Chapter Text
A few nights later, that same smell scratches at her throat—the old familiar burn of smoky brine and blood, soaked into leather and canvas. She’s standing at the sink, washing the dirty plates from her poor excuse of a dinner with the window left ajar. The odor almost knocks her flat with emotion; fear is there (of course) but as she catches sight of a red light bouncing among the trees, moving faster then any regular human can, an overwhelming pang of guilty intrigue wells up in her. The feeling is not new to her—it’s the same bottomless anticipation and fear she felt upon seeing Rapture for the first time, or leaning over Jack under Olympic Heights, watching Delta reunite with Eleanor: it’s a sweeping tingle, and a cautionary joy pricks the corners of her mouth up. She’s on the precipice of something BIG, (and good, she wouldn’t be so excited if it wasn’t, she doesn’t want to think about the other not-good things she’s done) and before she can change her mind she wraps her soapy fingers around the sill and shoves it open.
She yanks the curtains out of the way and shouts, in a voice made slightly hoarse with fear, "YOU THERE! "
Out in the distance, the red light stops, sways. For a single hysterical moment, it feels like a searchlight, bearing down on her from the trees.
Steeling herself, Brigid makes a beckoning gesture through the open window, grimacing as she tries to force her expression into a winning smile. This has to work. It just does. She’s so caught up in trying to force her crazy hopes into happening, to think it real, that she almost fails to notice that it actually is working—the red light bounces crazily across the earth towards her, as wild and luminescent as an enormous firefly. The trees cut the brightness into strange shapes, so unnatural in their starkness that from a distance the light appears to Brigid to be geometric puddles of blood staining the soil.
The light stops charging suddenly, hangs static against the grass, and Brigid tears her eyes away from the unchanging shapes on the floor to see the Big Sister simply standing at the tree line. Even with the distance between them, she can see how one of the Sister’s hands is gripping the trunk of the tree, how her entire posture has gone rigid.
She has nothing to offer this child: no miracle cure for the suffering, no bandage for the trauma. She only has herself, and she gives it willingly.
(It’s the least she can do.)
"I can help you," she calls at the figure across the field, feeling the familiar fear send her heart haywire. The force of her pulse makes her hands shaky, makes her palms sweat, and for balance she finds herself leaning harder and further on the windowsill, stretching across the sink.
"However—only if you want, schätzchen."
Before she can think it through, she pushes the window open further, ignoring the groans of the tired frame and the cool air that rushes in, raising goosebumps against the wetness of her arms. She forces the window wider open still, and then before her churning stomach can betray her, calmly walks away, letting the curtains snap in the breeze. Her body moves on autopilot, leaving her mind behind: her feet carry her to the bedroom, her arms open the door and then shut it; her legs tilt to let her sink into the bed. Almost blindly, she crawls into blankets, ignoring the way the dishwater makes the fabric cling to her. On her left, the clock on her nightstand informs her it’s only 6 in the afternoon, but she ignores the time and sinks deeper into the cushions, staring at the ceiling. She doesn’t move, doesn’t think, even as the night sucks the last bit of color from the sky and then, much later on slowly yields to the pink of dawn.
Was this a mistake? Would she die?
By the time she unglues herself from her impossibly stiff position, her eyes feel sandy with fatigue and her head heavy with stress. Cautiously she pushes the bedroom door open and pokes her head out: a turtle from a shell, as her mother used to say. The home is quiet and in one piece, and the sight of everything undisturbed lets her release a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Her window is still open, curtains swirling in the breeze and staring into the woods like a lidless eye.
She’s almost halfway through making herself breakfast with trembling (though slowly steadying) hands when she realizes two things: one, her only tube of lipstick is missing, and two, there is an unmistakable dent in her couch cushions that wasn’t there before.
The inside of her home is so normal as to be frightening.
The Sister has not been inside a home in years; houses sure, but even those were only empty shells, decorated with unidentifiable stains on the walls and shell casings studding the floors. The entire thing seems fake, an intricate set one blow from toppling over. It enters the home through the window, like an infant entering the world; the head followed by arms, hips, and legs, until managing to perch on the counter. The surface of the sink squeaks under the sole of its boots, just loud enough to startle; the Sister bristles at the ugly noise and shifts its weight cautiously, trying to avoid making the sound again. Once it’s satisfied, it leans back on its haunches and stares out over the quaint living room, unsure. To move deeper into this well-loved space would be a dangerous disturbance on all fronts; it is painfully aware of the filth sticking to itself, the potential for destruction that follows every move. The place is too pretty to pierce with such a change, too clean to tread in: it sits there for who knows how long, listening to the throb pulse in its ears. Internally, it knows it can’t stay—it has to patrol, leave, or do something, but for the moment it’s content to sit there on the counter even as the faucet digs a dent into the small of its back.
Eventually, though, the room seems to lean on it, inviting yet strange, and for a sudden moment the urge to just touch everything threatens to send it into a wild frenzy, the urge strong enough that its hands curl into fists tightly. The leather of the gloves creaks with the strain and the noise echoes around the quiet space. In the still air, the Big Sister listens to the fabric straining until an idea comes, bursting into awareness like a storm.
Well.
It couldn’t be horrible to walk around, would it?
