“You Have Six Months To Be Married.”

“You have six months to be married.”

Cellbit, not for the first time, wishes he was fucking dead.

Looking Advisor Cucurucho right in their beady little eyes, Cellbit spins his pen between his fingers.

“Oh,” says Cellbit, feigning innocence, “but I’m already engaged.”

(Because he is.)

Cucurucho just laughs, the fucker. They push their glasses up their nose with one finger, chuckling into the palm of their gloved hand.

Cellbit’s pen goes still.

They’re alone together in Cellbit’s study. Cellbit was reading over a document his sister had sent him for spell-checking, but he was so rudely interrupted by Cucurucho barging in and taking a seat opposite him at the desk with a triumphant grin on their shitty fucking face.

They’re alone together in Cellbit’s study. Cellbit’s study is soundproofed. Cellbit’s study is at the far end of the royal palace with only his own bedchambers near it. Cellbit’s study locks from the inside, and only Cellbit has the key.

Cellbit’s study has a sword hidden under the desk.

Slowly, Cellbit leans back in his chair. He’s already covered in ink stains up to his elbows, what harm will a few bloodstains do?

“As part of your dearly departed parents’ last will and testament,” Cucurucho explains, “you are required to marry by your twenty-first birthday.”

Cellbit nods as if he cares. “And if I don’t?”

Curucucho brushes their long, white, stupid hair out of their pale, white, stupid face. (They never cut it for “religious reasons”, but Cellbit knows that the only thing they worship is their own self-righteous ass.)

“Your sister, the queen, must put you to death,” Cucurucho says, voice perfectly level as if they aren’t in the process of ruining Cellbit’s life for, like, the millionth time.

Cellbit rolls his eyes. “You know she wouldn’t.”

“Who do you think sent me here to talk to you?”

Briefly, Cellbit fantasizes of pulling the sword out from under his desk and cutting Cucurucho’s dumb fucking head off with it. It would get a mess all over his papers, but he has them memorized, anyway. He can just rewrite them.

…But he does already have a reputation. He doesn’t think Bagi would forgive him if another angry mob showed up at the castle demanding his execution. (Cucurucho is more popular than he is, after all.)

So Cellbit just scowls and throws his pen right at Cucurucho’s dumb ugly smug face and pushes himself out of his chair. He storms past his desk and Cucurucho, buttoning up a few buttons on his shirt as he goes. (He is tired of all the servants staring at his chest, thanks.)

Cucurucho doesn’t move from their spot.

“You can’t run away from this,” they calmly say, ignoring Cellbit grabbing his coat from off the back of a sofa. “She’ll just say the same thing as me.”

“Fuck you,” Cellbit growls. He pulls his coat on, trips over his own shoelace, knocks the study’s door open with his own head as he falls.

Behind him, Cucurucho laughs.

Cellbit flips them off. Fucker.

“If you’re that worried about finding someone, there is a provision in the will stating that it would be perfectly acceptable for you to marry some member of the court,” Cucurucho calls. “Say, an advisor?”

Bastard. Fucker. Asshole. Gods-damned fucking-

Cellbit slams the door shut before he does something he’ll regret.

Gods, he hates that person.

Bagi is, as expected, literally and entirely against him.

He found her in the throne room bullying a court jester for being too unfunny. He then kicked the jester out at swordpoint and turned on his sister with the same sword, demanding an answer. The guards lining the hall stood to attention and pointed their weapons at Cellbit, more than use to this behavior from him.

But Bagi just shrugs and says, “It’s in their will. I might be the queen, but I can’t change it.”

Cellbit points his sword at her. Menacingly.

“No,” he argues, very calm. And collected. And cool-headed. “But you’re the queen. And they’re dead.”

She rolls her eyes at him, entirely unconcerned. Lounging on her throne with her feet up and her crown hanging on a hook to the side, she’s the very picture of goddamn annoying.

They lock eyes.

After a solid minute of silent arguing, Cellbit groans and drops his sword to his side. He runs his hand through his hair, takes a step back, looks up at the ceiling, wishes he was dead, looks back at Bagi. Says:

“I’m going to jump out the window.”

