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Things tend to haunt Aaron.
Things like her essay last week that she didn’t refine perfectly. Or the lingering taste of food she hates; her mother; her addiction, that itches and itches and itches, gone but stubborn in its refusal of being forgotten; the dog she forgot to coo at when she was leaving a restaurant with Katelyn; the feeling of blood on her skin; and the taste of her brother’s name in her mouth, how it drips out of her like blood from a wound.
Bile always follows quickly after the last one, but she manages to swallow it down tonight as she shoots up and clasps a hand over her mouth. She shudders, nauseous, and thinks it's just a nightmare, over and over, as if it’s a new concept, unheard of. Like it’s a comfort, to not be haunted by the reality of the present, but of the past. Like it’s something she hasn’t seen a million times, and that is still burning into her retinas with vivid splashes of gore and horror.
Red is a color she wishes she could hate, but with the way it stains her so thoroughly, it would just be hating herself repackaged. A new way, sold to her with twisted thoughts, instead of the way burned into her skin like a brand. It's just too much work, learning all of the new aspects to stare at with distaste.
Aaron takes a breath, shrill and choppy. Another, which still whistles in the broken silence of the night. “Christ,” she chokes out, voice low and ragged. Too empty and too emotive. She feels as if she’s about to burst, and she cannot quite breathe.
She stumbles out of bed, a bit blindly with the lack of light. Her phone is charging in the kitchen, the same place she always puts it when she plans on studying the night away, because the foxes group chat can be annoying, and Katelyn can be distracting, so she only grabs her worn jacket that hangs off the edge of her bed as she slips through the bedroom door.
God forbid she wakes Matt or Nicky. God forbid they ask.
A lamp is left on, and it leaves the area lit enough for her to maneuver around. The smell of fresh candles is pleasant, and is an indicator that Nicky had been awake not too long ago. Even though the concept of sleep is, pointedly, impossible, she isn't sure what to do next. A thrum is alight in her veins—one that warns of nonsensical danger. She had killed the danger, or Andrew had.
That thought makes her pause—makes her actually take in the overpowering smell of a blown out vanilla candle as her foot taps restlessly against the ground.
… Andrew.
Aaron puffs out another breath of air.
It's stupid to let her mind get to her. It's stupid to think of her eternal hauntings as anything but some twisted joke made by her color-coded memories. Things are fine. She isn't some prophet. She doesn't want to be. A flimsy organ in her skull isn't a broken clock—it's never been right, much less twice in one day.
Her foot is still tapping against the floor.
Shit. Christ. God fucking— she muffles an aborted scream into her palms. Out of sight, out of mind, until Andrew is very much not. Like always.
She's fucking worried about him. Like he couldn't handle himself. Like that isn’t all he ever wants to do. She's worrying, even though everything is dead, and bloody, and in the ground. It's a gross feeling. A rash gone unchecked until now, with her eyes still replaying gore.
Worried. Like it's something they do.
Well. It is. In a very biting, unspoken, angry sort of way. Worry in the form of split knuckles over spilt tears. Worry in the form of blood as a gift; as an apology. A dog lashing out when someone steps too close to what's theirs, wolves letting their sick and young eat what was killed first. This is the Minyard brand of worry, something twisted and rotted, but something to hold claim over, something to be theirs.
Still. It's embarrassing. When the ringing in your ears isn't dulling your senses, when it's not life or death, one or two, this or that, but simply this: Aaron standing in the middle of her dorm, with a dizzying heart, and a spark in her blood that demands something she refuses to name.
She's not about to go to his dorm. That would mean interacting with Josten, or Kevin, and it's too late and too early for that, water under the bridge of their fumbled years be damned.
Aaron rolls her shoulders. She shoves jumbling thoughts out of her mind, shrugging her jacket on, and stepping over to where her phone is charging. Various messages await her, none that hold importance, but a sign she was right in her usual routine. Studying habits can only help so much, if you're responding to messages like glass in foot help , from the group chat.
She would not help. Fuck you, Josten. Though that does explain why Matt had been jumpy before he succumbed to his bed hours prior. Another lost to Neil’s whims—an aching shame, truly. Aaron huffs out something like a laugh, cracked edges and all, as she yanks her phone away from the cord, and stumbles towards the door.
A place in mind? No. A desire to walk until her body collapsed? Yes.
