NaNo '05 - Shedding Skins (Chapter 3.1)
Shedding Skins
Chapter Three
- Of Envy and Hope -
The first thing he sees when he comes to is the Chinese ideogram for Peace. There are voices, and there is tension, but he can't quite make out the words. His mind is foggy and he thinks, peace. He could do with some of that. He doesn't quite feel his body, doesn't quite know where he is, doesn't quite remember who he is. And he has no clue how he came to this place he can't identify.
Suddenly a face looms above him, obstructing the ideogram some. Even through the fog he can recognise him, because he's the only one he knows that has such golden skin, and handsome features, and eyes as dark as his hair, and - and then a second face joins him, one that looks younger, a pretty boy with eyes so clear he can almost see the water flow through them. And it's the pretty boy that holds his head up and gives him white milky liquid to drink, even though he's all tension and knots.
After the effort of swallowing he closes his eyes and lets the darkness claim him again.
He starts awake at a sharp pain in his stomach, doubles over and throws up into a basin very strategically placed just next to the bed. There is movement and he inches back instinctively, ready to strike out. It's Caden, who stops in his tracks as he sees his stance, and then evenly walks the rest of the way to the bed.
He talks in a hurried whisper. "I told my friend you were a client of mine called Elias Sun, that you odeed on treth and I want to help you quit."
He blinks, and the trembling comes over him but he does his best to sit up and hold Caden's gaze. Only for a beat, because then he is assessing their surroundings. The place is decorated with taste, warm and inviting, full of silks and hangings and there is the telltale hourglass of a Companion sitting on a low table. Above the bed is Peace, carefully painted on a drape of off-white silk. He knows something isn't right, only realises what it is when he glimpses a cockpit behind some hangings.
"Did you hear me?"
He looks back at Caden, who visibly flinches. He wonders whether his gaze is as crazy as he feels inside, as if he had been broken into tiny little shards that were assembled back the wrong way around. And he can't figure out which shape he is now. "Elias Sun, treth addict, your client. We're on a spaceship."
"Yes, I asked a favour from a friend, this is his shuttle. He's a Companion as well."
"Why?"
"You said things. That people were after you. I thought it best to leave Londinum." Caden pauses. "I didn't plan to stay there very long anyway."
He wants to ask more questions, about why Caden would make such a long trip for this short a stay, and who his friend is and what about the ship, and its captain and crew, but most of him doesn't care. There is too much tiredness in him, and at last he lays back down, curls in on himself and lets the shivers take over.
"What happened to you?" he hears Caden whisper.
Life, he wants to answer. Sin. Destiny. But he knows that it is not what Caden wants to hear, and so he stays silent and drifts back to sleep.
He wakes up to something wet and cold being wiped across his brow. Is surprised at the luminosity of the eyes, the youth of the features, the strands of blond in the short hair. He is still shivering, but not as much as he has been.
"Nihao," the Companion greets him, and pulls his hand back towards him, along with the wet cloth it holds. He feels the need to explain himself, apparently, justify that he was taking care of him. "You were sweating and Caden is on the ship."
He clings to the boy's gaze, tries to read the reason why. All he can focus on is how young he looks, so very young, and yet he is probably not much younger than Caden, if at all. Is it Caden that looks old, then, or is his mind that warped? He shivers.
"You're not addicted to treth," the Companion states, and his gaze is unwavering. "Does Caden know it's not treth?"
He isn't actually sure of the answer, but the boy takes his silence for a yes. He glances away, briefly, just long enough to suppress the burst of anger from his expression. Because Companions do not let emotion take over, and it is another piece of the puzzle.
Except it seems that this one does, because he drops the cloth in the basin by the bed and stands up, heads off to a secretary where he lights a stick of incense. He breathes in deeply a few times, and his stance is a tale of repressed tension. When he looks back at him his eyes glint harshly, and he seems on the brink of saying something, but then he just leaves the shuttle.
He stares at the Chinese ideogram for a long time, unable to find sleep, aware that he does not have enough strength to stand up. He cannot remember eating anything in the past... however long he has been in this shuttle. So instead, he thinks.
He thinks about the boy-Companion's anger, and the way Caden's eyes and voice said nothing more when he called him a friend, but he quickly pushes those thoughts away because more urgent matters press on his mind.
He thinks about Leticia's crying eyes, tears of blood, and the black marble of her pupils. He thinks about her pouch, and the drugs he must have mixed so wrong, and the emptiness that is gripping his insides. But he pushes those thoughts away because they make the pain that much harder.
He thinks about the disk, and almost gets a panic attack. His heart feels as if it is going to burst out of his chest, and his lungs feel as if they cannot get any air in. He feels heat rush to his face as he flushes, or would if he didn't have dark skin. It's a first, and he is surprised at how much he wants this disk. Why does it matter still? She was right. He doesn't want to leave now, no matter that the choice was taken away from him by Blue Sun Operatives. He stares at Peace and gets his body back under control, as much as he can anyway.
He looks down at the clothes he was changed into, the rich, light cloth of the sleeveless top and trousers, a bit too small for him, probably Caden's. They changed him, and he wonders whether Caden or the boy-Companion took his disk. He wonders what they did with his blade, too, because no matter what it is still a part of him. She was right, too, when she said he was still an Operative. You never stop being an Operative.