“Bet you won’t,” she quips.

He responds by running towards the nearest window- stained glass, absolutely gorgeous, looking out over a solid forty-foot drop. He’s only stopped by a guard, his favorite guard, grabbing him around the middle and tugging him back, kicking and struggling, into the center of the room.

“Sorry, bro, can’t let you do that,” Etoiles says, not sounding very apologetic at all, the bastard.

Cellbit bites him. Etoiles laughs. Bagi sighs.

“Is it really that bad?” she asks. “You probably won’t even see your spouse. Do you remember how many times we saw mom and dad together?”

“Never,” Cellbit admits.

“Exactly. Just marry someone and ignore them. You don’t even have to share a bedroom. You don’t even have to like them.”

Cellbit looks at her, appalled. His jaw drops in shock.

“Excuse me?” he demands. “If I’m getting married, it’ll be someone I like. I’m-”

He finally manages to struggle out of Etoiles’ grip. He doesn’t run, though. He’ll try jumping again later; now, he has to argue, because, big surprise, his dumb idiot sister is being an idiot again.

“I’m-” he repeats, approaching the throne as threateningly as possible, “-already engaged to someone I like.”

Bagi is not threatened. She’s used to this sort of behavior from him by now. (Again, Cellbit has a bit of a reputation in court.)

“Yeah,” she agrees, nodding sarcastically. “To an imaginary friend. From your childhood.”

She sighs, putting her face in her hands.

Then, she looks up at Cellbit tiredly.

“Do you hear yourself?” she asks.

Cellbit huffs. Crosses his arms. Throws his hair out of his face with an appropriate amount of dramatism.

“He’s real,” he insists. “And he’s the only person I’ll marry.”

“You,” Bagi declares, “are ridiculous.”

“No, I’m loyal.”

“Okay!” She slams her fist on the arm of her throne with a fake smile. “If your ‘fiancé’ is real, then… what’s his name?”

Cellbit opens his mouth. He closes his mouth.

Satisfied, Bagi nods. “Mhmm. Loyal.”

Petulant, Cellbit looks away.

Realizing the gravity of the situation, Cellbit heavily takes a seat on the steps leading up to the throne. His back is right against Bagi’s leg, so she can reach him easily.

And reach him she does. She immediately starts braiding his hair the way she’s been doing for their entire lives, fingers gentle despite her irritation with him.

“This,” Cellbit decides, “sucks.”

Bagi hums in agreement.

“Trust me,” she says, “I’d ignore this if I could. But Cucurucho is adamant about-”

Cellbit scoffs, “Oh, Cucurucho is adamant, are they? Are they the queen?”

Bagi pulls at his hair. “Jackass. You know they have a lot of pull in court. I’ve only been queen for a couple of months, they’ve been working here since before we were born.”

“Then we should execute them and all their friends.”

At a second pull of his hair, Cellbit yelps, “I don’t know! I’m brainstorming!”

“You’re stupid! Do you want a revolution?”

“...Do you want me to answer truthfully?”

A third hair pull. Cellbit yowls just briefly before going quiet; he’s been his sister’s doll long enough to know when to shut up.

So, he thinks.

And he thinks.

And, then, he has a brilliant idea.

“Let’s have a contest,” he proposes.

Bagi makes a noise: ‘Continue’.

Drumming his fingers against his knee, Cellbit explains, “If I’m going to marry someone, it won’t just be anybody. I’ll have to like him. So he’ll have to be my type.”

“Do you even have a type?” Bagi dryly asks.

Cellbit bites back a, “Yes, obviously, I just can’t remember him.”

Instead, he says, “He’ll have to be clever. I need to be able to solve enigmas with him.”

“Of course.”

“And he’ll need to be strong. I work with the royal guard, he’ll need to keep up with me.”

“Makes sense.”

“And he’ll have to have some amount of personality. I’m not just going to marry someone because they’re smart and strong. He needs to be able to make me laugh.”