She closes the door, gently, gently, gently. Because, once again, if anyone talks to her right now, or asks her anything, society may as well end itself then and there. She's walking a line, here. A Minyard styled, insane person based, line.
Aaron stares at the door. For too long, probably, eyes tracing the lines of the wood and paint. The cold doorknob heats under her hand. She rubs at her eye, dislodging her grip, turns, and starts walking. Blood is still covering her fingers, even as it very much is not. It doesn't have to be there for her to feel it, the slick turning to stick turning to flakes. Staining her, beyond skin, something deep in her soul that croons and whines things she's buried. It cries things of sin, of finding faith, of knowing she was always wrong. Always foolish to believe she was anything beyond what she was: a scared boy in the halls of an echoing cathedral. Now she's just this: a girl tumbling up stairs without thought.
She pauses, seeing the doors she's in front of. Grips her phone tighter, bites down her assigned ego, and flicks it open, opening her contacts.
She messages rooftop, with no context, nor concern, as she barrels through the loud metal doors to the roof. Andrew shouldn’t be awake, which always meant that he was. If he wasn’t, Neil was, and only this once would Aaron be glad for their odd lack of care towards invading each other’s privacy.
The chill sinks into her easily. She’s not wearing anything built to keep heat in, just a loose old jacket, so it makes her slow her maddening march to the edge. It feels nice.
By nice, she means cold enough for her to regret it come morning, but… nice. A contrast to the ever boiling blood dripping from her cheeks and matting her hair. She could lose herself in this; and she does, barely noticing as she slumps into herself, her knees meeting the uncomfortable concrete.
The open air is a relief. One she’s content with staying in, even if Andrew doesn’t show. Which—a part of her, the one that’s holding onto coherency, desperately hopes he does not. The nightmare and its assorted terrors can’t get her here, like something unseen is stopping them at the door. The horrors lessen with each aching inhale, and by the time the blood on her goes cold, her lips are numb, and her throat dry. The roof smells like shit, with shitty beer and even shittier cigarettes lining it, but it’s not stuffy like the dorms, so if she can cope with anything tonight, it’s this. She tips further to the side, splaying out as she stares up at the stars.
They're dull out here. Muddy and hard to spot. Fragments of constellations echo to her, but none are coherent. She tries to find Scorpio near instinctively, but she can't make heads or tails of where it should be. A shame. Aaron flips off the stars, even as she pinpoints unimportant constellations, and makes her own.
Aaron is still shaky. Rattled and rotted as ever, but her body finds a middle-ground that is not panic attack or dissociation , and she takes it without much complaint. It's just strange, she thinks. How deeply this is clawing into her.
Nightmares are common, yes. It just never usually leads to something like this. Often it's just—her. Facing her own sins, endlessly, repeatedly. Which is normal, and something she can stomach. Internalize the haunts, bleed them out throughout the next day. She's used to that. She's not that used to her own brain using family against her.
Which is stupid, objectively. She doesn't feel very objective right now, though, so she takes offense.
She thinks she finally catches the tail of Scorpio when she hears the rooftop door swing open.
She thinks of herself as a dog as her body melts further into the roof when she sees Andrew. She doesn’t give the same reaction as those various, viral animal videos—the ones where the dogs are pitched beyond the heavens, screaming and yipping as they jump and run laps around their owner. She feels it, though, which is just as humiliating as showing it. He’s here, he’s safe, which she logically already knew, but she takes her first steady inhale after seeing it.
Andrew looks like he’s tempted to kick at her, thinks better of it—likely seeing the state she’s in, and realizing it’ll only lead to him being toppled over with her—and squats next to her instead.
“Fuck do you want,” he says, bland as ever. His eyes trail over her, accessing for damages that aren’t there. Splotchy bruises that once had a place on her skin, gone to the wind and to the past. Still, he looks, despite knowing he'll come up empty.
Aaron only blinks at him, slow, long, and unmoving, and does the same. She looks for signs of damage she knows vividly, and can only see unblemished skin. It makes her feel something like safe, because they can never be fully anything. It's close enough. It's good enough. It drains her further, and her eyes go lidded against her will.
She looks like a mess, bedhead matched with an incoherent outfit, she knows. She should probably say some stupid fucking comfort, like I'm fine, or I missed you, or I wanted to make sure you were okay. Except—they don't say that shit to each other. They never have, likely never will, because vulnerability is a brand, and it's never gotten them anywhere they wanted to be.
