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“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Wifies moved, making just enough room for Branzy on the crystalline bench he’d been sitting at for hours.
“How’d it go?”
Branzy was cheerful as ever. Lucky him. Wifies pretended not to feel the starlight tug, the painful reminder that they shared a realm, and with it a little more.
He didn’t need any sort of reminder of his ability to connect to another living being, right now.
Dark grey painted fingernails pushed his latest figurine back and forth. Wifies stared, watching the stripes of colour rotate under his thumb, feeling out the cuboid and the fuzzy straps.
He pushed it over, and watched his doll fall to the floor, where it lay, motionless.
“Didn’t work.”
He’d pick it up later. It could join his others. Maybe Wifies would bring it to life, in one of his theatres, imbue it with some energy skimmed off the Code that could make it halfway to alive.
For now, he was miserable enough just to stare at it.
“They don’t always.”
“They don’t ever.”
Branzy had nothing to say, to that one. Good. He didn’t lose players. They always came back to his stars, but some were written out of Wifies’s stories. Some never came home to his idea of an ending.
Another bitter reminder that their power was hardly absolute. What was the point in watching, if there was nothing to do with the knowledge? Wifies felt like a child, bereft of the toys he was told to study.
“…you still have us.”
“Great. Thanks. That- feels so much better.”
It wasn’t fair, to lash out. But it wasn’t fair, for his friend to have died, before Wifies had even penned him a place in his heart. Players only lasted as long as the Code let them, no matter how hard Wifies tried to blot it out.
“Wifies…”
“Sorry.” Cheeks burning, he ducked his head, and tried to pull himself together. Even as his voice shook. “I just- didn’t think I’d lose this one.”
“What- what was their name?”
To spare him thinking about it alongside his peer, Branzy ducked under the table, retrieving the figurine from a floor made of hewn obsidian, run through with opaline cracks.
When he surfaced, Wifies had an answer, no matter how it made his tongue burn with salt.
“Hummer.”
“It’s- it’s a nice name.”
“Nicer when he was alive.”
“He might still be. Somewhere out there. You just- keep looking for him.”
“You said that about Parrot.”
It hurt, to drive the knife into his own chest. But Wifies felt like he needed the reminder. Hummer was nothing, compared to Parrot. Branzy was too nice, to give him that.
“I did. And- you’ll probably never find either of them.”
Wifies forgot how cruel Branzy could be.
“…thanks…”
“I mean it. Parrot- ok, I could find Parrot, but you’ll never find the version of him you knew. Hummer’s probably gone for good. Who knows if he’ll even log back on.”
“You’re not helping.”
“-But that doesn’t mean you should stop looking.”
Wifies stared, in sheer hatred, at Branzy, who was awful, and scoffed. Bitter, furious, exhausted. And wet. He still hadn’t had time to wash the metaphorical salt out of his hair. His clone’s bodies always lingered for a while too long for him to bear not to do something about it.
“Go away, Neutron.”
“Watch it, Taiji.”
Scowling, Wifies slid off the opposite end of the bench, not sparing a glance at the code rushing like stars made of petals in a river of ink on the other side of the stretching window. It was beautiful. He never wanted to see it again.
“Watch yourself.” Scowling, Wifies pulled his hoodie over his hands, to keep his nails from his skin. “I’m not doing this right now.”
Branzy didn’t say anything, as he walked away. And didn’t look back. He didn’t plan to. So he didn’t. He wrote his own story, pushed along by his own flowing ink. There was no escaping what he’d woven around himself.
Halfway to his room, Wifies remembered his latest figurine, and that he’d left it. It stung, to have come so close to forgetting. He’d struggled with Derek, for a while after the fact, pushing the thought back and forth in his mind until it dug a deep enough channel in its attempts to escape that he felt secure in letting it go. Sometimes the thoughts tried to wipe themselves clean of the universe.
Lucky, then, that they were outside of it.
Wifies made the snap decision to fall back on his trust in and hatred of Branzy, and shoved open the door to his room, collapsing into a desk chair rendered in shades of grey against a backdrop of much of the same.
They didn’t choose their rooms. They were given, as he should know, full well. He’d seen Branzy’s enough times, with the stretching, lilac branches, baby stars hanging like fruit, and unravelling into something he had the terrifying idea was best described as pure inspiration when plucked. The violet walls, the floating shelves, the artwork and the chalkboard of notes.
