~Nightmares~

This was one of the very first chapters I had written for 409...it's gone through a lot of changes, I must say.

Content Warning for: general fear and guilt? idk...

A scream pierced through the apartment, awakening Caiden with a start. She pushed herself up from her bed, only partly aware of the blanket shifting as Dmitri stirred.

“Shto neprostik–?” They mumbled, head partly raised from the pillow and dim green light spilling from their half-opened eyes.

“Check the entrances,” she ordered them. “I’m going to see if it’s a nightmare.” She brushed away the comforters and slipped off the bed. With commendable efficiency, she strode out of the room and down the hall.

It was almost definitely a nightmare, actually, hence Caiden’s eagerness to investigate alone. Dmitri certainly cared for the Unit, but despite how far along they were in their deprogramming, they still had difficulties with empathy and sympathetic de-escalation. Their talents were more useful towards ensuring that there wasn’t a breach in their apartment. She was better off tending to emotional distress, anyway, having gone through all of this before and all. This wasn’t anything Dmitri wouldn’t have commanded themself, it was just that Caiden had gotten there faster.

Sig was already waiting outside of Alix and Bright’s shared room, staring at Caiden expectantly. Muffled disturbances bled through the closed door. Definitely a nightmare.

She opened the door, taking a moment to absorb the sight of Alix on his bed, hugging his knees, shoulders shaking as he choked back sobs, and Bright kneeling helplessly by his bed. They said in a swift undertone, careful not to disturb Alix, “Bright, go with Dmitri. Make sure we’re secure and then just…go on.”

“Oh, thank God.” Bright stood immediately. She lingered for a second more, before slipping out of the room past Sig.

“Sig, get in here.”

Sig complied, crossing the threshold of the room and kneeling to take Bright’s place.

Alix was tense and trembling. Caiden was afraid that with any more pressure, all of his tendons would snap and he would crumble like a ragdoll. He was muttering something into his knees and scratching his skin with his uneven fingernails.

“Alix?” Caiden said softly. “Aishnok, what’s going on?”

He made several jagged stuttering noises that sound like something akin to “I’m fine.”

“What color shirt am I wearing?” They pressed.

He paused. Took a long moment to think. Before uncurling himself a bit and peeking out at her. “B-black.”

“Take a deep breath, Alix,” Sig commanded. He shakily complied.

“How many people are in the room?” Caiden continued.

“T-two?”

“That’s right.”

Sig reached a hand out and rested it on his arm. He stiffened, before relaxing and grabbing Sig’s hand between his own two.

“They’re gonna kill me, Caiden,” he stuttered, panic overflowing, and suddenly his words were pouring out of him faster than he could self-regulate. “I know it–they’re gonna kill me. They’re gonna find me and they’re gonna kill me and I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die, Caiden, please! I did so much and now they’re gonna kill me but I don’t want to die. Please don’t let me die, please don’t leave me to die!”

Sig made a gentle shushing noise and his soliloquy tapered off in whimper. Caiden cursed under her breath. It was part of the process, but it didn’t make it any less painful.

In the doorway, both Dmitri and Bright appeared. Not wanting to deal with either of them, Caiden told Bright to fetch a glass of water, and took a moment to stare reproachfully at Dmitri, hard and exhausted and slightly disdainful. You see? She seemed to say. You see what they do to us? I can’t believe you were on their fucking side.

And Dmitri only raised their eyebrows slightly. I don’t want to fight about this right now.

Which is only fair, she supposed. And perhaps one of the few decisions she could come to respect.

“Come on, Aishnok.” She turned back to Alix. “Let’s go.”

---

They were in the living room. Empty, dark, and cool. A glass of water rested calmly on the coffee table next to Alix and Caiden, who were curled up together on the couch. He was still upset, but quieter and more coherent now.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to be so disruptive.”

“This happens all the time,” Caiden reminded him. Last time it was her who had woken the apartment up screaming, and the memory still made her skin crawl. Thank you God for thick walls and mostly elderly neighbors. How fucking awful. “There is nothing to be sorry about, things like this are kind of part of the deal.”

“Oh. All this is normal?”

Caiden absentmindedly brushed the remaining tears from his cheek. “What did you dream about?”

He shivered. “It doesn’t matter.”

They sat in silence for another moment. Then, she coaxed him to take another drink of water, not even minding when a few frigid drops fell on her exposed arms.

“I know it can be hard to bear it sometimes,” they said eventually. “The memories and the guilt and the…habits.”

“Caiden, I hurt people. I killed them and toyed with them and…took their children away from them.”

“You didn’t know any better.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” he argued. “I still did it. There are people in mourning because of me. There are people who will never be the same. Do I even deserve to live with myself after everything I’ve done?”

Like listening to a recording of herself. “Of course you do.”

“How do you know?”

She just did. It was an easy answer, of course he deserved to live. He just did. But that wasn’t a satisfactory answer to someone who was only beginning to wrench himself out of the machine, so she thought for a moment, then said in a voice more broken than she wanted,

“Because…it’s…easy. To. Die. It’s a lazyman’s excuse for justice. And they want you to do it, they want you to die. So what more honorable way to atone and stick it to the Telanth, than to…grow and learn from your mistakes and live?”

Alix didn’t say anything to that, but he didn’t have to. He just drank more water and then shifted his position so he was even closer to her.

“Did you like killing?” He asked after a while.

She hesitated at that, caught between wanting to lie and owing him the truth. “Yes,” she said finally. “It was easy. And it made me feel. Powerful.

No reaction. “Do you still?”

She shook her head. “I don’t have the stomach for it anymore.”

She noticed his eyes fluttering. He was fighting back against the drowsiness but methodically losing. First his eyes closed. Then his breathing began to slow. Then his muscles began to untense.

“Caiden?” “Yes, Alix?”

“Please don’t leave us again.”

“I won’t. I’m not going to leave you.”