Content Warnings for: negative relationship with food and eating (no explicit EDs), talking about eating for an extensive amount of time, brief mention of sick relatives (tbf it is a fake relative).
---
Mealtimes were an ordeal for the Unit. In the Telanth, there were regulated amounts of food meant to provide enough calories to get them to the next meal. Breakfast, midday snack, dinner. You ate everything on your plate, refrained from sharing, and ate in a swift and timely manner, lest there be consequences. It was surprisingly difficult to be normal about food afterwards.
When she escaped, having the surplus of food made Caiden feel gluttonous and guilty. The meals were unregulated, so they had to be the best judge of how much they needed to get by. It was uncomfortable to see the Party That Saved Her eat with careless abandon–she’d begin to feel a little nauseous.
In the beginning, Caiden was never hungry. Then one day, she woke up with a hollow pain in her stomach. Then when she could, she hesitantly ate another spoonful of rice. Then it turned into another half-plate full. Then she realized she had been starving.
Years of practice and it was still a little difficult, but she had to lead by example for her Unit when they all escaped. Slow down, we have more than three minutes. Get more, I know you’re hungry. Eat balanced, not just bread and cheese.
When things got comfortable in the apartment, the stiffened silence was broken by hesitant attempts at conversation. The blow of eating was softened, and meals started to become a little easier. Eventually, talks at the table bloomed into something joyously disorganized, and random, bouncing all over the place from life updates, to thoughts on Andy Bernard, to future plans on buying a black market record. It almost felt like they were a proper family during a proper family dinner.
This night, Dmitri had made noodles and beef smothered in gravy (Bright’s favorite.) Once again, conversation was tossed back and forth in a rapid game of catch.
“Hey, don’t forget, you have school next week,” Caiden said through a mouthful of noodles.
Alix had been pushing her food around with her fork. “I was hoping you’d forgotten about it.”
Bright jumped into the game, slightly raising her hand. “I’d like to state for the record that I will do literally whatever else if it means I don’t have to go to school, if that means anything.”
“It does not.” Caiden said back. “But I appreciate your optimism.”
“Why don’t you have to go with us?” Alix demanded.
“Well, first of all, you have to realize you’re going to school as part of your deprogramming–”
“I hate that word.”
“–And I hate having brainwashed friends,” Caiden shot back. “Hush up, it’s not your turn. Part of the reason I was able to deprogram so effectively was because I was surrounded by people who…y’know, had a generally not-messed up background. I was able to gauge what was rational and what was…in my head, and I could connect and feel safe with them. Hopefully you’ll find people to connect with and they’ll rub off on you.”
Dmitri jumped in. “There’s no debating here. Alix, you, Bright, and Sig are going to school next Thursday so prepare yourselves now.”
Alix scoffed. There was a brief, tense second punctuated by the clink of cutlery.
After a moment, Sig ventured, “What’s our cover?”
“You just moved from Nebraska for health related reasons,” said Dmitri, “Your grandmother isn’t doing too well, and you’ve come to support her.”
“Grandmother on whose side?” Bright pressed.
“Caiden’s.”
Caiden looked comically shocked. “Why’s it got to be my mother?” They were ignored.
Bright continued, “What sort of health reasons?”
Dmitri answered with no hesitation, “It is likely nobody is going to ask, but if they do: pancreatic cancer.”
“And what happens if our cover is blown?” Asked Alix.
“Your cover shouldn’t be blown, and if it is, I’ll leave you behind to deal with the fallout yourself.”
---
Dmitri was lying on their bed, reading a thin blue book when Caiden entered the room. The only greeting she got from them was their eyes flitting up at her briefly in a moment of recognition. She closed the door behind her, and hesitated at the entrance of the room.
There were cherished moments when the apartment felt friendly, and not cold and apathetic, but the room tonight only felt like it was hiding an evil intent. The bedroom swathed in an endless pool of shadows casted by the glaring lamp on their nightstand.
“How is it?” She asked, ripping through the silence. They squinted to read the title of the book in faux-gold fancy font.
“Frustrating.” Dmitri didn’t look up from the book. “All of their problems would be solved if they would just murder the guy.”
A small wry smile. “You have no sense of drama.”
Another moment of stillness, then Caiden lurched to life and wandered their way to a desk that was pressed close in the corner of the room.