There were more, too, that he’d seen. The perks of being the youngest, which sure didn’t feel like a perk when he was living it. Rooms belonging to names he wasn’t old enough to know, apparently, just their titles, the same one of his he couldn’t bring himself to learn to love. He’d given himself a title, but apparently that didn’t matter to the universe. He couldn’t be the Director, not if all he was ever meant to do was watch.
Some of them were allowed to interfere. Saps did nothing but interfere, and Wifies hated him for it, an awful lot. Now that was his real name. He hadn’t been back here long enough to earn a title in eons. Xelqua was rarely allowed out, but rarely still meant sometimes.
He was stuck up here, conjuring clones of himself from the river of ink that flowed through his room, a shiny blackness against monochrome dullness. Those, he could send out, and he could even project himself into them, if he fancied hurting like players did. Sometimes he did.
Sometimes the loneliness was just too much to bear. Branzy was nice, more than nice, nicer than Wifies deserved, for some of the things he’d done out of boredom. But Void and Siren and Demi barely knew he existed, he hadn’t seen Saps since Branzy had gently but firmly told him not to go scrying after his fellow Watcher, and anyone else up here who even knew his name had probably never seen his face to match to it.
It was lonely. He could sit by the river, or the window, he could even plunge into the code, if he found the guts to seek out Void and ask permission to watch close-up. But none of it felt like the players. There was always a wall between them.
That was why Wifies tried so hard to get to know them. First small things, like the game itself, trying to find some companionship or meaning in the mobs, the feeble constructs of the Code. Trying to find some story he wouldn’t find himself at the start of, when he traced it back to the source.
That had been useless. So had toying with stories already finished, those had just hurt. But Xtreme had been one of his first figurines, back before he knew how many or how few he’d get through. Before he’d first been allowed to join a real server, and had promptly fucked that up worse than even Xelqua could manage.
That had been the worst part, if Wifies was really trying to tear his insides out with a rotating axel. After Unstable, after watching it fall apart, and only realising in the very last moments that he’d been the one tearing the wires out from the inside.
He’d understood, when he hadn’t been forgiven, afterwards. When he’d snapped back to his real form, trapped in this floating fortress amidst the code, and Branzy had grabbed him before he could do so much as start screaming. He’d understood, even if he’d been fighting the whole way, as Branzy held him in place and told him in words almost too fast to be made out that Xisuma wanted to talk to him.
Void, as he’d only been allowed to call their elder since. Who’d looked at him in much the same way he looked at Xelqua, in Wifies’s fellow truant’s worst moments, and told him he wasn’t old enough to understand. That it would be best to stay, and write his stories for a few epochs more, before he could be given another server to watch over.
He hadn’t been overly cruel. Harsh, certainly, but Void wasn’t the one to be unkind. He simply told Wifies everything he’d done wrong, which was everything, and told him he wasn’t allowed a chance to fix it.
It still stung to have lost whatever respect he’d garnered, on his very first try.
Slumped in his chair, Wifies reached for his doll of Parrot—sewn, unlike so many of the rest, so he could do as he did now—and pulled it to his chest, burying his face in handmade feathers.
He’d only been trying to help. He’d interfered, he’d realised that much, as Parrot grew in power and stubbornness. When he’d stopped listening, Wifies had felt it. The need to fix something, for his and his family’s and Parrot’s sake.
But, if that was really true, he’d have stayed in the body he’d conjured for Unstable. He’d have stayed, and poured his full power into fixing his mistake, instead of running scared and watching from afar as the programming he’d worked into his own clone did exactly as he’d do, devoid of knowledge of his duties.
Wifies had made a mistake, in ever being Parrot’s friend. Then in giving himself ideas of grandeur. Then in fleeing, in hopes of keeping his hands clean. Then in watching, as it came full circle, and his duties proved his undoing as the flame of satisfaction singed through what little defence he could give in the way of his own guilt.
He didn’t regret a bit of it. That was the bit Branzy understood. He’d lied, to Void’s face, because there had been no other choice. Wifies knew what happened when Xelqua vanished for interminable periods of time, often alongside Siren. No one else did, but he noticed, between the silence and the reconstituted possessions and the vacant look in Xelqua’s eyes.
Call Wifies selfish, or call him prudent, but if he couldn’t save Parrot from himself, he could at least do himself the favour, and keep his mouth shut of self-destructive snarks.
