Basch sighed and settled into the stack of pillows against his headboard, pushing the heels of his palms into his eye sockets and pressing until silver stars twinkled in the purple-yellow field of his darkened vision. The roaring throb of blood in his ears began to ebb like seawater retreating from the shoreline, white noise clearing away until all that was left was the silence of his sleepy house and the rhythmic ticking of a grandfather clock down the hall. His breathing steadied as the stress melted from his body. He sunk heavier against the soft embrace at his back, forgetting the laptop that slid haphazardly off his lap and onto the mattress. A cool breeze tousled the curtains and touched his cheeks, cooling his heated face and soothing him further.

By the time he heard the footsteps at his doorframe, he'd nearly fallen asleep.

"Sebastian?"

With an almost-snort, he started and sat upright, muscles tensing in surprise. The blurriness of his vision cleared to reveal her slight figure in his doorway backlit by the soft light from the hallway lamp. The way she timidly shrunk against the doorframe, apologetic for having unknowingly woke him, was almost comforting in its familiarity.

"Adi," he confirmed aloud, relaxing and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Why aren't you sleeping?"

"I was just getting ready for bed," she informed him, toying with the hem of her too-long sleep shirt and crumpling its soft pink material between her fingers. She smiled a soft smile. "I heard you come in."

His day had begun at five, as always, just ahead of the first light of dawn. A shower too brief to wait for the water to warm up and a second-rate cup of coffee were all he had time for before grabbing his things and darting out the door with his sister in tow. The two hurried on foot as far as they could travel together before the road diverged towards the train station to Basch's job and towards Adi's Fachmittelschule, Basch making sure Adi had lunch and bus money and Adi assuring him that she had plenty left from what he'd given her the day before. Another sprint across town, and a train spirited Basch away on a nearly hour-long ride to his first job – an old auto repair shop in the next canton over. There he worked until noon doing whatever his limited training allowed, namely sweeping and washing windshields and occasionally booking customers. After a hasty lunch break, if there was one at all, he caught a bus to the north side for his classes at the university. Three in a row, and then back on the train in time to walk Adelinde home from her school before hurrying to his evening job working security for some big corporate farm not far from where they lived that had invested tens of thousands of francs in a solar energy project. Finally arriving at home sometime after one in the morning left little time for sleep, especially when there were assignments to be completed, but Basch had learned to make do.

"Sorry," the young man apologized, sounding more tranquil than before. Hand extended, he waited for the girl to cross the room and pull herself onto the mattress beside him. She laid her head against his shoulder and he took in the damp scent of her freshly showered hair. Honey, cherry blossoms and sun-ripened raspberries: the usual sugary sweet preteen bouquet. "Did you have fun at your...?" Basch waved his hand, feeling the air for the right word. Not finding it. "Get-together thing? Party?"

Adelinde nodded, brushing a stray blonde lock behind her ear. "Birgit and Gabi were there."

"Ah," Basch sighed, letting his eyes fall shut. "That must have been nice."

She nodded again and explained, "Gabi showed me a photo of the new dress she's working on. It's very pretty. She bought most beautiful emerald green chiffon for the skirt I've ever seen. She's doing a halter top with an empire waist for the bodice and a handkerchief hem. I'll get a photo for you when she has a little more of it finished!"

The man, who hardly knew burlap from bouclé, just responded with a nod and a gravelly, "It sounds good." He hadn't meant to dismiss her excitement; he was just so ignorant of fashion. And so tired.

Adelinde, ever so slightly embarrassed at her fanatic outburst, mumbled, "Um, how was your day?"

"It was fine, Adi," he replied. "Long."

"Did your professors give you a lot of assignments?" she asked, noting the computer.

She'd always sounded so innocent when she was being inquisitive, Basch thought, with a lasting childlike quality to her despite how much she'd grown both mentally and physically in the past few years. But they had both been through their fair share of Hell during that time, and if she wanted to hold onto childhood's final gasps at life, who was he to tell her any different?

Realizing his tired mind was wandering off-course, he nodded and gave a curt, "Yeah, some."

"Then I should let you sleep."

Before he even had a chance to respond, she was dutifully moving off of his bed, her slender legs stretching to touch the floor. She was so tiny.

"Good night, big brother."

Basch nodded, closed the laptop and slid it away with finality, made to push himself further into the beckoning cocoon of his blankets and replied in turn, "Sleep well, Adelinde."

...

A/N: The names used in this story are Sebastian (Basch/Baschi) Zwingli and Adelinde (Adi) Zwingli.

Translation notes: Fachmittelschule is a type of level-2 secondary school in the Swiss educational system that comes before university/vocational school and comes after level-1 secondary school. If you were comparing it to the US school system, it seems most similar to high school

I don't really have a super solid vision on where this story is heading just quite yet, and it was more intended to explore the interpersonal relationships between some of the characters - and yes, there will definitely be other characters as things progress! Sooo... we'll see!

Thanks for stopping in on this sort of prelude piece of something I've been kicking around for ages!