The second she sat in the uncomfortable seat, any intent she had carried fizzled out into static. It felt like there was a command she was supposed to execute, but nobody had bothered to fill in the blank. The only thing she could think about was the sensation of her hair, already drying into frizzy tufts after the shower she had taken.
Eventually, intent wormed its way back into her mind, and she pulled out a small red notebook and a pencil. Hesitate for a moment…then set it to paper and scribble furiously. A good decent two pages had been filled out with dark, anarchical handwriting. She was slightly aware of Dmitri observing her out of the corner of their eyes.
“That woman…Venna…she must have really freaked you out.” She stopped and turned her head towards them.
“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” Dmitri said evenly while turning a page. She saw that they were trying a little too hard to seem unbothered.
It had been four days since the incident, and, sure, nothing had gotten worse, per se, but the energy of the apartment had morphed into something a bit more anxious, a bit more defensive.
“Don’t try that with me, Ditri, you it doesn’t work. You thought she was Telanth.”
Finally, Dmitri closed the book and set it aside. “We all did,” they pointed out.
“Yeah,” she admitted softly. They all did. But she wasn’t? So that was a good sign? So…so… “Hey, do you think we need to be running drills anymore?”
“Why not?” They tipped their head in a quizzical manner. “We need to be safe.”
“Of course, yeah.” She was going to leave it there for the night, but, “it’s just that…‘I’ll leave you behind’ shit and coming up with fake sick relatives. Feels, uh, wrong. Doesn’t it?”
Dmitri’s expression hardened into something more accusing. “It doesn’t feel wrong to me.”
“I mean, it doesn’t to me either,” Caiden went on unbothered, “in fact, it’s one of the easiest things for me to do. I can’t go outside, I can’t talk to anybody, but I can lie about someone having cancer with little to no issue. And because it feels comfortable, it makes me uncomfortable and…ugh, uh…I had…no, that doesn’t make sense.” She rested her head on the desk with a light thud. “Shut up. I know what I’m talking about.”
“That’s apparent.” Their amusement faded when she didn’t respond. “Caiden?”
Head still on the desk, they replied, “All of these drills and cover stories seem like a good idea, but normal people must not interrogate their family all the time. Healthy people must not spend their whole life living in…” The word for it left her Allspeak vocabulary.
She could only think of the word in Luirican, the special language. The language of her village, and in a bitter sweet display of coincidence, Dmitri’s native one.
“Lapravet.” ‘Manipulation/Not-truth’.
Caiden thought she must have been imagining the tinge of Dmitri’s accent returning when they argued back, “We do what we do–”
“Yes, I know.” She sighed sharply. “It’s convoluted. Forget it.”
Dmitri didn’t look all that sympathetic or convinced. If anything, they looked defensive. They opened their mouth to snap something, when Caiden rushed to cut them off.
“How are you? Doing?” Acutely aware of her broken voice. “What are you thinking?”
They held back a scowl, then shook off their mood with a slow and deep sigh. “I’m thinking that we’re not used to having a Telanth scare, and that we’re all shaken up as a response. I’m thinking that you especially are having a difficult time sorting out your thoughts and feelings, which isn’t unexpected. Nor is it…bad.”
Nor is it…bad. It echoed in her head. No matter how often they got on her nerves, Caiden had loved her talks with them. The two of them weren’t bound by fear or social conformity, they could just. Say what they really thought. “I don’t know.” And for the most part, they didn’t. “Maybe I’m wrong. Who knows. I trust you, Ditri.”
Dmitri allowed their disagreement to pass without another pointed comment. “Your funeral,” they attempted to joke. All was right between them once again.
Caiden lifted her head from the desk, stretching out the knots in their neck and upper back, before returning to staring at the notebook.
“Hey,” came Dmitri’s voice. “Come to bed. It’s late and you’re tense.”
A command she was glad to follow–something that settled the business of what she was to do with herself after all. The notebook was placed back into its drawer, the pencil went about its pencily business, and Caiden themself stood from the chair and crossed the room.
“Venna was nice,” she said as she settled into her bed. “Terrible first impression, but I’m glad someone cares about us. If that’s possible, then maybe they’ll make some nice friends at school.”
“As soon as anyone finds out about who they are, they’re going to hate us.” Dmitri turned another page in the book.
“Yeah,” they agreed. “Or fear us.”
“And want to kill us.”
“Or turn us over to the police.”
“Or turn us over to the Telanth.”
“At least we’ll be prepared.” Caiden said, and she turned off the lamp without another word.
Comments