It would have been a work of a few words, to turn the mild disappointment in Void’s eyes to true frustration, if he knew that Wifies was more than misguided. He’d wanted to interfere. He’d wanted to save Parrot, the whole way, even when he realised, logically, he should be focusing on the server.
That was what was wrong with him. That was why he’d be trapped here, forever, following around players who had freedom he couldn’t dream of, and watching them die, over and over and over, like he wasn’t allowed to do so much as dream of, in his wildest fantasies.
They’d all tried it. Death didn’t exist, out here, but it didn’t stop anyone trying. It was one of the few kindred pulls Wifies felt to his given family. At some point in whatever constituted their life cycle, they all tried to kill themselves.
It never worked.
Unstable had been the worst of all worlds, really. Parrot hadn’t come out of it with any of the gifts Wifies had tried to give him, of safety and companionship and the love he’d been improvising from scratch. Wifies had finally managed to die, but he hadn’t even been in the clone as it happened to feel it. He’d had a sliver of a chance to right his own wrong, and prove himself capable of that much, but he’d hounded after his own wants, instead, selfishly pursuing the happiness of his best friend.
One hand clutching his doll of Parrot, Wifies reached out, to an ink pot forever replenished by his own innate being. He could write forever, in here. He might be doomed to, if Void got his protective way.
For now, it wasn’t such a curse, as it let him dip a quill Xelqua had made for him into the liquid darkness, and lean forward, pressing it to white wood it took to easy as paper.
Wifies wrote. It was his ritual, and an easy fallback, when everything else felt like it was failing him. He needed to write Hummer’s story.
The words vanished into the wood mere letters behind his quill, in a smooth disappearing act that kept up to his script like the rising tide swallowing a fleeing army. Wifies could feel them appearing in one of his journals, pure white volumes bound in shades of grey. This one would appear mauve, at first, then fade all the way to ghostly white. Parrot’s own lengthy journals were rapidly turning to a pewter only a few shades darker than Andrew’s.
Kelp crept up his arms, and salt built behind his eyes, and ink flowed from his fingertips, through Xelqua’s gift, into the desktop and through to legend. Wifies hardly breathed, lest he disturbed this, the one thing he could do right.
Sometime soon, he’d suck up his pride, and ask Siren quietly if Hummer’s story had ended how it was meant to. Siren was the best of them at prophecy, his waters flowing from the start to the end of Code itself, through every server that could or ever would exist. Void could call to the vacuum that existed around all things, manipulate nearly the whole of the Code like the strumming of a guitar, but it was Siren, who wrote songs that flowed like time.
Wifies wasn’t sure what he’d hope for, in an answer. Closure, obviously. Maybe some reassurance that, at least, his failure was only to himself. Maybe it would feel better, to know that Hummer might still have a chance, if the Code had wanted him a happier ending than what Wifies had granted him.
He’d have to ask. He didn’t get anything for free, around here. Lethe made him clothes that didn’t make him lose his mind, in return for journals that they could write in while sleeping. Xelqua gave him quills, so long as Wifies kept watch for him while he rigged Void’s bedroom door for an ill-fated prank. He’d charged quite a bit, actually. Wifies had been forced to make lunch with him, too, and feed back on his singing lessons, courtesy of some unnamed favour he’d done for Siren.
It hadn’t been an unpleasant way to spend a day, in hindsight.
Xelqua. Xelqua might understand, a fraction of what Branzy was too sensible to let himself acknowledge. Wifies didn’t know why the others didn’t seem to feel it, the pull to save players from themselves, to live and understand how they made the mistakes they did.
It could be worth a try.
Void would be watching the darkspace they could pass messages through, so Wifies would have to get up. He was nearly done writing, at least. He’d finish this, then he’d go to see Xelqua, and if Branzy hadn’t returned his figurine by then, Wifies was never speaking to his fellow Watcher again, and he’d get it back himself. Maybe Xelqua could be useful for that, too.
It was a mercy on himself, to zone out as he finished. There was a reason that his words disappeared as he wrote. It kept him focused, in some less twisted variant of Lethe’s endless forgetting. For Wifies, it served its purpose. He worked quickly. Branzy said he might be one of their best, in that respect. He was smart.
Still, that meant the end came quicker. And Wifies was left staring at a blank desk, Xelqua’s feather in hand, scared of doing so much as leaving his room. Void might be waiting, even if he’d have knocked, rather than dallied. Siren could be waiting, to teach Wifies something new about the consequences of meddling with players. He liked lessons.
