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 Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 10:43 pm
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Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2016 12:36 am
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Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2016 12:54 am
Aleksy doesn't roll out of bed so much as kinda inchworm out anymore, not since the Blackfriars ordeal. It's a production to get dressed when his dominant hand is no longer the kind of functional he requires, and he resents its limp-wristed presence where it's bandaged to his side at the shoulder. It hurts anymore, a dull and throbbing ache whenever weather rolls in, whenever he hits it wrong. He despairs of ever getting better, sometimes, not that he'd ever admit as much. Physical therapy goes slowly, when it goes at all, and it hurts to be dependent on other people for things like cutting up his food and caring for his shop.
He itches to paint. But he can't. He has developed an extensive, boring self-care routine in the meantime, brushing his hair for hours on end sometimes, or plucking his eyebrows until he's too bored to see. He can keep a mirror propped up against his thighs and stay in bed and not break the rules, music playing on a nearby tablet. At least he doesn't look like an invalid, he thinks, until the morning he wakes up and there's no face in his mirror.
For a long moment, so solid he thinks time might not even be passing, he stares at it. Then he puts the mirror aside, sets aside the thin eyeshadow brush, and takes a deep breath. He hasn't taken his pain meds, hardly has to anymore since he's a month on and much better for it. So it's just his eyes playing tricks on him, like they have been for a while. He scrubs the palm of his good hand over his eyes for a long moment, and then puts the mirror back in its spot.
There he is. Very normal. Black eyes, red hair, sharp nose and sharp cheekbones. The healed-through piercings in his earlobes. He examines the faint scattering of freckles across his cheekbones, thinks about Tatya and her bony shoulders, and gives up on the mirror for now. Instead he just scrubs his face with his hand again, feels the myriad little texture changes, thinks that even after fifteen months of testosterone he still gets monthly breakouts. Still gets moody and awkward. It's got to stop sometime, doesn't it?
*
He notices it next while waiting in the physical therapist's office. There's a wall of mirrors for patients to watch their motions in, to learn how it should look when they do their exercises right. Aleksy is sitting in his usual chair, the fourth from the right. It's his favorite because it's got no chair on either side of it, being placed in a little alcove. Only in the mirror, there's no one there. Aleksy is gone. The chair sits empty, not even an indent to suggest someone has been there. Aleksy closes his eyes again, counts to twenty, opens them. He's still not there.
It's just an otherworld thing, Aleksy thinks, but it's not comforting and anyway then he's called back to do his boring arm exercises for another forever. When he's done, he sees himself passing in the mirror, and is relieved.
*
It keeps happening, until one day the reflection stops coming back at all.
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Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 4:00 pm
She shows up again for the first time in years two weeks shy of their birthday. Aleksy spots the difference immediately--or the lack thereof--and that doesn't stop him from scooting over in the bed to make room for her. He's always been close to Tatya, always, as long as they've been alive. Even seeing her now, again, not any older than the last time eight years ago, doesn't change that. He takes her hand in his and he says, "Where've you been?" And she says she can't tell him, and can't he just be glad she's there now? Lucas's ring, too damn fancy for something like this, draws Aleksy's eye where it hangs on the little rack of necklaces and bracelets. "I am glad," he says, and she smiles and rests her pointy chin on top of his head.
"I miss you," she says, "I miss you all the time." And Aleksy doesn't say so but he agrees, he misses her too, he longs to have her come home even if it is to steal his boyfriend. But as she is now, as a child--because she is a child, compared to him, twin become younger--maybe she won't. Maybe Finn is Aleksy's forever, or at least until Tatya isn't jailbait anymore.
Aleksy closes his eyes and sets aside the mirror that no longer shows his face. "You stopped composing," he says into her shoulder. "I hardly get anything from you anymore."
Tatya is silent, her body still as stone. She doesn't even breathe anymore. He's hallucinating, he thinks, she's not real, she's just a fever dream brought on by too much boredom. He's snuggling a pillow now and pretending that it's his twin sister. That's sick, he thinks, and only when Tatya goes even stiffer does he realize he said it out loud. But the reaction is too pitch-perfect. Aleksy isn't sure he's fooled. "Alex," she says, a nickname from when it hurt too much to hear his whole name in anyone else's mouth. Eve still uses it. So does Leila. but to hear it in his sister's voice… it hurts. He says no, and she pauses for a long moment.
Then she strong-arms him down on top of her, his ear to her chest so he can hear the steady beat of her heart, and she sings, like they're children, like there's nothing out there waiting to hurt either of them, and she stays until he finally falls asleep. When he wakes up, she's gone.
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Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 6:56 pm
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