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"We're both a little fucked up."
"Ha!"
...
"I think I'm falling in love with you,” he says.
"You mean you weren't in love with me already?"
"Maybe I just didn't realize it for what it was."
"Took you long enough. Drink your coffee, stupid."
...
The first time they go to make love, he's pale and frowning.
"What's wrong?" she asks.
He was smiling and laughing a minute ago.
"Nothing."
"It's not nothing. Are you afraid?"
He hesitates. Thinks.
"...Yes."
"Is this your first time?"
He blanches, fingers trembling.
He keeps trying to unbutton his shirt.
"No" he whispers. Eyes on the ceiling. "But it's the first time...I had a choice."
She cringes.
"That time in December, in the 11th ward," she asks. "Did-"
"Yes." Short, quick, quiet.
She remembers large bodies and strange suits, strong hands and a salamander face. Standing in her home and taking him away.
What did he remember?
"Are you still afraid?" she says.
"Yes."
"Then we'll wait."
"A-are you sure?"
"Yes."
…
"I have trouble telling what's real, sometimes." He cleans his glasses, she sits cross-legged in her armchair.
"This is real."
"Is it?"
…
"Why do you hate centipedes?"
"What?"
"You leave the room every time you see one. Is it just a bug thing? You weren't afraid before."
"Ah...they, ah..."
"It's okay if you don't want to tell me."
"Thanks."
...
"I'M WORTHLESS!"
"Ke-!"
"DON'T CALL ME THAT!"
"You're not worthless!" she cries indignantly. "Would I love a worthless man?"
"I'm no good, no good..."
"Well, no, you're not perfect. But if you were, I probably wouldn't love you then, either."
He backs away and she follows.
"I...I..."
"You’re speaking their words now, not yours."
"I..."
"What do you think of yourself?"
"...I don't know..." he relaxes.
"It’s not true, what they told you. I promise."
…
"I'm such an ugly person."
"No, you're not."
"But I've done such terrible things."
"Well, I guess we're perfect for each other then."
"I don't deserve someone like you."
She smiles.
"Funny," her eyes close, "I was just thinking the same thing about you."
...
They lay in bed together and she kisses his fingers.
"Is this okay?" she murmurs, lips on his knuckles, and he nods, eyes closed.
"You're beautiful," she says.
"Don't say that."
"It's true."
"...Please."
She watches him crumble before her eyes.
He doesn't want this anymore.
She rolls off of him and settles at his side, waiting for another invitation.
His breathing slows, his eyes open.
He extends one hand prone and palm up, empty.
She takes it gently.
...
"What was it like having someone who loved you?"
She knows his question isn't meant to sting, but it does.
"It was...warm."
"Did he tuck you in at night?"
"Yes. He made us breakfast in the morning, too. Showed us how to catch bugs. Take care of birds."
"It sounds nice. My mom...did those things, sometimes."
She is curious.
He is erasing his blank spots and they make her heart bleed when he shows them to her.
"...Why all the questions this morning?" her voice is sad.
"I-I'm sorry, I-I didn't mean to hurt-"
He thinks he has trodden something sacred.
"No, no - please, you haven't - I was just asking."
"I'm sorry," he gasps.
He leaves quickly, his coffee cooling on the counter.
...
Her head is in his lap. Together they look at the sky.
Rabbits and centipedes live and die in the clouds. Entire evaporated lives stretched out above the city.
"I should have gone back," he says. "I should have gone back when you came for me."
She thinks of them then. Him, bloodied, pale-haired. Red-eyed. Her, bleeding and broken-hearted. Brotherless.
She thinks of how his arms saved her life. How fast her feet flew when she looked for him.
The skeleton of Antieku.
The years of not knowing.
"Yes," she tells him. "You should have."
...
"I went to school with bruises on my arms," he tells her. "Mom said it was our secret. If anyone else knew, they'd take me away."
She listens.
"She said they were there because she loved me. And if the others knew how much she loved me, they'd get jealous. They would hate me. And she would be gone."
She can see he is wearing long sleeves, cuffs tightly buttoned.
...
She kisses his arms.
"You're beautiful," she tries again. She is ready to draw away.
His smile is scared.
But he is smiling, and it’s different from the others.
"Really?"
"Yes."
"...Why am I beautiful?"
She leans back, fists in the sheets by his head.
"Well," she begins. "You're kind."
Something trembles in his eyes.
She continues.