He wasn’t going to stay in this room forever.
It was a short walk, down the shadow-lit corridor to Xelqua’s room, and Wifies spent it twisting his sleeves around his wrists. True to form, Lethe’s fabric never caught, or scratched, or irritated his skin. It was silky and smooth and cozy, flowing through his fingers like the water he’d watched Hummer drown in.
He knocked, in what he realised too late was Branzy’s pattern. Branzy liked his patterns, his own tributes to his favourite players. He checked rooms, tipped his head when he was curious, said words in languages Wifies didn’t know when he was feeling affectionate.
Wifies just hoped Xelqua wouldn’t be disappointed, when he saw him, not his acting mentor and warden.
“Neutr- oh. Taiji, hi!”
Xelqua grinned, a spark dancing in the painted, figure-eight mask around his eyes, drawn-on violets fading into spots of white, into darkness rimming his tropical irises. His teeth were shining white, behind lips painted a dark purple reminiscent of Branzy’s black makeup, and the purple tips of his hair served as a symbolic reminder that he, too, was on parole. He had his own colours, bright reds and greens with hints of yellow, but he wasn’t allowed to wear them like Wifies wore his greys.
He made do, though. To a player’s eyes, his red jumper would seem to serve as all the self-expression needed, but Wifies could see how it quite literally didn’t reach his eyes. Purple suited him, Watcher colours ringing his head like an angel’s collar, but it wasn’t him.
As was common, though, he was too cheerful to acknowledge it.
“Hello. Sorry. I…” Wifies trailed off, averting his eyes before he started to stare. Sometimes he pitied Xelqua, even if one of the two of them seemed decidedly happier. “I don’t know. Are you busy?”
“Nope. Not- unless it’s something really bad, because X might flay me if he catches me- y’know- having fun.”
Xelqua dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, and coaxed a smile out of Wifies.
“Not bad, I- I don’t think. Just talking.”
“Oh, haven’t you heard Siren’s latest thing? The power of words, pretty corrupting to players these days, apparently. So we’re not even allowed to talk to them.”
Surely, Xelqua was joking. Wifies studied his eyes, ringed in every colour of a tropical bird, searching for the hints that players traded easily as candy. That must mean joking, the glint of sheer delight that made him the bane of Void’s existence.
“…you’re fucking with me.”
“I am! Even Siren’s not that bad. Come on in, Tai, I’ve got nothin’ better to be doin’.”
Xelqua moved out of the way, and beckoned. Flashing him a grateful smile, Wifies followed the cue offered, and tried not to wince, at the blast of colour against his ink-stained eyes.
There was a reason, after all, that sometimes they weren’t allowed to talk to Xelqua. He was a bad influence, and didn’t even have the decency to be absent about it, like Saps. He was loud, and bright, and stubborn, and playful. Everything Void said they should try not to be.
His bedroom was a mess of red beanbags and green throw blankets and yellow lamps screwed into panelled walls, feathers hanging from a mobile on the ceiling, feathers scattered around his nest of a bed, feathers scattered across his desk, hewn of some kind of oak with brass finishing like it was lifted from a pirate’s ship.
Wifies swallowed, and stood like an idiot in the centre, as Xelqua fell back onto one of the beanbag with a sharp-toothed grin.
“Much better. Than this.”
He gestured to his own face, distaste soaking the action, even as his smile remained unwavering. It was a risky move. Wifies didn’t know what Void could see, and Xelqua should know better than most to be cautious. But he seemed unperturbed.
“X keeps telling me to learn to live with it.” Xelqua leaned backwards, examining his own decorations in a hung mirror that gleamed in the warm light, and scoffed. “And that he’ll give me my wings back. Which d’you think’ll happen first?”
“The wings.” Reluctantly lured into the conversation, Wifies settled on a pillow, a bright shade of green that still lingered just shy of Parrot’s neons. It was bearably different, like everything about Xelqua. “I believe in you.”
That, though, wasn’t different enough. That was a monster he should be letting vanish back into the waters of his mind already. There would be no use reliving his time with Hummer, knowing it was over for good.
“I can hope.” Unhappily, Xelqua tugged at his hair, like he could rub the lavender out with his fingertips alone. “I miss them.”
“The wings?”
