hand, telling himself he was just getting it out of her way. It was dark blue glass with an eyedropper in the cap. He read the imprint on the glass, but he already knew. Laudanum. He shut his eyes. “You have no idea how badly I need this… and how badly that makes me feel.”
“I don’t know, I might have an inkling, but I’m sure you don’t want to hear about it from a sweet girl like me… Ah!” She produced the soda bottle — it was missing the label, damaged goods like most of what the starcatchers brought them, but they didn’t make non-grape soda in purple. “Hey, Teach?”
He was staring at the blue glass bottle. It was a little like Nicky’s necklace.
Alba covered it with her hand. “Hey.” She smiled at him, but it was pained. “Can I have that back? I’ll be the bartender.”
“I can do it,” he said.
“Yes, but you’ve kinda got this look like you’re about to slam the whole thing like a shot glass if I let you. That’s too much party even for me, so I’d like it back. Is that okay?”
He gave back the bottle and turned away. “I hate this so much.” He was crying again, though he tried not to let it show. Maybe she couldn’t tell any difference from the usual watery eyes and runny nose.
“Of course you hate it, it sucks,” she said. She’d found a bottle-opener in one of the pockets and she used it. “I know we’re all trying like hell to stay positive about it, but it’s not going to stop sucking on our account. This sinkhole is big enough to eat all of us and just keep on sucking forever.” She turned away, so he wouldn’t have to watch her measure the drops.
And probably beg her to let him slam the whole bottle like a shot glass, let’s face it.
He sobbed, and he could no longer tell himself she didn’t know. “I’m sorry.”
“I know you are and I know why, but I don’t think it’s good for you. Being sorry all the time, I mean.” She offered the soda. “Not that this is super great for you either, but some things we can’t fix. ‘Damage control,’ as my brilliant handler says.”
She let him have the bottle, and she didn’t keep a hand on it or warn him not to drink too fast or he’d be sick. He guessed she knew he knew, or maybe just being an ex-teacher afforded him some level of trust from a kid. He took a swallow, felt an irrepressible smile and covered it with a hand. “Oh, wow. It hasn’t even hit me yet, I just love sugar.”
She snickered. “You and me both. How’s that song go? ‘You don’t know what you’ve got till people are bombing the crap out of you and the supply lines are down’?”
“Something like that,” he said. “Do you want…?” He held the bottle back. “No, I suppose you don’t want a sip.”
She put up her hand. “Honest-to-gods, Mordecai will sweeten anything I want, and I eat a lot of chocolate cake these days.” She tipped up her nose. “I don’t like grape flavour anyway.”
“Tant pis, because this is amazing.” He drank again.
She laughed. “Bam! The accent returns! Like magic!”
He held up the soda, but it wasn’t that. Knowing felt good. He was going to feel better for a little while and get some real sleep. That was all he needed to get high these days.
Okay, and maybe also some sugar.
“Listen,” he said, “ma petite fille, I used to sound this way all the time, okay? It is not that bad — Nicky’s just been encouraging me — but the other teachers at the college thought I was some kind of rich snot, and that hurt my feelings. So, rich snot that I am, I bought a whole bunch of elocution records, and murdered Frere Jaques here in his sleep. But the damn thing won’t stay dead! J’ai peigné la girafe!”
“You did what to a giraffe?” Alba said, blinking.
He closed his mouth in a frown. “I have no idea. Mademoiselle Poulin just used to say that when something was pointless. It sounded cute. I guess I just assumed… I hope it’s not anything rude. I’ll have to ask Nicky.”
Alba cackled. “Don’t you dare. I want you to keep saying it like that forever. It’s so… You! You decided to copy some silly person you apparently trust, and now you’re in an absurd situation, staggering around with no idea whether you’re embarrassing yourself or doing real damage or just being cute. Perfection!” She tossed an exaggerated kiss into the air, complimenting the chef, “Mwah! ‘I have painted zee giraffe!’”
“I don’t think that’s it, but I suppose that’s pointless too.” He had finished the soda, and now he was starting to feel it. He touched an absent hand to his head. It wasn’t a rush like the needle, but he couldn’t pretend it was unpleasant. He’d painted enough giraffes. “Oh, my dear, I think I’m going to sleep.” He caught himself, though too late. “I’m sorry, Alba. What did you want me to call you?”