“Fair,” Bagi says. “So, what, you want me to put out an announcement to the neighboring kingdoms?”

He shakes his head, mindful of the ongoing braiding effort.

“I want everybody to have a chance,” he says. “Not just royalty or nobility.”

(Because, he thinks, his stable boy won’t have become a prince over the last eleven years.)

“Cucurucho won’t like that,” Bagi warns.

Cellbit scoffs, “Cucurucho should be happy that I’m even going to marry someone.”

“Well… if you’re sure, I’ll make it happen. But you need to figure the details out. It’s your wedding, not mine.”

Cellbit just smiles in response.

(If he doesn’t show up, then Cellbit will just sneak out during the honeymoon to find him.

Easy.)

To Be Continued...

A Little (bit of) Love

My piece for @tryzine !!

It starts deceptively simple: Cellbit and Roier are taking a walk together through the Favela at sunset, fresh coffees in their hands from Starbobby. Cellbit can’t stop staring at Roier. Roier can’t stop staring at Cellbit. Bobby is watching from above, probably rolling his eyes at how goofy Roier looks when he’s in love.

There are two creatures walking a step behind Cellbit and Roier that Cellbit is purposefully ignoring.

Roier’s shoe comes untied next to a recently-added flowerbed. Cellbit offers to tie it, Roier laughs and teases Cellbit, Cellbit hands Roier his coffee to hold as he crouches and takes Roier’s shoelaces in his hands.

Just barely visible through the gap between Roier’s legs, Pulgoier looks blankly up at the flowers. They’re taller than it is, but just barely.

?, the disgusting little thing, follows Pulgoier’s gaze. And then, horrifyingly, and entirely of its own accord, it reaches up and snaps a flower off at the base of its stem. It holds the flower out to Pulgoier, head ducked just slightly, almost bashfully; Pulgoier doesn’t smile, because it can’t, because it isn’t real, but it does take the flower.

Frozen in abject horror, Cellbit doesn’t react as Roier annoyedly taps at his head and asks what’s taking so long. Why is he just sitting there, what’s wrong?

And then Roier turns around and sees his Mini-Me holding the flower close to its chest and pressing a plastic kiss to ?’s cheek, and Roier gasps.

“Aww, look!” he coos, fingers tangling in Cellbit’s hair excitedly. “They’re in love!”

And Cellbit feels nothing.

Cellbit’s son is gone. So is a significant part of Cellbit’s heart, and yet he knows that he is still capable of feeling love. He’s alive, after all: he isn’t a religious man, but he likes to think that everything with a heart can feel love. Dogs love their owners. Lions love their mates. Crocodiles love the hunt. Parrots love to show off.

The Mini-Mes? Notably not alive. They aren’t real. They’re plastic and felt and yarn and whatever-the-fuck electronics the Federation shoved into their fake little bodies. Their nerves are made out of copper. Their veins are filled with self-recycling machine oil. Their hearts are combustion engines that run off of the items that their islander counterparts provide them daily.

Cellbit knows this. He’s cut his Mini-Me apart so many times that ? knows not to squirm on the dissection table. Every time he’s sewn ? back together, he’s made ? hold the roll of string so it doesn't roll away. He’s made ? bleed oil to the point that he once caught ? drinking gasoline when Cellbit’s back was turned.

The Mini-Mes don’t feel emotions. They can’t. They aren’t real. They’re creatures, if one could call an inhuman amalgamation of wires and eco-friendly microplastics a creature. It’s more apt to call them robots.

Monsters.

Cellbit knows that the MIni-Mes were created for war. He watched the video at that conference, he knows exactly what the little assholes were made for. Now that they’re stolen, their purpose has probably been shifted by the Federation from fighting to spying.

They can’t feel love. This much, Cellbit knows. They were created for battle, and now they’re just biding their time. Waiting.

The fact that ? seems to be in love with Pulgoier is an outlier that should not be considered. They’re both just mimicking their owners, that’s all. Which begs the question of exactly how adaptive the Mini-Mes are; they can change appearance at the drop of a hat, but behavior? They’ve been robotic up to this point, what changed?