So, she doesn't say anything at all. Worry does not equal acknowledgement of it. Just means that it exists, and just that it leads to moments like this. Silence dances around them, but it's something content.
“I'm surprised you're awake.” Cracks past her throat without permission, because she sort of is, sort of isn't, but it's a starter. It's something.
Andrew huffs, as tired with her shit as he usually is, and makes a move to stand. Aaron waves a hand, as quickly as her sluggish brain can compute it. “Wait,” she says, biting her own numb tongue to try and keep the panic out of her words—because God fucking forbid that ever bleeds through. “Stay.”
Andrew scoffs, this time, throaty and offended. “Why the fuck would I stay in the freezing cold? For fun?” He asks. He doesn't move, though. If anything, he just digs his sneakers into the roof harder. Aaron lets her hand fall, toying with the hem of her sleeve.
“For fun,” Aaron agrees. And then, as an offering, “A nightmare.”
Andrew raises an eyebrow. “A nightmare?”
Her hands twist and turn, clench and unclench. They're dry, and cold, and they're burning hot, and wet. Yes and no, both and neither. A nightmare.
She'd call it childish, if Andrew wasn't prone to them as well. Post traumatic stress, unlike most things in their life, does not pick a favorite; no, it spins back and forth between them, endlessly and eternally. The cause may be gone, but the results are stuck, deep in bone.
"Yeah," Aaron says, turning from Andrew, back to the murky, dark sky above. She tries to find Scorpio again. She fails, again. "Wasn't thinking 'til I got up here. Sorry, I guess."
She was thinking—too much, really, which sort of leads to the same thing in the end. Fumbly, annoying decisions. Pretending to sleep wouldn't have eased her… issues, but it would've been easier to handle, all around.
Andrew adjusts, settling himself down. Not too close. But there, on the same concrete, in the same area. Tired, but okay, and not bloody or bruised. Just… there, with a jacket of his own and his overly priced sneakers. He pulls out his pack of cigarettes, and she hears the flick of his lighter; him exhaling like he's only been able to breathe right then, after a drag.
She scrunches her nose at the smell. Fucking cigarettes.
“I was awake anyway,” Andrew says. An offering of his own. Aaron turns her head, cheek pressing against the ground, and makes a questioning noise. Pressing further without actually— pressing. Fuck asking questions.
“Neil,” Andrew says, like it's an explanation. It is. He continues anyway. “Fucked up his foot.” And, yes. Right. She remembers that now. Josten being stupid. Fork found in kitchen.
Aaron closes her eyes. “I hope it gets infected.” She says, because she does. It'd be funny.
“You're looking at it tomorrow.” Andrew says, almost simply. As if he's cleared his schedule for her.
Correction, actually—as if he knows she'd clear her schedule for him. Because Andrew is the worst person she knows, who she hates so deeply it feels woven into her.
“No I am fucking not.” She replies, immediately. Making a noise nearly animalistic over it—because— no she is fucking not. Jesus Christ. Is she kept around only for this? For her flimsy medical knowledge?
“Yes you are. What, scared you'll get the diagnosis wrong?”
“I'm not taking that bait.” Aaron says, firmly.
“Yes, you are.” Andrew says.
“I'm not. What is this? Is this why you came up?” Aaron asks.
“Maybe.” Andrew replies.
“Well then. Go,” Aaron waves Andrew off. “Go back to your wounded lapdog. Get. Shoo.”
“You're being pushy.” Andrew says.
Aaron twists her body around, glaring as she flips him off. “You,” she says, letting her hand fall back onto the concrete, “Are being a dick.”
Andrew snorts, taking another drag. “I'm sure this is new for you.”
She wants to strangle him, just a little bit. “I'm going to leave his bandages wet tomorrow so he gets mold in the cut, you know.”
Andrew hums. And then, “So you're checking it out?”
Aaron bites down on her tongue hard enough to actually— for once in this entire hell of a night—taste blood. Goddamnit. “I'm cutting his foot off. Amputation. Then I'll blame it on you.” She says through her teeth.
“Nobody would believe you.” Andrew says.
Aaron scoffs. “Anyone with a brain would believe me,” and then she pauses. “So. Not Neil, I guess.”
