In which Brian has a think and a talk.

He flipped it over in his fingers, the cardstock almost painfully white between folds of dark skin.

How had they gotten his identity? Did it matter?

It didn't, he decided. They knew his identity, or at least they thought they did, which was almost as bad.

They had leverage, now. Gallant had said they could help him with the custody paperwork, but who was to say they couldn't make it harder, too?

But that wasn't so different from what Coil was doing for him. Did he really trust Coil more than the PRT?

Maybe he did. It felt wrong to say it like that, but maybe he did.

A dark-haired girl in all white, staring at the ground.

Aisha's age.

"Last question, pet."

Why the fuck had he trusted Coil?

Coil had gone and done this, and then…

"That you think it's even negotiable is pretty fucked up."

Taylor, walking away.

The next time he saw her was in the fight against Leviathan.

He saw her, thrown from a roof by the waves, tumbling to the ground. He heard something snap, something break.

Then a teleporter was there, and then she was gone.

She wasn't dead, but she might as well have been.

If she'd been with the Undersiders, could they have saved her?

He'd burned that bridge, stepped on a line he hadn't realized she'd have.

He hadn't liked it either, but he'd said 'what's done is done.'

And so Taylor went off to die.

It was only his fucking fault.

No, he realized. Everything was his fucking fault.

They might have found his identity because of his sister's transformation, but nothing had changed about him. If the Protectorate was willing to rehabilitate him now, they would have been willing to do so months ago. Years ago.

He might have never met Taylor, but at least he wouldn't have her life on his conscience.

Hell, Aisha might not have triggered.

All he would have had to fucking do was to swallow his pride and turn himself in.

A voice echoed in his ear, halfway between a laugh and a sob.

He realized, a moment later, that it was his own.

He didn't have any control over his body anymore. The business card with Gallant's number slipped from his fingers, flopped silently against weathered cushions.

Brian sagged into the couch and cried in the dark, and every second made him hate himself even more.

At least he was alone. At least no one had to see him like this.

In his pocket, his phone buzzed.

He ignored it.

It buzzed again.

He still ignored it.

A pause long enough that he could feel it.

Then a third buzz.

He could guess who it was. Not a conversation he wanted to have right now.

Brian didn't want to have any conversation right now.

A fourth buzz.

He should have known that she wasn't going to leave him alone.

Slowly, he slipped his phone out and gave it a look.

Hey
I wanna tlk
U there?
?

Then again…

There were so many things he needed to say. Things he needed to hear, too. Things he needed to understand.

Yeah
Where are you?

Hding over now
Apt, right?

Yes

Kk

She didn't send anything after that, and he didn't either.

He pushed the phone away again, and-

Someone knocked on the door.

He blinked.

Brian wouldn't have put it past Aisha to have been waiting at the door the whole time, but he was pretty sure that this knock, while it sounded a little weird, was not being delivered by a walking statue.

When there was a second knock, he knew he wasn't going to be able to just wait it out.

Slowly, he pulled himself to his feet, pressed down on the couch to lever himself upwards until he was standing again.

"Coming," he called, hoping that it would satisfy the mystery intruder for a moment. A moment while he… god, he looked like shit, didn't he.

At least his knuckles weren't bleeding, and the bruises from yesterday had mostly faded.

The bathroom mirror stared accusingly at his tear-streaked face.

The marks almost washed out. Almost.

It would have to do.

He wiped himself dry, shoved the hand towel back onto its rack, and stalked his way to the door.

He peered through the peephole and saw a head of black-cherry hair and a translucent, shimmering body.

What the fuck, he didn't say, because he wasn't an idiot.

Brian gathered his thoughts, tried to put them in order, eventually hit on one before she got impatient.

"How'd you even get this address?"

Neptune laughed. "I asked your sister who lives here, duh," she said, like it wasn't even a question worth asking.

She was right, unfortunately. He'd have to talk with Aisha about it, but it wasn't like he could stop her.

He let out a long, slow sigh. "Okay. Okay. Can I help you?"

Not that he especially wanted to, but she seemed like the kind of person who would just ooze through the doorway or something regardless of what his thoughts were on the subject.

"Welllll, I was hoping to check out Aisha's place. Where's she at, anyway?"

Brian blinked. "You don't know?"

"Nope! What, you think she's been hanging out with us all day?"

"I wasn't sure. She's heading here now, though, so…"

Neptune laughed again. "Damn, what a fucking coincidence. Convenient, though."