Cellbit asks this to ? as ? sits in its cage staring at the oil-stained wall.

?, of course, doesn’t respond. That’s good, Cellbit doesn’t know what he’d do if the little bastard learned how to talk.

But, at the lack of a response, Cellbit inexplicably feels a sense of… God, is this bravery he’s feeling coming off of ?? Is that it? An attitude?

Cellbit’s eyes narrow, and he leans in closer to the cage with a sneer.

“Whatever you’re doing, I’m onto it,” he growls.

? just adjusts its goggles in response. Its hand briefly dips into the Fear Room’s light, exposing a thin black line drawn around ?’s left hand ring finger. A ring.

Cellbit is so surprised that he doesn’t even feel angry for a good moment.

But then ? looks up at him as if asking, “And what about it?”, and Cellbit finds himself standing and kicking the cage so hard that it falls over, sending ? toppling.

A ring. A goddamn ring.

A goddamn mockery, more like. It’s mocking him. The Federation is mocking him, he knows it. He fucking knows it.

(But… why?)

Pulgoier starts holding ?’s hand. ? keeps picking things off of the side of the road to give to Pulgoier, and Cellbit hates it.

Roier makes a little shoebox bed for them that he puts under his and Cellbit’s own bed. Instead of powering off for the day in a corner of the room, ? and Pulgoier go there at night, and Cellbit hates it.

? and Pulgoier sit across from each other on the floor when their owners have their meals. Sometimes they pretend to eat, usually pretending to feed each other, and Cellbit hates it.

Richarlyson would have killed them by now. Cellbit wishes he was here to do so, but.

But.

But it’s well past midnight, and Cellbit can’t sleep. This isn’t anything too unusual; he learned how to live off minimal sleep back during the War, for better or for worse.

But Roier can’t sleep, which means that he’s somewhere in the castle, which means that Cellbit is somewhere in the castle because there’s no way in Hell he’s letting his depressed and sleep-deprived husband wander around mourning.

Tonight’s ‘somewhere’ is the garden, and Cellbit has Roier in his arms as they sway back and forth to the music playing softly on Roier’s communicator. (The Federation is shitty for so many reasons, but at least it’s providing the island with Spotify Premium free-of-charge.)

The song is unimportant. So are the two little freaks of nature watching from beneath a rosebush. So are the Federation’s hidden cameras, and Bad somewhere downstairs trying to carry Cellbit’s dining table out the door, and the itching bloodlust in the back of Cellbit’s brain.

What is important is Roier, and so Cellbit focuses all his attention on him.

He’s tired, clearly so: his hair is more of a mess than usual, his clothes are rumpled and wrinkled, his shoes are untied, his bandana is lost somewhere in the bedroom, his lips are chapped, and the circles under his eyes are dark enough to rival Cellbit’s.

Cellbit doesn’t think he’s ever seen a more beautiful man in his life.

He says as much, words ghosting across Roier’s pale lips.

Roier smiles weakly, and he murmurs a quiet, “No, you.”

The song changes to something a bit quicker. They both ignore the change in tempo and decide to follow each other’s, instead.

Cellbit’s arms tighten around Roier. He pulls him closer, nose burying itself in the side of Roier’s neck and breathing in his scent and internalizing it, filing it away in the little cabinet in his brain labeled ‘Roier’.

“You stink,” he grumbles.

“Yeah, because you’re all over me,” Roier responds. He lightly pinches Cellbit’s side. “I know what we’re doing when we get back inside.”

Cellbit whines, sagging in Roier’s arms. He loves his husband, but he does not love showering with him; Roier takes so long under the water that it’s running cold by the time it’s Cellbit’s turn, and his shampoo smells so strongly that it makes Cellbit have an asthma attack.

Cellbit doesn’t even have asthma!

What Cellbit does have is an unfortunately-acute sense of hearing. It’s a blessing at times, and it’s a curse.