Branzy talked about wings sometimes. Last time Wifies had seen Saps, he’d been shaking snow out of his own, and Siren’s came and went with his fluctuating moods. Only he, Lethe and Void didn’t seem to favour them.
Was he meant to have wings?
“Yeah. I can… feel the absence of them. That’s what they say about angels, isn’t it?”
Xelqua looked up at him, and for a second, his eyes were solid, reflective purple. Like the inside of a geode. Like oil on water. Like the depths of space. Like the inside of a magpie’s wing. Like spilled ink. Like-
Wifies shook his head, and squeezed his eyes shut remembering. He really was too young for this. You didn’t look into a Watcher’s eyes, not even one of your own.
“You don’t have them.” Xelqua’s voice was layered, young and older, older than Wifies, although he didn’t seem it. “You don’t look like me, Taiji. You know that.”
This wasn’t a prophecy. Wifies had never seen a prophecy delivered like this, Siren preferred to drop notes down the front of his hoodie and walk away sniggering. Or serenade Branzy, who was always far too easily flustered. This was simply Xelqua seeing, in his unique way.
“I- do. Yeah. What do I have?”
“Scales.” Xelqua grinned, tracing down the side of his own neck in a playfully threatening action. “Feathers, but they’re not mine. Horns, a tail, you name it, Taiji. Wings, but only if you want them.”
In a way, it was a relief. Wifies had never much fancied styling himself as an angel. Branzy and Saps enjoyed it, appearing to players like a divine blessing, but Wifies hated the idea of being seen like that.
“Like… Siren? Changing? Xelqua?”
It was ok to press. This was Xelqua’s territory, Wifies would never hear this from anyone else, and Xelqua loved to talk. It would be a few seconds, and maybe he’d know something more. Maybe he’d know what to go looking for next.
“Like Siren. You’re good, Taiji. Very good.” Xelqua’s painted lips pulled into a smile, different, but still joyous. “It’s going to hurt more than you know.”
And the purple was gone. Wifies saw it vanish, in the corner of his eye, and it was just Xelqua, eyeing him with constrained glee. He didn’t meet it. He was filing, processing, storing the information.
“You like it?”
“…Yeah. Thanks. Sorry, if you- didn’t mean to do that.”
“I don’t mind. It’s fun.”
Wifies could sense the question coming. Xelqua had no qualms, no restraint, and if he wanted something, he was going to get it. Besides, it would be a fair trade, the question on his painted lips. Everything came with a price.
“You do me.” Xelqua sat up in his beanbag, holding his hands out dramatically. “Find me a way out of this place, Taiji.”
“It’s… Wifies. And- won’t Void be-“
“Fine. A way to get this stuff off my face.”
There was a long, long hesitation, before Wifies moved in return. Void could be angry. Xelqua was always looking for get arounds, for loopholes, for the best window to sneak out of into the night. But if he’d wanted someone to tell him what he really looked like, then it was only fair to offer his innateness in return. To find someone a way out, as he’d been gifted to do.
Wifies held out his hands, and Xelqua practically grabbed them. In that second, he betrayed desperation, maybe more than he’d intended, and Wifies met his eyes with frightening clarity.
They were all looking for escape, in here.
Maybe he had more to offer his family than he was lead to believe.
“…Sorry.” Wifies held on, apologising not for himself, but for being witness to Xelqua’s momentary vulnerability. “What am I looking for?”
“Don’t really mind.” Xelqua was staring at the floor, breathing measured in a way that showed practice, for the purpose of concealing himself. “Anything. I need out of here. Soon.”
A small breath escaped him, and Wifies realised too late it might come off degradingly pitying. It was, a little, but he had too much respect for Xelqua to mean it rudely. He had sympathy, and that was all.
“I can try. Sorry, again.”
“Don’t do that.” Xelqua’s eyes were sharp on him, the colours tunnelling together to a psychedelic point. “And call me Grian. Do you… prefer Taiji or your name?”
“Name. Wifies. Sorry.”
“Ok, Wifies.” Laughing, Grian squeezed his hands, and it was just a little too hard to be purely reassuring. “Stop apologising, then. Fair trade.”
That made sense. Wifies nodded, unsure why he was so hesitant, and Grian’s voice turned a tiny bit more serious.
“Don’t apologise. For anything. Don’t… let them tell you what to do.”
That was a scarier proposition. Grian must have felt him freeze under the weight of it, because he let go, and offered another nervous laugh to ease the tension.