A little too convenient, in his opinion. Unfortunately, he wasn't Lisa, he couldn't pick out deception based on microscopic twitches or whatever, and the view (or lack thereof) through the peephole wasn't helping.

He sighed again. "It is, isn't it. Whatever. Come in, then."

Neptune swept in before Brian had even finished opening the door, squeezing down to the width of a phone case and then spilling out into the entranceway. He almost threw a punch at her as she slid through his personal space, for all the good it would have done, but she was past him as soon as she came.

Slowly, he unclenched his fist and closed the door behind her.

"Hey," she said, not turning to face him. "Nice place. You could almost forget a hurtycane swept through here."

Brian blinked.

"A what."

Neptune laughed. "Ve's idea. Leviathan is basically a hurricane that's also a giant monster trying to kill you, right? Hurtycane," she explained.

"I'm… honestly at a loss as to how to respond to that."

"That's fair." She finally turned around, looking over him with an appraising eye. "But yeah. Nice place. Little sparse, though. And there's a whole lot of weights and not a lot of girly shit or whatever Aisha's into-"

He held up a hand.

"I've had this conversation before, Neptune. We'd planned to pick out some stuff she liked, but that was before… the bombings, and everything that came after that, and Leviathan… there just hasn't been a good time," Brian sighed.

She opened her mouth, then closed it. "That… hm," she tried. "...Okay. This city really has had a ridiculous amount of shit go down, hasn't it?"

He nodded.

"Maybe Brockton Bay is cursed or something. And not in a fun way," Neptune suggested, a little ironic smile fluttering onto her face.

"Maybe," Brian agreed, ignoring her microscopic pout as he stepped past her. "Now, if you're just here to tell me that my apartment needs more pink-"

"It totally does, buuuuut I wanna talk to you too," she interrupted. "You're Aisha's brother, after all, and she's pretty chill. I wanted to know if you were everything she said you were."

"And am I?" he couldn't help but wonder.

"You're definitely compensating for a lot of somethings. And I don't even mean your dick size."

He thought to deny it, but the glare on her face stopped him cold, like she thought he was an utter idiot.

To be fair, she was hardly wrong.

Brian exhaled a slow sigh, leading Neptune to the living room and collapsing in the well-abused remaining couch.

"Say what you want to say." He let his eyes close as he felt her slosh onto the cushions next to him.

"Well," Neptune started. She hummed faintly in the heavy air before she continued. "I see a boy who's doing the only thing he knows how to do, even when it's not working. Even when he's doing it to his own family."

"You don't have to tell me," he murmured bitterly. "And aren't you the same? I've seen what you've done to Lisa."

Silence. Then a troubled, genuine sigh. He opened his eyes and met her frown.

"It's… not supposed to be like that. But you're at least a little bit right. We should have been there for her. Helped her. Instead we amplified her suffering and we didn't have a fucking clue."

The regret surprised him. Neptune didn't seem like the kind of person to regret, well, anything.

She smiled sadly. "We've talked to her. Hopefully she can figure herself out, because I certainly can't. And we can't help her if she doesn't want to be helped. Shit, I wouldn't even blame her."

He raised an eyebrow at that. "That sounds almost reasonable, but you make it sound like it's not a choice, like it's just something that happens."

Neptune shifted on the couch, looking over him with keen eyes. "Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm saying. If I had a 'make everyone the Devil' button, you'd better believe I'd be mashing it, but it's not like that."

Brian frowned. "And I'm going to guess that you don't want to be quarantined for the safety of-"

She burst out laughing, cutting off his words with the rumbling bubbling up in her belly as she doubled over on the couch.

That was certainly one way to say "no."

Brian gave her his best poker face as she laughed and laughed, wrapping herself in her own arms.

He stared, and stared a little longer.

Finally she calmed down enough to speak, though she didn't look the slightest bit guilty. "Oh, satan, the look on your face! Ahahaha, hahaha, that was great. You know, I'm impressed you had the balls to suggest gay segregation to my face. To anyone's face."

"...gay segregation," he repeated, mouthing out the words in a futile effort to make them make sense.

"Well, if the devil is the part of you that deviates from societal norms, then yeah. Gay segregation."

He held up a finger. "Being gay isn't a cape power."

She grinned, pumping a fist in the air. "It is when I'm here, babey! Oh man, I should drink to that, you got anything around here?"

He gave the Devil his flattest stare, again. "First, no. Second, Lisa and Aisha aren't gay."

Somehow Neptune's grin got even wider. "You sure about that?"