His eyebrow twitches in annoyance as he hears the absolute faintest of sounds: the crunching of grass beneath clumsy feet, and the overworking of machinery as it tries to figure out how to laugh.

At the same time, Roier gasps, “Mira, mira!”

But Cellbit doesn’t look. Why should he? He’s having a good time. He doesn’t need some… some… some things ruining it.

“Ay,” Roier insists, poking Cellbit between his ribs once. “Gatinho, mira.”

Another poke. “Mira.”

Another poke. “Cellbit.”

(Poke.) “Cellbo.”

Cellbit’s eyes squeeze shut. He presses a kiss to the crook of Roier’s neck to try and appease him, but Roier just pokes him again. With determination.

“Stop ignoring me!” he huffs. “Unless… you hate me? You want a divorce?”

At that, Cellbit’s head snaps up in a panic.

“Não!” he shouts. Why would Roier ever…

Lips twitching into a semblance of a smile, Roier grabs Cellbit’s face with one hand- squeezing his cheeks together and making him feel a bit like a fish- and turns it to the side.

…right. If there’s one thing Roier is, it’s a fucking asshole. (And a handsome one at that.)

Cellbit’s shoulders sag in relief, but said relief quickly melts back into annoyance as he’s forced to look at the Mini-Mes and their… well. It isn’t dancing, that’s for certain.

Pulgoier has taken the lead, just like Roier has. It’s holding ?’s little hands and rocking from side-to-side: left, right. Left, right. Left, right. It doesn’t move from its spot other than a small amount of shuffling as it tries pulling at ?’s hands in an attempt to get it to actually move.

? is still. It’s staring directly into Pulgoier’s beady little eyes, absolutely frozen. If it could blush, Cellbit is sure that it would be doing so.

Cellbit inadvertently copies it, stiffening against Roier’s body and stopping any and all movements. He doesn’t mean to- he wants to keep dancing, to keep ignoring the Mini-Mes and their bastardized attempt at “romance”, but…

“Look,” Roier quietly says, sounding almost awed.

He lets go of Cellbit’s face so he can press his cheek against Cellbit’s.

Cellbit feels Roier’s jaw work against his as he concludes, “It’s us.”

Because… it is. It is, somehow, in such a fundamental way that Cellbit can’t really identify it as anything but Cellbit-And-Roier.

“Oh,” says Cellbit, voice hardly above a whisper.

He watches as Pulgoier tugs on ?’s arms, and as ?’s legs start to shake under it.

Cellbit doesn’t actually remember a lot of his wedding reception; between the explosions and the alcohol, it’s all just a lot of blurry faces and the feeling of Roier-Roier-Roier-Roier-Roier.

What he does remember is being ushered into the center of the dance floor along with Roier and freezing. The world faded from around him, and all he could think about was Roier’s smile as he took Cellbit into his arms; Roier’s warm hands on his body; Roier’s alcohol-laced breath across his face. His body was a stranger.

He remembers thinking, ‘Shit. I don’t know how to dance.’ Because he didn’t, and he still doesn’t, because he never had a chance to learn how. It just never came up in his life, and then, suddenly, he was supposed to dance. At his wedding. In front of the entire island. And everyone he knew.

And he remembers the way Roier’s face softened as he picked up on Cellbit’s anxiety. His hands slid from Cellbit’s back, up to his shoulders, down the lengths of his arms, and to his hands. He tangled their fingers together, took a step back, and winked.

Pulgoier physically can’t wink, but it otherwise does exactly what Roier did all those months ago: it takes a step back, and it just starts spinning.

? can’t shout like Cellbit did back then, but it otherwise does what he did all those months ago: it gets pulled along, forced to spin along with its partner, stumbling over its own feet and flailing about like a doll caught in the wind.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Cellbit mutters.

“I can,” Roier replies. “He’s your Mini-Me, of course he can’t dance for shit.”

He yelps out a laugh as Cellbit indignantly steps on his foot.

Roier’s right, though; Cellbit can’t dance for shit. And neither can ?, being Cellbit’s shitty little clone.