“A shame, when he's the one you have to convince.” Andrew says, all wistful and smug, and Aaron hates the fact that the usual irritation is something softer out here. The droning moon washes the edge off, rounds it like a stone 'til it comes back around to near-amusement, and Aaron is forced to confront that hate may feel woven into her, but the love is.
It's infuriating.
“A shame,” Aaron mocks. “Go to hell.”
“I’ve been. Not as hot as you’d think.” Andrew flicks his cigarette onto the ground. The stub glints in the dark, just shy of the glare from the shitty rooftop lighting. He stretches his leg, stamping the stub out. There’s probably better places to put them out, but Aaron doesn’t come up here enough to know or care.
She watches as he flicks his pack of cigarettes open again, more of a subconscious action than anything; but Andrew doesn’t pull another out. He just jostles one of them up and down with his thumb. Over and over. Silence overtakes them, and Aaron isn’t all that mad over it.
Their relationship is still rocky. She doesn’t know if it can ever be something that doesn’t come with an equal list of pros and cons. They’re both hard people to know. Harder to love. Being blood doesn’t change that, being twins doesn’t either.
Aaron wishes it did, sometimes. Some gentler, softer part of her. The part that used to believe that family meant everything. It’d be easier, to be able to look at Andrew and see her brother before she saw his flaws. It’d be easier if he could look at her and not see his failures, just his sister.
Sometimes—sometimes, when it’s like this, quiet and empty and only barely not awkward, she can pretend they can do that. She can pretend they’re normal, and that their codependency was built out of affection and not fear. She can pretend that they live in some fantastical fucking universe where neither had killed for the other—only made half-assed threats, because she thinks siblings are meant to do that, or something like it—and that them understanding each other didn’t come from some visceral ink that will stain them both beyond life and death.
That’s not the world they live in, though. It’s not for the better, but they’re turning it into that, maybe. It’s like treating a wound. You can wish it wasn’t there, can imagine what it would be like to live a life where it wasn’t, but it’s here now. So clean it. Bandage it. Cope with it.
Shit sucks. Wallowing doesn’t help. Aaron thinks they’re close to bandaging it, this gaping wound of a relationship. The fact she wanted to see him points towards that, the fact he came at all more-so.
Andrew stops fucking with his weird emotional support cigarette, snapping the pack shut as he shoves it into his pocket. He lets out a loud breath, as if he’s decided something profound and blissful; naturally, near obviously, unbeknownst to Aaron. Probably something stupid, she thinks, like how willing he’ll be to do practice tomorrow. Andrew cracks his neck, shuffling up with all the grace of a tired chronic smoker at… who-fucking-knows in the morning, exy player be damned.
Andrew inches closer to her, enough to finally be in range, but she doesn’t move. He presses his fist to her open palm, the one splayed against concrete. It hurts, the tiny rocks jamming further into her skin, scratching as deep as they can. It isn’t a rough touch, though. More of just an acknowledgement of it being there. The spark of warmth is nice, too, even if it’s gone as quickly as it appeared. Then, he flicks at her chin and, what the fuck. What the fuck?
She shoots up as fast as she can, her upper body slamming into her knees as she tries to grab at Andrew, even as it leaves her painfully dizzy. He’s already by the doors, though, watching under those grating lights. “Fuck you,” she hisses.
“Get some sleep,” Andrew says, instead, because he’s never cared for normal responses. “You have shit to do tomorrow.”
Aaron expects him to vanish after that. To be gone into the creaky doors and back to his own bubble. He doesn’t; he waits for her reply. Waits for confirmation. Not that it’s okay, she doesn’t think, he’s already made up his mind on that, but… an affirmative that she’s aware of that, maybe.
“Yeah,” she says, slouching further onto her knees. Her hands are still cold, still sort of numb, and they twitch loosely over her pajama pants. “Soon.”
She doesn’t say it like a promise, because it isn’t, but she means it anyway. It seems that’s good enough for Andrew, like he could tell—or maybe he just wanted a vocal noise out of her before he left.
The doors are creaky, as they always are. They slam shut, too, and it’s again just her and the breeze. The cold has gone from nice to biting and she really should get back to her own bed, but it’s easier to think out here.
Soon, Aaron reconfirms, this time to herself, because she is still tired and she does need to study in the morning. Soon, but she can waste a few more minutes.