“Ok. Go- go do your thing, Wifies.”
Far, far easier. Wifies mouthed a silent thanks to whatever beings existed above them, and closed his own eyes, just for the sake of concentrating.
Not that it mattered, when the world turned translucent around him. An x-ray pack had activated, one behind his eyes and neurons, and Wifies could see…
Far more than he expected to. It was dizzying, to stand on the brink of seeing through everything he held solid. Wifies could fall forward, through infinite ways out of everything he found unpleasant, and never stop. He could go forever, provided he never looked back.
He looked up, at Grian, hopeful and shimmery, like an item waiting to be placed.
A way to remove what Void had put on him. To give him back some sense of identity, which he held so dear, seeing in other people at a glance. That was a type of escape, not as literal of the sorts he’d become attuned to, with Parrot.
“Ask if you can help Lethe test his project with Siren.” Wifies could hear Xelqua’s intonation in his own voice, and felt himself getting swept up in the enjoyable current of abiding by his purpose. “They’ll make you new clothes too, for next time you leave.”
All he could see was means of escape. That was it, and it sounded simple, but Grian’s shaky sigh made Wifies feel a little like an angel. He could see why Branzy got addicted to the idea of it.
“Is that… enough?”
“I- I think that’s good. Thanks, Wifies.”
Wifie’s pulled back, actual objects snapping into resolution as his eyes opened again. Grian looked entirely unchanged. As he should be. All Wifies had done was speak, and watch, really watch the world around them.
It remained a little unsettling, to look at someone he’d been able to see straight through a moment agin, and feel his gaze stopped by mere flesh and fabric.
“…God, sorry.” Rubbing his head, Wifies leaned back, his hand slipping clumsily off another small heap of primary-coloured blankets. “That was awful.”
“It wasn’t.”
“It-“ Wifies caught himself, eyes flicking to Grian in a slightly chastened hesitancy. “…It was fine. I guess.”
“It was great. I’d have thought of Lethe eventually, obviously, but you’re a great help to have around.”
His face was burning. Wifies’s gaze flickered across Grian, the real Grian, as he presented himself, and imagined how he saw himself in his own eyes. Large, tropical wings, red and yellow and green, and orange and blue underneath, and Parrot’s voice, telling him he was good enough.
Grian wasn’t Parrot. Grian was what Parrot could have been, if he’d understood who Wifies was, but then he wouldn’t be Parrot at all, if he’d taken the time to consider Wifies as any more than a companion. When he’d stopped that, stopped merely following and observing, he’d stopped being Wifies, by anyone’s definition.
“…You good?”
“Yeah. I might- go find Neutron…”
“Be careful, ok? Your escapes don’t always tell you when you need them, y’know.”
“I know. Thank- thank you. Sorry.”
Wifies got up, and practically fled, not sure why he was suddenly so scared of Grian.
There was just something unsettling, about him. Like entering a cave removed from the starlit halls they moved in. Every time Wifies drifted into Grian’s orbit, he was worried he’d upset something. Or someone would scold him, for getting so close to their most disgraced peer.
Grian was dangerous, in a colourful, exciting way, pure temptation wrapped up in a hypnotic mobile of feathers. He made Wifies feel like if he stumbled, soft down would catch him.
Which wasn’t true. If he fell, he fell all the way to the cold, hard ground, and was dragged to Void, who told him he wouldn’t get another chance. If he fell, he had to fall past the only person he’d ever cared for.
No, Wifies couldn’t make mistakes. Grian was a fool, more luck than judgement somehow keeping him intact. It took a resilience Wifies didn’t fully believe in the existence of, to take that many punches and keep smiling.
Best to get away quickly, before Grian made him do something stupid.
He could go back to his room, but… there was nothing to do there. Nothing waiting for him, no one waiting for him. Just more loneliness, and the thought made Wifies nauseous, for the first time in a while. As bad as it had been his first few nights away from Unstable, when he’d woken up in a cold sweat, searching for familiar feathers.
He could have found those, in Grian. But Branzy had never so much as suggested it, which made Wifies suspect there would have been a worse price to pay for such an easy comfort. Instead, he got the freezing touches of a star given humanoid form and violet eyes, space to scream, Void’s best wishes and sympathy, and on one memorable occasion, Siren, singing him a lullaby to sleep.