The night of the wedding, it took Cellbit a good solid minute to get his feet back under him. He felt himself smiling, and, maybe it was the wine in his system, but he found himself tugging Roier in a spin in the opposite direction. He was dizzy as Hell, but it made Roier laugh when he did it, so he just… kept doing it. Eventually, the spin led into a proper attempt at a slow dance that failed so miserably that the two of them gave up and jumped onto the stage for another round of karaoke.

Tonight, ? picks up on things a bit quicker than Cellbit had. It stabilizes, nods to itself, and starts pulling Pulgoier into its own spin. Almost immediately, they’re attempting a proper waltz, and Cellbit…

Cellbit doesn’t get it.

At first, Cellbit wasn’t sure what the end goal of the Mini-Mes was. Then, he realized that they’re little soldiers. Robotic supersoldiers capable of self-multiplication and growth, literal war machines.

But then… why do they look like the islanders? Why does Pulgoier have the same dark circles as Roier? Why does ? have the same scar across its chest that Cellbit does? What’s the point? The Federation doesn’t do anything without a purpose, so why do the Mini-Mes have to look like their owners if they’re meant to grow up and kill them?

Why can they dance?

“What’s the point?” he murmurs. Roier hums in acknowledgement, and Cellbit takes that as a sign to continue: “Of copying us?”

“Because we’re sexy,” Roier responds.

Cellbit rolls his eyes. “True. But, think about it, what purpose does any of…” (He waves his hand in the MIni-Mes’ general direction.) “...this serve?”

“I don’t know, but… look at them.”

Cellbit looks. He doesn’t understand. Something uncomfortable rises in his throat.

? twirls Pulgoier, leading it into a dip. Pulgoier raises its head and presses its painted mouth against ?’s.

Chest clenching, Cellbit tries to tear his eyes away, but he just… can’t. He can’t. Not when they’re right there, not when they’re-

“You think they’re learning from us, right?” Roier asks. “So… maybe they aren’t learning how to kill us. Maybe they’re learning to be us.”

Cellbit gives him a flat look. “Isn’t that just as bad?”

Roier shrugs, still watching the little monsters.

“Maybe,” he replies. “I’m not a scientist. But… isn’t it kinda crazy that we taught robots how to love?”

But robots can’t love. They can’t. But.

Roier’s arms tighten around Cellbit’s body. His smile is just as forced as it has been since the eggs all vanished, but his eyes are surprisingly soft as he watches the Mini-Mes tumble into the grass from the force of their silent, impossible laughter.

“They’re just copying us,” Cellbit weakly says. “It isn’t actually real.”

“Maybe,” Roier hums. One hand travels up to cup the back of Cellbit’s head, gently pulling it against his chest. Cellbit listens to Roier’s heartbeat and wills his own heart to match its pace.

“Or,” he continues, “maybe it is. We found our reasons. Maybe they found theirs.”

They watch the Mini-Mes, and the Mini-Mes don’t notice.

The song changes, and Roier starts leading Cellbit into another dance.

Cellbit’s eyes slip shut, and he lets himself get swept away by Roier’s movements.

(Bagi would call Cellbit a monster, but Cellbit found love in the end. So maybe, just maybe, ? could have done the same.)

97 notes View Post

fayefableillustrations

11 months ago

(XCOMau this would just be cute but Cellbit insisted on a lore dump and angsty internal monologue)

It is ten o'clock in the morning, and Cellbit feels barely awake. Roier is away visiting friends, Pac and Mike are holed up in their lab, Felps is... somewhere, doing something, he is sure. Bagi is about, playing in the mud with the children while Cellbit blearily sips at his coffee.

Give him another ten minutes, and he can use Pepito as bait to get Bobby and Richarlyson into a bath. Empanada is there, too, sat on her mother's shoulders more for the height advantage than the claimed attempt not to get mud on her petticoats.

That's four of the five children of their community, but where- he knows she has a tendency to turn invisible when stressed, a side effect of her genetics, but it shouldn't be that stressful, he thought-

A little hand tugs on his trousers.

