towerofanimus | Not all there

Entry tags:

Not all there

Characters: Cain Knightlord and anyone at all
Setting: Floor Three Library
Format: Prose, but will copy you
Summary: Cain is feeling the effects of being in Group C, clearly he should be bothered
Warnings: Sensory Hallucination

It had taken Cain and his partner in map-making more than just the one day to complete their task, scratching a map or notes on each floor carefully onto dinner plates. There were some floors Cain already knew he never wanted to return to, and at first he puts down the sensation of being watched to the unnerving sights of those floors.

Blood and screaming on one of them, endless night on another, what the hell was this place?!

He's taken the plates, twenty-one in total, to the library to sort them into a more organised fashion. Then he starts scratching them into one of the tables, copying the work into the wood for a safer and more sturdy map. But he keeps feeling something brush the back of his neck and shoulder, nothing there when he looks, an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach as he works until...

"STOP IT!"

The shout is loud in the library as he spins, one of the plates crashing to the ground to break, as Cain stares at... well, nothing.

[ooc: Open, please bother him. I love all the CR ever!]

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He falters a bit in his resolve, meeting his twin's eyes with a reluctance. It wasn't the calm and quiet confidence of Lilith's that had him spilling things before be could stop himself from rationalizing all the reasons to keep them to himself.

...He realizes he wishes they were, right now.

After a brief pause, he just... shuts his jaw tighter, and shakes his head. "No... nevermind. I'll talk to you when you wake up."

His brow furrows a little at that. It always rankled when Abel didn't want to talk to him, as though there were anyone that would be able to understand him and help as well as Cain. He was also concerned, worried that his brother was being hurt by these unseen forces, something he couldn't bear to think about.

"No, please talk to me now. Or else you know I'll never sleep, I'll be too busy wondering what the mystery is."

"There's no mystery, it's just..."

...

Mmph.

He glances back at his twin, before deflating slightly and taking his shoulder to gently nudge him into the privacy of their room. It wasn't until they were inside and seared shoulder to shoulder on the bed, he fixed his brother with what amounted to, for all intents and purposes, something approaching a child's look of vulnerable hope.

"...do you realize no one knows what the Mars Project is, here?"

The look of hope in Abel's eyes was one he couldn't bare to crush, and yet this wasn't the wonderful realisation his brother seemed to believe it to be.

"I know, neither of us have been recognised at all."

He paused a moment, pushing his glasses further up his nose, before winding his arm around Abel loosely. Drawing him in to offer solidarity, comfort...

"But that only means that we are somewhere further from anywhere we might hope to be kept. It will take them longer to find us, but they will find us."

And that, in Cain's mind, was a good thing. It was freedom, of sorts, at least a freedom back to what they knew and a place more under Cain's control.

Find them...?

He would rather these people take Lilith and Seth to where Abel and Cain were now and they find their own means of escape - together. A place where they were far enough from home no one knew their faces... their names... their 'birthrights;' no one knew who, or what they were. No one.

Not a single soul.

He could ask for nothing better.

"...I don't want to go back, Cain."

"You would rather we find an escape from here, and leave the others behind?"

It was a question with no accusation in his tone, only curiosity. Would Abel really rather remain with just Cain and a chance of freedom? A slight hope stirred in his gut, deep down, that old satisfaction of being the one that his brother turned to.

Always.

Others? The others...

His look on his brother becomes one of perplexity. Did he mean...

--He couldn't, could he? But Cain knew better than to ask if he wanted to leave behind the colonists or the worthless denizens of the Tower. He was really asking... if Abel would leave them behind? Leave... her behind...

"..."

Abel was the one who had said he did not want to leave here and go back there, and to rescue them that is what they would have to do. Unless he was somehow relying on good fortune and the benevolence of their captors to bring Lilith and Seth to them.

"You know we have to go back, if we don't then we are as good as abandoning them."

He gave Abel a small smile, he had just been trying to make his brother see the folly of saying he didn't want to go back. Really.

"...No." He shakes his head, relaxing a little. Of course he did... Cain would never even consider leaving their family behind as an option. He of all people deeply understood their importance. They were all each other had.

They had to protect their own.

"We will make them bring them to us. If we can escape... then we can do that much, too."

"And you don't think that will make things more dangerous for all of us tenfold?"

He slipped his glasses off his nose, watching the world go into fuzzy focus as he folded them and placed them on the nightstand.

"If we are seen be the UNASF as trying to go back to our 'rightful place' on the colony, they will be pleased with us. They will be more lenient, watch us less closely. Whereas bringing Lilith and Seth here only puts them in danger from... this."

Whatever this was that was happening to them.

"No. You're misunderstanding me."

He leans an elbow on a knee, gesturing with the other to the Tower abroad.

"We wait until we can get at them." A finger pointing down -- to where the elevator was located. "And when we do, when we know we can escape and we can hold them accountable for what they've done... we take the Tower. We use whatever they used to bring us here, and get Lilith and Seth, too. Then we can go and never look back."

Never. No more of this... captivity. No more experimentations -- home, or here. No more collars, no more humans... freedom. True and real freedom.

He leaned over to take that pointing finger in his own, holding it fast and looking into Abel's face seriously.

"Then you must promise me some patience, and trust in my decisions. Anger and outright defiance will just put them on the defensive, and mark us out to be watched. No good can come of that."

They must watch and wait for the time, and when it came then they would have their freedom.

Patience had never been his strong suit, and asking for his compliance in a place that was certain to test his rage...

Well. It would be a test of his self control, too. He supposed he would see how far it could be stretched before it snapped.

"..I'll do everything I can." But even he can't promise he won't slip. He doesn't want to disappoint him... but he knows, sometimes his temper just...

...Mmn. He will try, Cain... he will. But Lilith had been the only one ever truly able to tame the beast.

Giving his brother a bright smile in exchange for his compliance, he leaned forwards and pressed a kiss to his brow.

"Then get some rest, that's why we came in here, remember?"

Abel watched his twin a long moment, almost looking as though he were waiting for something more... before relenting with a small nod of his head.

"Yeah."

Sleep... he scratches into his hair almost absently, ducking his head a second. He's got to figure this out and keep it together. That's all that's important, now. There's hope for the future... even if the present seems helpless and a place of vulnerability. They just have to get through this...

"Take it easy, Cain."

Shifting aside on the bed so that Abel could lay down and get the rest he needed, his fingers stretched out to rest in silver hair. He knew his brother was not a demonstrative man; but here, in private, perhaps he would allow this and take comfort from it.

"We have each other, and that means we are stronger than they can guess."

If the Tower had wanted to break them, it should have never bothered with paltry tricks of obedience and hallucinations, it need only have taken them apart. For while they had each other, they would never give up, always endure.

"Go to sleep."

He'd deny it, of course, if anyone asked or were to walk in on this -- deny it had ever happened at all, that subtle tilt of his head that led him into his big brother's gesture of comfort. It wasn't like he'd been hoping for one. He wasn't a child anymore... the days of innocent youth were long gone.

But his eyes close a second later, anyway... and after taking what his twin had to give, he shifted to lay down at his behest.

"...goodnight, Cain."

"Goodnight, Abel."

The smile at his lips was soft and, for once (not that there would be a visible difference to his normal smiles), completely genuine.

Sleep now, little brother. Cain will always be here to watch over you.

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Not all there

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