That had been one of his few happy memories, before his mind had started to work backwards, to sever all remembrances of Parrot from his current self. Easier, if he imagined it as some entirely separate entity, like one of his clones had truly gone rogue.
Maybe Siren could do that for him again, to draw a line that pointed him towards the future.
Or maybe he just needed Branzy, to hug him without strings attached. Branzy didn’t take payment, like the others did. He took what he wanted, when he wanted, and he’d often be walking away with a grin by the time whoever it was worked out what game they’d just lost wth him.
Wifies had forgotten who he was looking for, by the time he nearly walked face-first into Siren, staring out a window wistfully like he was looking for the creatures that gave him his name, and panicked, defaulting to the best conversation his mind could throw up on immediate notice.
“Have you seen Neutron?”
“Me?”
“Yes?”
Sometimes, Wifies really did believe Branzy, that he was smartest of them. His rival for that was meant to be Siren himself, looking around innocently like someone else might be hiding behind him for Wifies to question to the point of interrogation.
No, apparently. They were all idiots. He was an idiot, for getting so worked up over something as small as his favourite person who he’d never see again seeing him as nothing more than what the Code had intended. A passive observer. And condemning him, when he tried to be something more.
“Since when? I’ve seen him sometime in the past week, darling, but-“
Siren was very, very lucky Wifies didn’t have Grian’s issues with impulse control. He’d have punched him, right there, if the thought hadn’t been reprehensible to his sense of self-control.
Instead, tears welled, and Wifies found himself unable to speak for one very, very long moment.
“-but shit. Ah- shit. Uh…”
Siren uncrossed his arms, and pushed one hand back through his messy hair, accidentally conjuring cat ears as he went. They were pressed down flat, a sign of distress, and Wifies could barely see them, from where his fellow Watcher had at least half a foot of height on him.
“Neutron!”
Idiot. Everyone here was so stupid, and Wifies was trapped with them. He pressed one hand over his mouth, then shoved his whole sleeve there instead, and backed away until he hit a wall, trying to hide. He didn’t need Siren to see him cry. He didn’t need anyone to see him cry over nothing.
It wasn’t like anyone would stay, to watch. Parrot had left him as soon as Wifies had tried being himself. Derek had never even looked at him, even though he must have known. Hummer might have lied to him about everything, or maybe Wifies was the worst person in the world, for not staying by his side.
“Hey, darling? Eyes on me?”
Siren had a musician’s fingers, dancing across his cheek. Wifies found his head tipped up, and closed his eyes, trying to will his expression to stay neutral. This was no place to break down. Nowhere was.
“Please don’t cry. I- I don’t know what to do if you cry.”
Siren could leave him alone. That would be nice. Wifies was struggling, his head barely kept above the waters threatening to pull him in, and he knew there’d be no escape from Siren, if he let that happen. He’d rather drown in his own unwritten stories.
“Neutron. You wanted Neutron?”
He wanted anything. He wanted to never be alone again, but that was never going to be something Void or the Code could grant him.
“Sorry.”
He was falling back on broken routines. He hadn’t apologised enough to Parrot, but Parrot would never have accepted them. Wifies was trapped, looping back on himself, and all he really wanted to do was kill something with his own face, for daring to ruin his own life.
“No, darling, it’s okay. We all get a bit lost sometimes, don’t we?”
Siren had that way about him. Persuasive, sinuous, irresistible as he pulled Wifies’s attention to him, tapping gently on his cheek. So soft, like a coiled viper, like a cat strolling amongst the pigeons, like a bird gathering its nest.
Wifies stared, miserable and eyes wide with naivety, up at Siren’s glittering blindfold. At the way his lips curved into a gentle smile, and he dropped the touches entirely.
“All of us. Even me.”
It was common knowledge, the things Siren took care to know. He made everyone feel special, like his quiet attention was for them alone. Wifies wasn’t blind, to the feeling of being watched, not after living in the shadow of Branzy’s twitchiness most of his life.
Now, it felt like all he could cling to, how well Siren must surely know him, if he lived up to his reputation. Wifies didn’t have the energy to get angry.
“Can you… sing for me?”
His voice was hoarse, and quiet, and childish. A child who’d cried himself to exhaustion. Wifies just wanted to rest, somewhere far away from the sea and the stars and everything in between. Somewhere out of sight.
“Always. You’ve got to get up, first, though. Who would I be to let you sleep here?”
