This was written for Mako, who I loffle forever, based on the song she associates with Cain and Abel.
Comfortably Numb
When I was a child...
From the moment of their creation, the Red Mars Clones were nothing but tools. Less than human, something to be used and discarded where needed, miracles of science given over to those who knew how to treat them. Who knew how to get the maximum potential from such expensive resources.
It was something Abel Nightroad learned early on, trapped alone on a base somewhere in England. A child of barely two, struggling with a fever that made his hands feel like balloons, sweat streaking his brow and breathing coming in pants. Where any other child would have been coddled by their parents, perhaps taken to a doctor, he was given drugs to prolong the fever and raise it higher to test his body's endurance against illnesses he should be naturally immune to.
One of the first phrases he learned to recognize as a small child was "...just a little pinprick, you may feel a little sick..." A set of words said so often to him that they lost all meaning, just a precursor for more testing and pain. More ways to prove he was less than human.
When I was a child...
On Abel's fifth birthday, he caught a fleeting glimpse of something... different. A way to belong, a chance to mean something. It came in the form of a blonde-haired doppelganger that spoke to him in a stream of German he couldn't understand. A sense of being complete, of being whole and loved... it eased the pain more than anything else ever had, it gave him a purpose in life.
He didn't need to be told this boy's name. Cain. He knew him more intimately within seconds than he even knew himself, the embodiment of the other part of his soul.
Yet all too soon that glimpse was gone, and he knew the pain of seeing one he loved trapped in the same hell he had been living. He found out the exquisite agony of watching another person's pain and realizing it hurt far worse than his own ever could.
The first time he heard Cain scream, a deep seated anger took seed in his heart and began to grow.
The child has grown...
At eighteen, all Abel could feel was pain and anger. There was no respite, no ebb, no calm... and yet a certain red-haired woman never gave up on him. Her golden eyes, her smile, her ever-patient smile that slowly buried under the hatred to reach the core of who he was.
But he couldn't seem to say it to her, he could only grunt and look away as she spoke of love and forgiveness... He felt things for her he didn't understand, a warmth in his body that was entirely hormonal and a quickening to his heart that he tried to explain away with other things. She did not understand, this was not who he was. He wasn't the man she believed he could be, he didn't want to forgive and love the humans... he knew that the world would be better off without them.
And deep down, he knew there was only one person who could ever properly understand him.
The dream has gone...
Twenty one and trapped once more in the painful cycle of tests and experiments, pervasive violations that had only grown as he had, drugs and agony that could have him screaming his throat raw. This time was worse than the others... he didn't remember how long he had been in this room, the events of the last few hours... days... lifetime?... were blurred at best.
He is dimly aware of a man in a white labcoat standing over him, unstrapping the restraints and looking down with a dispassionate expression, pen poised over his clipboard.
"Can you stand up?" A pause as he waited, watching as Abel made a half-attempt at rolling upright that ended in him panting on the floor. "I do believe it's working. Good."
Vaguely Abel wondered what it was that was working. What they had pumped their precious tool full of now, and when it would come to them going too far. Cain often asked him what future he wanted to see, had done since they were children, but he never had an answer... how could he, when the only future he saw ended as a broken corpse that had been drained of all that was useful.
"Come on, it's time to go." Strong arms hoisted Abel up and began pushing him towards the corridor, forcing him to use his legs and keep up. The corridors seemed warped as he stumbled down them, sweat stinging his eyes, and yet he forced himself to walk unaided. He didn't want to show weakness in front of any of these putrid terrans, he would no collapse until he was alone in his room with the door closed and locked.
The floor rushing up to meet him, and yet he was caught in safe arms before he could hit it. Ahh... Cain. Of course. He should have known his twin would be here, there to catch him as he always had been. Curled on the floor entwined together, Abel exhaled softly as he tried to focus on what his brother was saying.
"Abel..."
Nothing, just a vague impression he was there, a comfort that pierced through the pain in steady waves.
"Abel... can you hear me?"
He frowned, a minute furrowing of his brow as he watched Cain's lips move without hearing a thing. Glazed winter blue meeting concerned identical eyes, as his hand came up to clumsily press a palm over Cain's mouth. It doesn't matter... it's too late for words.
There was nothing now but pain, nothing left but a burning anger at the people that could do this to him and his family, nothing left but the fear that one day the last vestiges of anything that kept him sane would be ripped away from him.
Cain merely pulled his arms tighter around his brother, back curling over him to press a protective kiss to his forehead, lips tender and soft against feverish skin. Pulling Abel up further to rest his head against his chest, ear to his heartbeat, Cain nestled his nose in silver hair and spoke softly words that it didn't matter if Abel heard. Words of a future they could shape as their own, promises that he would always be there, declarations of love...
As Abel's muscles relaxed, the sound of his brother's heartbeat synonymous with his own, he felt his lips curve into a small smile. Here, in these arms, finally the pain faded away to leave nothing behind but peace.
And I have become comfortably numb...