He thinks about this ship they are on, this ship he has no clue about. He thinks about Elias Sun, too, treth addict and client of Caden's, and wonders whether there is any point when the boy-Companion very well knows it isn't treth, not really, only that one odee. But nothing tells him the boy-Companion will have confronted Caden, so he might as well play the game. Besides he needs a mask, somebody to slide over himself, because he isn't sure they could deal with an Operative, isn't sure they would still want to help him, and right now he needs help. Whether or not he deserves it is irrelevant; whether or not he gets it is all that matters.
So when Caden enters the shuttle it is Elias Sun that manages to sit up against some pillows, Elias Sun that is just a less cold version of himself, Elias Sun that is shivering now and then because Elias Sun is in withdrawal, and it's not pretty, but he wants to pull through.
It is Elias Sun who asks in a levelled voice, "Tell me where we are."
"I'm glad that you feel better," Caden greets him, although there is scepticism in his voice. Elias holds his gaze without flinching, though, so he answers his question. "We're headed for Beaumonde."
"This ship?"
"Isatis. A Firefly transport."
"Captain?"
"Monty Reynolds."
Captain Reynolds. A Firefly transport. Too much of a coincidence, and God is laughing at him. He can almost hear Him, and the laughter bounces off the walls of his head. It's not Destiny anymore, it's Divine Irony.
"What is it?" Caden asks, and he realises the laughter is his.
He sobers up, abruptly. "Nothing. Where are my effects?"
"Who are you?"
He wants to laugh again, and the sound breaks past his lips, short-lived and brittle, drops to the floor where it shatters. Don't walk barefooted, you'll get cut, he wants to tell Caden, and only just refrains. He looks into the dark eyes and uses them as anchor. "Elias Sun. Treth addict. Your client."
"Don't give me that," Caden says, and there is a hint of anger in his voice. "Who are you, really?"
He doesn't want to laugh anymore, he wants to cry. He wants to laugh until he cries and it's him that shatters instead of the chips of laughter. River is standing in the hatchway, and her words nestle in the emptiness of his chest. Please God, make me into a stone.
Caden moves forward, sits on the edge of the bed. He's slinked down, he realises, and wants to move out from under Caden's touch, but his limbs are like lead and his mind pulls at him in different directions and so Caden's hand is on his arm, glides up to his shoulder like a heavy funeral shroud, and his eyes are as black as his hair, like a raven's wings and mothers sobbing, or laughing, he cannot tell.
"D-don't," he manages to grit out, and he didn't know what fear felt like until now.
A monster, a fallen angel with eyes as big as all the souls they have swallowed up, leaning over him and is his soul next, that would be a joke, because it's bound to be just as black and it might give him a fight. The demon cups his cheek with one hand and says, "It's going to be all right."
Handsome demon with lies tumbling down his pretty lips, white flashes, the tip of a sharpened fang. He shakes his head, tries to push away from him but there's only the bulkhead and the bed and nowhere to go. Say my name, pretty liar, he thinks out loud.
So loud Caden hears, it seems, telepathic demon, out of the Academy maybe, a schoolmate of River's. The smooth face frowns and the eyes relent for an instant, the suction stops and he feels his soul tumbling back down to the bottom of the pit in his chest, but it's only a moment's respite. "Elias?"
"Elias Sun. Born in Irving, Londinum, thirty-two years ago. Thirty-three next month. An orphan, doesn't know his parents. Got involved in treth traffic when he was young. Put off using for as long as possible, but he dived in a few years ago. He's not like the regular dealers, though, else he couldn't have attracted a Companion like you into his bed. He's smoother, but he doesn't understand - doesn't understand why you care. Why you came back and chose him as a client, even after you found out what he does for a living, and why you're helping him now. He doesn't deserve your help, but he's glad for it anyway. He needed to get out of those circles, and you're taking him."
The suction has stopped, the eyes have gone dead, or maybe alive, but the other way around, polarities reserved, and maybe his soul is trying to suck them in. "Who are you," come the words again, but they're no longer a question. They're a statement, a revelation.
Elias's hand is still trembling, but he grips the Companion's arm firmly to slide it off of him. Then he curls up on his side, his back to him and his eyes, and he tries to find a bit of what he might have sucked in mixed with what is left of his soul.
Elias wakes up in a start, heart beating madly, and he doesn't really know why. He feels too hot, and yet he's still shivering. The only light in the shuttle is a low glowing orb that sheds penumbra, just enough light for shadows to exist, and everything is in shades of cream and dark. On the other side of the large bed the two Companions are fast asleep, bodies pressed together in a casual display of intimacy. The boy's head is resting on Caden's chest, their arms around each other, their legs entwined. But when he looks closer, he sees that what they had in mind when they fell asleep was to give him peace and room. Their bodies are edged away from him, but if he inched his arm to the left he could touch the boy's back, Caden's arm.