Someone who didn’t actually care about him at all. Which Siren was. Obviously. None of them cared about Wifies, who kept to himself, and tried his utmost to avoid them, as far as he could.
“And go where?”
Wifies wasn’t an idiot, glaring up at that concealing blindfold in his own blind kind of impudence. By laws of decorum, he should roll over nicely for whatever Siren asked him to do, in the hopes of being taken on as some kind of mentee or given a boon. But he already had Branzy, even if that was far from official, and Wifies didn’t feel like playing nice.
“Well, that’ll be your choice. I’m looking at my room, or Neutron’s. Or we can find somewhere more private.”
Siren’s teeth flashed in a grin eerily reminiscent of his namesake, and Wifies tried his best to avert his gaze.
“And... if I want mine?”
“Interesting proposition. Why?”
“Is it your business?”
“Look, firstly, I have a duty of care, secondly, I have a duty of caring, thirdly, darling, mark me curious. Control issues?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Anything more than that?”
“No. Forget it.”
“Ah- Taiji…”
Wifies froze, hands glued against the wall as if it were made of honey. Siren’s musical command sank through his bones, running rampant through every inch of him, invading his arteries and lungs like glacial floodwater.
“Good.” Siren’s voice had turned to a satisfied purr, as he couched, and took Wifies’s face in both hands, adjusting his cheeks to gaze critically into his narrowed eyes. “I think we’re going to go find Neutron, aren’t we? Then, we can look into getting you what you want.”
Trust Wifies to go to the fucking sadist for help getting to sleep. Siren patted his cheek as if he were some idiotic puppy, and released him, leaving Wifies to collapse back onto the floor like he’d been kicked in the gut.
“I- I’ll tell Void that you- that you did tha-“
“By all means. Watch him try to stop me.”
“…God, you- you are terrible.”
“Says the boy who just came from Xelqua. Give you ideas, did he?”
“There is no way you should know that, you creep-“
“Oh, please. Save it for someone young enough to care. Just listen, darling, it’ll do you the world of good.”
“Xelqua said-“
“Are you really going to listen to Xelqua, little Taiji?”
Siren’s drawl effectively ploughed through any trains of thought Wifies had been trying to muster, as he struggled to his feet, and he was left reeling. That was what he’d been asking himself, as he walked away, as he’d wondered how much of his life was a trade of tit for tat.
Siren wasn’t asking for anything in return. Just for Wifies to calm the fuck down.
“Why shouldn’t I?” Cagey, but not disagreeable. Wifies could see where Siren’s logic was going to be going. He just wanted to bait it out, rather than be forced to sit still and listen nicely, as Siren was known for doing, when someone got the worse of his bad side, and ended up being treated like his doll until the bad mood wore off.
“Because he’s… deranged? Although- this is the place for that, isn’t it? Well, then, he’s short-sighted, and distinctly self-focused, and… you felt it, didn’t you, darling? How he always asks for something?”
“Everyone asks for something.”
“At least when I ask you to play a game, Taiji, I tell you which of us is going to win at the outset.”
Wifies blinked, and glared, forcing himself to his feet and his own centre of gravity to keep him there, as tirades gathered in his throat like a thunderstorm.
“Now. Are we in the mood to listen?”
Cheater. Wifies felt himself sink, back under the crashing water, down to where it was peaceful and silent and he was helpless, feeling Siren surround his mind.
“There we go… you’re always cuter like this.”
Siren sighed, and Wifies sincerely hoped he wasn’t meant to be responding. It felt like a plural you, anyway. Siren was older than most of them. He had the experience to say that, the same experience that set him alongside Void in a certain disconnect from what their younger peers truly felt.
“I know, darling, I’m old.”
He hadn’t meant to say that. He hadn’t meant to take Siren’s hand, either, but he did, and Wifies felt his feet begin to move underneath him, moving to follow.
“Xelqua’s as old as me, you know.”
Through the drowning haze, Wifies nodded. He’d known that. But he hadn’t known, hadn’t considered. Xelqua acted Wifies’s age, yet should have the same attitude as their elder he so frequently flouted.
Siren might be right. The thought left a bitter taste in Wifies’s mouth, but it had become unavoidable.
Birds always turned out the same, with their bright plumages and promises to stand by him.
Xelqua melted into Parrot’s smile, and both of them melted into ink, and Wifies was left drowning in Siren’s waters as the inevitable future rushed in to swallow him whole, like a Leviathan constantly beneath his feet.