He opened his mouth to argue, but closed it in a frown. Aisha was obviously into Alec, unfortunately, but he was pretty effeminate, and she did dye her hair… Okay, that didn't actually tell him anything. Maybe Neptune was right, kind of, maybe. Whatever.

And Lisa? Lisa wasn't into anyone, or so she'd told them, something about her power making intimacy uncomfortable. And he'd never seen her act like she was attracted to anyone, least of all lately; all she'd really been doing was…

...grieving…

...holy shit, how did he not see it before, it was so obvious.

Brian tried to ignore the aura of utter smugness radiating off of Neptune's entire being. Tried being the key word.

Okay, fine, so half of the Undersiders were probably gay. Still, this whole idea was really ridiculous, he was sure there was at least one counterexample, if not in the Undersiders then-

Ah. That'd do it, yep.

"Okay, but Riley exists, and isn't she a child? This has some uncomfortable implications."

She opened her mouth to sass him, then suddenly closed it, the grin wiped away from her face in an instant. "Shit. I guess I can't use that metaphor. Ah, fuck, I can still drink to it."

Brian buried his face in his hands, mumbling helplessly into them. "Just… forget about it. Forget I asked anything."

"What has been said cannot be unsaid," she intoned, a small smile on her face when he looked up again.

"I still don't have any drinks."

She huffed. "Aren't you, like, eighteen? You're way too old not to drink."

Neptune pawed at him in some vague teenage indignation, and he dodged back away from her watery hands. "That doesn't even make sense! I thought you were doing some kind of amateur psychoanalysis, not babbling about your underage drinking habits."

She grinned. "Oh, but I can do both. Watch this, sucker."

And then suddenly she was leaning over him, pushing Brian into the couch, a feral grin on her face as every dark thought threatened to swallow him up and drag him into the depths of her eyes like cold, black lakes-

"You," Neptune proclaimed, "are the kind of guy who'd never touch a bottle on his own, then get dared by his friends or something and drink himself into a coma in front of everyone."

He blinked.

He pushed her off of his chest.

"What."

She at least pulled away without much complaint, though she remained as smug as a snake. "See? Psychoanalysis and underage drinking."

"Do I even want to know what that's supposed to mean?"

Her smile faded slowly.

"It means you're terrified of showing weakness, Brian, as boys so often are."

Brian shivered.

That definitely wasn't something he wanted to hear.

But then again, the things that hurt someone said a lot about that person, didn't they?

He didn't have a chance to properly respond. A bang on the door echoed through the apartment, and if he had any doubt as to who it was, the ringing sound of "Briaaaaan!" dispelled it immediately.

Neptune immediately pulled herself off the couch and onto her feet. "Welp, looks like she's here."

"I noticed," he groaned, pushing his hands down into the cushions and slowly levering himself upright.

"Aisha! Come on in!"

He wasn't actually sure if he gave her a key, but if he hadn't, she'd probably have just stolen one.

Sure enough, the door opened before Brian got to it. The living statue beyond looked exceedingly proud of herself, at least for a moment before she turned to Brian and her smile softened.

"Hey, bro."

"Hey," he returned. "Neptune came over for some reason. You sure you didn't send her?"

Aisha tilted her head. "Nope, definitely had nothing to do with it. Though that would have been cool… Yo, Neptune!"

"Hey."

Brian turned.

There was something undefinably different about Neptune now, the way she held herself, the way she looked at the world with a combativeness Brian hadn't quite seen before. When she spoke, her voice was dry and measured and just a little bit bitter.

Aisha noticed it too, judging by her cautious tone.

"Nep? What's up?"

Neptune smiled, though it didn't meet her eyes. "I'm doing absolutely fucking fine, thank you very much."

"You're welcome," Aisha replied. "I'm sure that absolutely nothing is wrong at all."

"Ugh, fine. No, I… I just have a bad feeling." She directed a scowl towards the ground. "I'm gonna go check on my girls. See ya later."

Aisha blinked. "Uh, bye?"

But Neptune was already pushing past her, her form giving way and dissolving into the cracks in the hallway outside.

"I don't think that goes anywhere," Brian found himself mumbling.

"I've never lived somewhere that doesn't leak, she'll get out fine," Aisha offered. "And I think I know what she's talking about, too. Feels like I remembered that I left the stove on, except I left the stove on in a hotel a town away. Not urgent, but I don't like it."

He frowned.

Weird metaphors aside, he didn't like it either.