She took the empty bottle and put it back in her coat pocket. “Salope.”
“Oh, no, dear, that’s not nice.”
“It is the way you say it. Sometimes.”
“Hein?”
“Nevermind, Teach. Just get some sleep. Need me to tuck you in?”
“Don’t, Nicky,” he muttered. “I can take care of myself.” He got his head on or near the pillow and he decided he didn’t care about anything else.
Alba picked up his legs and put the rest of him in the bed. She was “little,” yes, but taller than Nicky. Big enough to haul him around when he was too impaired to object, which seemed to be more and more often. She scolded him, not even out of breath, “I don’t like the way that woman treats you, but she is not always wrong.” She drew the blanket over him.
“Leave me the bottle for later, won’t you, chere?”
“Yeah! That is so not happening!” she replied, but so brightly that it failed to register as anything objectionable.
She pocketed the rest of the laudanum, but she did lock the door behind her, as she’d said.
And when Nicky tried to wake him up later and give him a cup of soup, he came up just enough to say, “Bonne nuit,” with a smile and pass out again. So she knew right away anyway, as he’d said.
◈◈◈
He was sitting up in bed. He felt shaky, and sick, and so much better. And that made him feel so much worse. She gave him a cup of tea first, without saying anything. He drank slowly, but eventually he finished. “Please, don’t…”
“What did you take and how did you get it?” she said.
“Alba broke in and gave me some laudanum she stole.” He sighed. “And a soda. I don’t think she stole the soda, but I guess I don’t know. She knows how to pick locks. It’s not her fault, Nicky. Please.”
He shut his eyes. He read a lot of comic books, he knew there was a word for this. Ah, yes. Snitching. He was a snitch. Le snitch, like some cartoon rat caricature.
But what was he supposed to do? Lie? To Nicky? No, gods. Better to just get it over with and beg for mercy. She was a good person. She’d understand.
“Unless you can drag people around from the inside like your Aunt Diane, I don’t see any way a thing she did without even being asked is not her fault, Seth!”
He primly folded his hands in his lap. “She is a sweet little girl and she only wanted to help me. Go find her parents or whoever raised her to be that way and yell at them.”
“You’re being ridiculous. Are you still high?”
He recoiled. He drew up the blanket, not quite hiding behind it, and shook his head.
She took his hands. “Then you know I can’t just let someone do something that hurts you. She could have killed you.”
He shook his head again, but he couldn’t say no. He’d taken the bottle from her hand, and… He couldn’t say he didn’t think about it, while she was going through her pockets. I could just go to sleep and not wake up…
And she’d seen it. He scared her and she took the bottle back, then she took it away. He couldn’t pretend he didn’t think what he’d thought when she’d seen it.
But that wasn’t her fault either, he was just stupid and overdramatic.
“It’s my fault, Nicky. I knew I shouldn’t and I did it anyway. I just couldn’t help myself. I won’t do it again. Ah…” He closed his mouth with a hand.
“I’m glad you realized that doesn’t make any sense, because I really do worry about you, cher.”
He snatched her sleeve. “Mordecai will shout at her!”
She shook her head and dislodged his hand. “I hope he does.”
◈◈◈
He didn’t know what Mordecai had done to Alba, but about half an hour later he showed up to make his own assessment of how badly Nicky had screwed up.
There was no snitching this time. There was nothing to snitch. “I am fine. I feel much better, in fact. I’m sure I’ll be right back at it in a couple days, so it’s no inconvenience to you.”
“You upset the person I am in charge of,” Mordecai replied. “And she is extremely temperamental and able to kill me with a thought, so that is all kinds of inconvenient for me.”
Seth sat forward. “What is she upset about?”
Mordecai groaned and clapped a hand to his head. “You, Seth! She put you in danger and got you in trouble when all she wanted to do was help…”
“Why would you tell her…” Seth began, hotly.
“…and it was no picnic for her seeing you that way in the first place! I try to keep her out of here, but obviously I am not equipped to do that. She does what she wants. She doesn’t know any better. She’s a kid! A ridiculously overpowered kid, trying to help out in the middle of a siege!