Almost numbly, it shifts until it’s no longer balancing on the counter, but sitting, watching as a boot swings gently over the tiles, shadows all but invisible in the dark. Paranoia pricks its bloodstream, tightening its calves; the world around it seems to be shimmering slightly, like a mirage.
Maybe it will be horrible.
Maybe it’ll blink and be back in the City again, staring at a wall or ruined home or even out the thick glass, as has happened before. Sometimes it gets confused. Occasionally the sights are familiar, warming—a butterfly, a rose, angels—but other times they’re just wrong —a small unmoving figure, an animal in the shadows, a crying woman with no face following one step behind. Pushing these unpleasant recollections away, it turns again to the floor below it and considers its next move.
It hasn’t been scared in years, or at let itself feel fear anyway (only rage and exhaustion), but when it pushes both legs out, stretching them until the soles of both boots hover over the surface, a genuine terror seizes it: the fear of the unknown, waiting right below. Cold radiates off the floor, pale tiles highlighting the clumps of earth that fall from its boots. Before the fear can pull it away from the floor, this daunting unknown, it bites its tongue and slams both boots down. A chill shoots through it, the adrenaline rush raising goosebumps and tightening muscles, and only sheer willpower keeps it from fleeing, the sound of such a sudden landing echoing in the small space. Thin fingers curl tighter around the edge of the sink, warping the metal as it clings to the surface like a beast possessed, trying to orient itself to the vulnerable strangeness of the sensation. The kitchen clock ticks in the silence, the repeating noise the only companion to the Sister’s rapid breathing. When the hands unclenches from the countertop, a series of small dents dot the edge, a braille made of fear. It slouches upright, muscles tense as it gingerly lifts one boot and takes a tiny step, testing the ground beforehand as if doubting its realness. Slowly, unwilling to shatter this dreamland its found itself in, the Sister tiptoes around the sleeping house, passing silently through the rooms like a ghost made flesh.
As it wanders down a hallway, one hand trailing the whitewashed wall, it hears something: breathing, slow and steady, punctuated by the occasional snort. That must be the woman from earlier, the one it’d hit. A name swims just below the surface when her face comes to its mind: that, and a bitter longing so intense it nearly chokes. Adoration and jealousy are not something it’s familiar with, and the mix of emotions is almost frightening in its newness. Still creeping along, it makes its way to the living room, hands hovering over everything that catches its eye—a lamp, a phone, a framed photo of a serious young man. It isn’t until it nudges an open door, already ajar, that its quiet reverence is pierced by the hard edge of fear; its muscles whipping into a defensive stance even as the other Sister tenses, ready to pounce. It isn’t until it tilts its head and watches the double do the same that understanding comes—it’s a mirror, smooth and unbroken, clean to the point of duplicity. The big sister relaxes at the sight, waving a raw-knuckled hand at the reflection and letting its fingers skim the surface of the cold glass before both hands come to rest on the basin, cradled by the cool porcelain. Facing itself in the glass, the Sister could feel a memory pushing to the surface, long submerged in the muck; reaching up, up, up as a girl to flip the latch on the medicine cabinet, tiny hands grabbing at the elegantly long-necked perfume bottles and makeup jars. Now the Sister finds its hands mimicking the motion of years ago, gloved hand sliding up the siding to swing the mirror open on oiled hinges. The contents of the cabinet are both excitingly foreign and disappointingly average; talcum powder, antiperspirant, pain medication. The perfume bottles and makeup are gone, never even existed here—but still, empty as the shelf was, a gold glint of something caught its eye and held it, tantalizing in its shine: bullet sized and smooth, barely longer than the Sister’s littlest finger. A lipstick, wine-dark and rich, and something in its memory stirs in the briefest of warnings before another memory bursts into its mind, as sudden and vicious as a storm. It’s of her standing smaller and infantile in the family’s master bathroom, applying its mother's lipstick with that guilty satisfaction of childhood.
The recollection is too much. The memory of before, before orphanages and slugs and so much blood it fills your mouth and blocks the throat—lights up its nerves in phantom pain, years of careful conditioning roaring to life. Rage swells in its mind at the pain, at the indignity of it all, the sticky hurt at the center of all the conditioning and it half stumbles, half bolts from the tiny bathroom, gloved hand a bloodless death grip on the golden tube.
Remembering is dangerous, remembering hurts. Memory burns like a knife in the ribs, longing a twist of the blade; the insult unnecessary.
The dread of recollection is stronger than ever now, and the Sister can feel itself sliding unwillingly into that familiar harbor of violence, of an all-encompassing rage broken only by small hands and yellow eyes and the bottomless embrace of deep sea. It’s safe; a shelter from confusion and pity, bloody and raw as it is. As wild and terrible as it leaves it feeling.
(Filthy tiles, thick with grime and dried blood, a man’s sallow hand holding her small fingers above the aversion training buttons, the awful noise of hands cutting her open and working on her insides. All underscored by its own voice begging I want to go home please please please)
Without a pause the Sister throws itself over the couch, weighted boot finding purchase on the thin cushion before it scrambles for the window with trembling hands and twists through, throwing itself into the bracing air of the night. Thought is a fleeting thing now, slippery and unknowable, and before it falls back into the safety of the ocean and old rage it takes one last look at the house, the dark window gaping like an open mouth.