Cellbit looks down, and let's his heartrate calm.

"Hope," he smiles at her. "Is everything okay?"

She reaches up her arms, and a thought nudges against Cellbit's mental shields. He puts his coffee down and reaches back, scooping the tiny one up and into his lap.

Pepito is, he thinks, physically a little younger than her. Pepito is so much less frail, though, roughing and tumbling like any child, rather than riddled with bruises and breaks and exhaustion from the slightest knock.

Cellbit loves her anyway, just as she loves him, and planting trees, and decorating the castle or Felps' hut, and helping run buckets of water up and down from the well. At least she is a quiet child anyway - if Richarlyson were sick in the same ways, he doesn't think he would manage.

Sick, ill, frail... Cellbit hates all the terms for it, what they mean for his little girl, but the one he hates most is the Federation's label of 'defective'. Both of the children who were his first - Hope and Richarlyson both - were labelled with it, like so many of the others. They are not defective, they are children, just children who needed to be loved.

Hope must feel his anger, for she looks at him with big eyes.

"Not you," he tells her. "Never you, you're perfect, my little girl."

Her doubt sounds in Cellbit's mind. She offers another thought, of herself, and Pomme, and Tallulah.

It takes him a second.

Ah. She's asking if her sisters can come visit.

There are already five children for him and Bagi to look after, two more... well, he needs to speak to Philza anyway. And whichever of the French wish to come, they are always welcome.

"If their parents come too," he tells her. "Tia Bagi and I can't watch seven of you."

The smile he gets is bright but small, before she pulls up her legs and curls against his chest.

Cellbit... he wonders, sometimes, if she doesn't remember something of her rescue. She was too starved, too abused, to unwell to even approach consciousness, a tiny, dwindling flicker of life in an otherwise deserted cell. And yet... every time she sits against him, she always curls up the same way - head on his right shoulder, ear to his collar bone and face turned in, legs curled so her left side presses against his torso, arms limp in his lap.

It is exactly how he picked her up, before, how he tucked her safely against himself and took her away.

He kisses the top of her head, and already she is half way to sleep. It worries him, it always worries him, how her stamina is so thin and her body so weak. Doctor Ruiz says it is unfortunately predictable, after six years of near total neglect - not even getting the food the other rejected children did. If she were human, Hope would be dead years ago. As she is not...

Nobody can tell if she will keep improving, or if this is her life forever. Nobody knows if this was the condition she was cast aside for, or a mark of the neglect. Nobody knows what tomorrow brings, only that they still have a today.

It is not the end of the world, though. It is not a death sentence, and not a crime; Felps' condition is different, but in that regard they are the same. Just because they both need more rest does not make their waking hours mean any less. Neither does it make them any less precious, or loved, or mean that that Cellbit will not perfectly happily curl up with either - both - of them in a pile of pillows for hours on end.

"Would you like a story?" He asks his daughter, knowing how she fears the oncoming dark, how terrified she is that any time she sleeps he might abandon her again.

A nod against his neck, and Cellbit melts at the progress to have found something that she loves, something she agrees to - asks for, sometimes - outside of her sister.

"Alright" he tells her. "Story and a nap, and when you wake up your sisters will be here."

Triplets, two rejected for their disabilities, the third given away simply because her sisters were "flawed" and their creators worried about a "contaminated batch". Richarlyson, too, with a missing leg, and Flippa's eyesight and Bobby's temper and Chayanne simply not being sonically adept... it goes on and on and on and Cellbit hates the Federation somehow even more than before, now they have decoded the documents on their children.

Calm, calm, calm, they're already dead and he's a little one to help to sleep.

Bagi has Empanada and the boys, he has little Hope. It is fine, it is fine, they are all going to be fine.

"Once upon a time there was a princess who lived in a beautiful castle," he tells her. "The princess had three brothers, two sisters, and a great many cousins and siblings and friends. The princess was kind and gentle and beloved by all, but, one day, an evil witch came up with a curse..."

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fayefableillustrations

1 year ago