“You know what she did?” Mordecai pulled his cufflinked civilian shirtsleeve out of the borrowed soldier’s coat and showed a singe mark up to the elbow. “Yeah, laugh it up, schoolteacher. She set the curtains on fire in bunkroom 17-07, and I had to promise if she wasn’t allowed to take care of you then I would. Then she let me live. So next time you need some life-saving medication that I’m trying to save for actual hurt people and gods, you just let me know! Or else she really will blow my head off, and we’ll all be screwed.”
The red man raked both hands back through his hair with a ragged snarl. “Damn it. When that kid tries to look out for you there are consequences. Do you get that? She likes you, Seth! And she feels responsible for you for some reason. Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know!” Seth replied. “I certainly didn’t ask her to steal things for me or set anything on fire. I-I can only guess it’s because we’re both in an awful situation with people pushing us around all the time…” He glanced aside at Nicky. “Invisible people. The gods. I suppose it hurts her, too, and she feels sorry for me.”
“Then why don’t you suck it up like a responsible adult and leave her out of it? She has enough to deal with!”
“She…” He flung a gesture. “The little idiot broke in here and offered heroin addict drugs! Que dois je faire, hein? Tu es le Roi des Cons de…”
Mordecai threw up his hands. “Oh, gods, there he goes again! I don’t understand it… I mean, I literally don’t, but Diane never goes off like this.” He cupped his hands like a megaphone and leaned in, “I am not the help, Mr. Desdoux! I’m a volunteer… Like you! Nicole, can’t you deal with him?”
She put a hand on his shoulder, trying to pull him back into bed, “Cher, don’t upset yourself…”
“If he doesn’t want me to yell at him, why does he go out of his way pour me fait chier…!”
“Seth, don’t…”
“If this is the best you can do with him, you two may not be as good for each other as I thought,” Mordecai said snidely.
Seth sputtered. “You… You take that back!” As if they were on the playground.
The red man ignored him. He shook a finger at the tiny woman in the bed. “You are too close to him, Nicole! You forget what you’re doing and you start treating him like a human being… Like a man! This is not an equal relationship, you have too much power over him and he has too much power over all of us. He is not your boyfriend, he’s your responsibility. He can’t be both! If you can’t keep him safe or keep him in line then I have to give him to someone else! Do you understand that?”
She nodded and stifled a sob with her hand.
Seth vaulted to his feet, staggered, and steadied himself against the wall. “That’s enough,” he said. “That’s too far. I am a human being, and if you think otherwise, or if I ever catch you treating that sweet little girl like she’s not a human being…”
Mordecai fisted his hands. “She is like my daughter. She doesn’t have anyone else. I take my responsibility seriously.” He scowled. “I don’t know what the hell she is to you, but whatever it is I’m getting awfully suspicious of it.”
Seth blinked as if struck. “The fuck…?”
“I hope not,” said Mordecai.
Nicky clambered out of the bed and stood beside her non-boyfriend and responsibility. She took his hand. “Morph, that really is enough. You have every right to be upset, but now you’re just being insulting. What the hell is wrong with you?”
He breathed a long sigh and turned away in shame. “I don’t know, Nicky. Honest-to-gods, I don’t. I’m so damn tired all the time. I have so much to do…” He shook his head. “And I just can’t stand seeing her hurt. Maybe I’m too close too.”
“None of that is any excuse,” Seth said coldly.
“No. I know it isn’t.” He shut his eyes. “I’m sorry. I can’t take it all back because I’m still mad and there’s some important stuff in there, but I’m sorry. If I can’t keep a lid on it, I don’t know how in the hell you’re supposed to.” He looked up, pained. “But you really have to, okay?” He smiled and spread his hands helplessly. “Please don’t make me do my job, I didn’t ask for it and I’m totally incompetent. Okay?”
This cruel monster who terrorized the both of them seemed suddenly so weak and human that Seth didn’t trust it. It was too easy, like discarding a mask — or putting one on. Seth liked Mordecai — most of the time — really. The man had stumbled into this absurd situation and he was painting giraffes, too, like Alba said. Alba liked Mordecai. She spent a lot more time with him, and she wasn’t stupid.
But Seth couldn’t trust the son of a bitch.