"You try very hard to be gentle. It's who you are."
He spills over.
"You're beautiful, too," he says.
"Oh, really?"
"Your heart is warm and soft. You're strong."
She leans down. Kisses his forehead.
"You're strong, too," she whispers.
...
"I missed you."
"..."
"All that time I thought you were dead. It was like you took a piece of me with you."
"..."
"I lost you, and the others...we were a family. I hardly had anyone left. Starting over. I didn't get to say goodbye."
"..."
"It was so hard. I lost my school transcripts, couldn't apply to college."
She laughs.
"I still want to be a biology teacher!"
"..."
"But at least you came back to me."
"..."
"Are you going to leave me again?"
"...Never."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
...
"Do you ever think about kids?" he asks.
She looks up from the paper.
"Sometimes...why?"
"I just...I've just had this thought lately."
"You wanna have kids?"
"No, no...whether this world is safe enough yet for…kids...or not."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"You worried about us having kids?"
"..."
"I don't think there's a big chance of that happening. You being half and all."
"But what if-?"
"Can we change the subject?"
"...Yeah."
...
She thinks about her childhood, what bliss there was and wasn't.
Her father's promise, broken by circumstance, not by choice.
Her mother.
She wants someone to make that promise to.
She'll keep it.
She knows it’s a selfish thing to tell a child, given how their kind has to live.
But she knows she'll keep it.
But.
Biology is not on her side, or his.
With someone else, perhaps, a child would be possible.
And there is no one else.
...
He always kisses her softly. Gentle.
She leans her forehead against his.
"I'm pregnant."
...
"I thought of you, when I died the first time."
"You never told me that before."
"I didn't remember before."
...
He is afraid to hold their daughter.
"Come here," she beckons.
"No. I'll hurt her."
She takes his hands, lays them on her chest. Over her heart.
"Do you love me?"
"...Yes."
"Have you ever hurt me with these hands?"
"...No."
"Do you love our daughter?"
"Yes."
"You are not your mother."
He withers. And blooms.
He slowly brushes his finger along the baby's forehead.
"She looks like you," he says.
"But she’s got your eyes."
"She's beautiful.”
"Like her father."
...
They part, inhabiting the middle of the bed. They are still entwined in some ways.
"I'm afraid," he whispers to the dark.
"Of what?"
"My mother. And..."
She holds his hand.
"And what?"
"...myself."
She kisses his temple.
He stares at the ceiling.
...
She watches the slow rise and fall of his chest as he sleeps.
He's peaceful when he sleeps, now.
When he nightmared she held him until the screaming stopped, when he wanted.
Other times holding him made it worse.
So she would sit beside him, waiting for it to end.
"You're safe," she would say.
Two years later, he still wakes in a panic sometimes.
The past returns with the tide of the evening.
But she's always there.
Keeping vigil.
...
"When I found out you were alive, I tried to keep people from making you remember."
"..."
"It was something you had to do on your own."
"..."
"I was afraid, though."
"...What were you afraid of?"
"That you would come back before you knew. That I would die. That you would kill me, and never know."
"…"
"I would wake up in my dreams, and you would be standing in my doorway. I would be so happy, thinking you'd finally returned. But I would be sad, too. You've known lots of pain - I'd feel selfish."
"..."
"For you to feel that pain again, just so I could tell myself you knew my face."
"..."
"And then I'd realize your eyes were flat and empty. You weren't with me because you remembered. You were there because of them. And they gave you the tools to do the job."
"..."
"And then I'd wake up."
...
He dreams of hands.
They are not his hands.
They grab him, pinch him, slap him.
Mockingly caress him.
Violate him.
He cannot move, cannot fight back.
The hands are not gentle.
And when he wakes, he loathes the sensation of touch.
To be numb would be ideal.
...
The baby is soft and fragile, but he holds her and she doesn't break.
Her hair is like lavender down.
When she cries, both her eyes are black.
They are not sure if she has a kagune.
She is defenseless.
He tries to give her human food when she cuts her first teeth.
She does not eat it.
...
They spend hours looking at the baby. Playing on the floor.
Sleeping in the crib.
Eating in the chair.
Gurgling first words.
Taking stumbling steps.
"I don't know how she did it. How she could hurt me like that, over and over again," he says, one warm day. "I guess she needed something she couldn't get from me."
"Are you still afraid of her?"
"No. I pity her."
...
"I love you."
"I know."
"I always will."
"I know that too."