He lies still and listens to the three of them breathing, the way they mix back their carbon dioxide after pulling their oxygen from the very same place. It's a miracle people can bear it on a daily basis, such proximity, such atrocious closeness, for something like that should be done in private, except now he knows, he knows, and the knowledge has lodged itself in his spine and it's paralyzing him, and he can't breathe anymore, knowing that they are too, and his hands twist in the covers, press down into the mattress, and he tries to scream but can't.
Clear eyes like the sky on Whitefall before dawn, blue that is clearing up by the second and stars shining harder as the sun threatens to glare them out of existence, and that's exactly what they're like. Trying to survive through the glare of the sun, clinging so as not to be burned away to cinders, desperate for life. Hands clamp on his arms, well-traced eyebrows frown over the starry eyes, and then fingers dig into his flesh.
The pain makes something click, and he breathes in. Sees stars, blinks, wants to pull away from the Companion, but the boy holds him in place a few seconds, then lets go of his arms and puts a finger to his own lips for silence, nods towards the sleeping Caden. Crouches back, makes an inviting gesture with his hand, and heads over to the cockpit.
Elias blinks, looks at the still form of Caden, wonders how the boy-Companion could slink away without waking him. Caden shifts at that moment, turns towards him, and Elias stares at his smooth face for a few seconds, feeling trapped. That's when he decides to go join the boy-Companion behind the drapes.
The volutes are mesmerising, unfurling on the coat of sprinkled stars that fly by the cockpit's window, and he stares at them for a few seconds before a touch on his forearm makes him acknowledge the boy. The boy that gestures for him to take a seat, and offers him the cone he is smoking from. The air is filled with a herbal scent, slightly spicy, some sort of da ma.
"It should help," the boy whispers, and it's barely a breath.
Trembling fingers reach for the cone, and when he pulls on it he almost coughs, but holds it in and feels the smoke filling his lungs. A few drags later and the smoke is filling in the emptiness, and the trembling has gone down. The starry eyes are watching him quietly, and he lowers himself into the seat he was earlier offered. His mind is less clouded, even though it buzzes slightly, and he blinks.
"How do you know so much about it?" he asks in a whisper of his own.
"I'm a recovering treth addict," the boy answers, and nothing passes in the eyes. They're in a moment of truth, cold honesty, and it means double up or nothing. "I never odeed, thankfully. If the Guild learned about it they'd probably revoke my status."
"Why did you quit?"
Something shows in the eyes, surprise maybe, that he asked the right question. Not why did you start, but why did you quit. The boy does not move, though, keeps his body language silent. "It was beginning to show. That could affect my work." Elias passes him the cone back, and the boy takes it with thanks in his eyes. He speaks after taking a drag, and his words come with more volutes. "What are you addicted to?"
"It doesn't have a name." Frowns, corrects himself. "Or rather, I don't know it."
"And why are you quitting?"
"Because I only have one dose left, and no way to procure any more." He breathes in, forces himself to let it out in a slow, regular flow, rather than sending it shattering out into the air. "I was given a substitute by - a friend." He knows he has said too much in his pause, but he is not in his normal state and he is not used to the feelings he has when he thinks about her corpse. The boy hands him the cone back, and still his eyes say nothing, demand nothing, and for that Elias is grateful. His own words blow smoke out this time. "She's gone now. She said it was treth, but cut with a special ingredient and specifically dosed. She didn't give me any more instructions than that. I found the treth, and a brown powder, mixed them randomly, and odeed."
"Milk. You have to cut treth with lactose. That's what she meant by dosing it." There is something shining now in the eyes, like the sun trying to make the stars fade away, but giving them more brilliance instead, and the same thing is laced through the Companion's voice. "I can't believe you survived uncut treth."
He's not entirely sure he has, but he manages to keep that thought inside his mind. "I need more."
The boy's lips thin to a line. "You don't know treth's street name. The rich and wealthy like calling it "eye's apple," but those it made miserable know better. One-Chance is what they call it. Odee on it once and it's over for you. Next hit will kill you."
He takes that in, feels the death of his only chance, and locks the pain away. He takes another drag, focuses on the heat suffusing his lungs. Blows the smoke out before he speaks, and hands the cone over to the boy for him to finish it. "I don't know your name. He never said."
And for the first time something dark slides over the boy's features, and he looks as if he is an addict, and just as old as Caden, and not much of a boy after all. "Amando." A look passes between them. "I know why he's helping you. But I don't know why he cares for you."
Elias frowns, unsure what Amando means or what to reply.
The boy that is not one saves him the trouble. "You should get some more sleep. Your body needs as much rest as it can get -"
"It's going to kill me." He pronounces the words calmly, like the statement of fact that it is. "It's a drug we're not meant to quit."
He stands and walks through the drapes, goes to lie down on the bed. Lies there wrapped in silence, and stares at the ceiling where he sees Amando's face, the utterly frozen look of a muted reaction.
The boy-Companion only follows a few minutes later, and he settles down between Caden and Elias. Elias doesn't know why, but he doesn't push away the hand that slides into his. It's a comfort, even though it tears his soul in half. He feels drowsy, and his head is a buzz, and there is pain but he has got used to it. He strokes the hand idly with his thumb, to make sure it is there, and warm, and real, and goes to sleep.