He turned his head aside and put an arm around Nicky’s shoulders. “I suppose you ought to be calling gods like the rest of us, you’re just totally incompetent at that too.”
“Ha, ha. Ouch,” said Mordecai, otherwise at a loss.
“I wasn’t trying to be funny, Morph. None of us asked for these shitty jobs, okay? None of us wanted to be in a war.”
Mordecai offered him the most broken smile he’d ever seen, outside of a mirror. Seth was starting to feel like a son of a bitch himself. “Yeah, that really is funny,” his sometimes-friend said. “You’re not wrong, Sprite. So why in every god’s name did we volunteer?” He was already turning away. He didn’t really want an answer.
“We just wanted to help,” Seth said softly. “…It’s not your fault,” he added.
“Yours either,” the man replied, without turning. He shut the door behind him.
Seth swept Nicky up and set her on the bed. He smoothed back her hair. She’d given herself a full on pixie cut when the siege started, with a pair of electric clippers she barely knew how to operate. I was trying to be practical, she’d admitted, blushing.
The damage had grown out some, but irregular patches were one or two inches shorter than chin-length. It was the cutest thing he’d ever seen. “Tu vas bien, ma petite amie?”
She winced.
“Mince,” he muttered. He shook his head at her, smiling. “No, I mean literally. I barely know what I’m saying! Little friend! Slim!” He dropped his head with a sigh, but he didn’t entirely lose the smile. “No, I guess I don’t and I guess you know that.” He sat next to her on the bed and slipped an arm around her waist. “Do we have to pretend because the King of the Idiots is taking the handlers’ instructions literally?”
She touched her finger gently over his mouth. “No. I think we just have to look like we’re trying. He understands more than he likes to let on.” She looked away. “It’s just harder for him to pretend when I mess up like this. I need to not do that or I think he really will split us up. He’ll send me to the north side of the wall…”
Seth looked indignant. “Then I will follow you. They can’t tell me what to do, I volunteered!”
She brushed at her cute little civilian coat. “I know my uniform’s not up to the standard anymore, but they can tell me what to do, cher. Et c’est ça!”
He put his arms around her and rested his head on top of hers. “It was my fault and I won’t let it happen again. I won’t put us in danger, chere. I promise.”
She put her arms around him too, and snuggled against his chest. After a time, she tipped up her head and kissed the corner of his mouth.
Now he winced, and he scooted away from her. “Don’t. Don’t do that. You know how I get.”
She smiled at him. “It’s your body and after it stops hurting you like to do something with it that feels good. What’s wrong with that?”
“I don’t know.” He stared at his hands in his lap, turning them. “You shouldn’t want to. You shouldn’t like me. I’ve been shitty to you.”
“That’s not you.” She leaned in and kissed his mouth again, longer this time. “This is you.” She laughed. “I missed you.”
He fondled her ragged hair. He found one of the short places she’d hidden behind her ear and twined his fingers in it jealously. “I really missed you too.” He held her head and kissed her. “Je t’aime.”
She pressed him back on the bed. “Je t’aime.”
She already had his shirt off, and he was unbuttoning hers, when she remembered the pendant and clasped it to pull it away.
“No, leave it on,” he said.
She laughed, keeping it closed safely in her hand. “Should I be insulted? Is this like you have to have three glasses of wine in you before you go to bed with your frigid old wife?”
“Cut that out.” He put his hand over hers, but he didn’t try to force it open. “You’re trying to be cute, but running yourself down like that is not cute, mon amour.”
She blushed and smiled. “Désolé.”
He worked his fingers inside and squeezed gently. “I want you, I just don’t want this stupid war. And I trust you.” He laughed. “It’s my brain too. I want you to put your hands in it and mess it up however you want. That’s nice.”
She stroked his hair like she knew he liked, messing it up. “Lavette,” she said. Dishrag.
He grinned. “Salope.” Slut.
Sign and countersign, two spies exchanging a suitcase.
She snickered and let go of the pendant. “Oh, all right.”
He sighed. “N’importe quoi.” Hey. Whatever.
“Literally?” she teased him.
“Mm-hm.”
“Then kiss me.”
He smiled. “Dois je faire?”
“Fais de ton mieux.”
“Ah…”
Out like a light!
