Maven

The motivation drops by the end of the week into a low effort energy and something vile that wants to spit on everything again. Just making his life easier by dropping everything. It feels like the way to return, and it would be so, so easy. He can feel the rubber band of his mood snap up and hit him with something that cuts beneath pale skin or hair and settles on a chest, shoulders. A thick-coated layer of animosity and frustration that could be easily turned into blame and twisted to something that fits the last years of his life.

It isn't like his brother doesn't notice that when they spend time together, he watches still very intently. Like Maven can and will snap at any given second. It isn't a hostile caution anymore, but still. At least, and that's the nicest diversion his brain has had from therapy sessions, laws, reconciling and managing things that aren't his life but still his responsibility, he has a chess partner back. It's still a lot of daring each other, long pauses between setting figures down, and sometimes, Maven's head feels hazy. But it's a competition that doesn't turn immediately jealous and blackened.

"He says I should finally take the offer and medication," Maven says, staring at the pawn in his hand and wanting to throw it for a moment. "My therapist. He says my mood swings and the episodes need to be under a constant. He says it'll help. That many people do it, eventually."

Cal looks at the figure and back at Maven's face with some strategic tact. "Do you want to?"

It'll turn you stupid, you will never be as good as you are now, your head is perfectly fine, it doesn't help.

"I don't know. I read the list of side effects." Maven throws the pawn at the table with heedless force. It lands on an already won staple of figures of the other color. "Maybe I should quit. I could quit therapy. I could just..."

"No."

"I know. I wasn't that serious."

"You can just think about it. Consider it."

"What else do I do but think about this mess, Cal?"

First, do the Thomas, ignore the calls, ghost everyone. Return to formal contact and insults with his brother. It isn't like he doesn't want to snap at him, and the breaks are patched up with putty and clay, not dried and healed in any way.

Just stay here, in this house, in the too big space of rooms lined up in a skyscraper. Look down from a mirrored hard transparent window into the world and be safe, be at least assured that no one comes high enough to hurt or anger.

That plan though falls awry with watching wreathing Thomas in his cocoon carry on. Just the daily misery and the people that come and go with it.

It comes with interest in watching the news with every speaker and every internet post about the ongoing structural disease. About how his mother weaseled and bought her way out along with some others Maven knows very well.

At least the loitering in front of the building has come to a halt, the abstruse and detrimental stalking in thirst for any news.

It does not mean that any corporate call, associate, or anything has changed their way. If people know they have the means and liquid
groups that have money, are actively accessing the press, and have strong backing from large generic companies tend to not fall down as easy.

Whereas a group only built by unrest of the lower end of the society has to scream and rage up, the upper end has to nod and wait. Waiting is a game to see who is best at the telephone game.

"That's quite enough," Maven heaves and pushes on the figure wrapped in blankets and self-destruction. He unrolls a moment before lying still. It feels like unwrapping an unwilling animal from a net they have been caught in. "I'm having to settle things with your mother about the case of Hannah, you're coming with me."

The response is a wailing groan that reminds Maven of himself. "I don't want to go see my parents. Have you seen the Stilts? Everything is always shitty. It'll be still shitty or worse now."

"For once, I didn't ask," he says and puts on his best blank expression and authority. "Do I need to call Iris or your friend Cameron so they make you shower and dress? I have a list of people to threaten you into action."

The dark eyes stare at him from beneath the frizzling layer of a poofy soft purple blanket. "Imma shower if you come with me."

Not today, you don't wrap me up with your suggestions, Maven thinks. His hands push again, unraveling more of the blanket fort. It crumbles, badly constructed like both their thoughts.

"You're the person that keeps being proud of me for progress. Let's just..." He closes his eyes and a flash of a coming headache announces itself bravely. A grey strong feeling that paralyzes him, again. "Let's go outside together. Do something alone. Visit your family."

"It isn't cause your mom has put her cauldron down again in the office and sends her flying servants out instead of walking out herself, right?"

His mother is still in an irritating mood, watching everything he does. She wouldn't at least creep up and lie in waiting in the Stilts.

Maven doesn't blink.

"Just dress and pack a few things."

Like relocating an animal, it takes some moments to gain enough trust. As with most strays and as it always has been, food convinces even the most bristling creature to come up close. He has learned enough lessons about baiting his boyfriend with treats, like a trail made of sweets that leads him to necessary tasks. It would be also his greatest weakness, with all the allergies and carelessness coming up, to straight-up poison him- always a worry with hungry Thomas.

The ride off goes by rather fast by reading and talking, even if eyes peer towards them. It always feels like treading careful in public spaces, with a safety distance, even if he has minimized that field already.

It is dirty and loud, smells bad and everything is ruined and crumbled. It's a dissonance, a difference that is visible. Now he's even more aware of the eyes that stare at the gry vein on his arm when he stretches his wrist and hand toward Thomas, or that everyone looks at the difference in the skin and the blood flowing underneath. It's a minor side effect and adds to being uncomfortable.

Without music to drown the feeling out, it sticks to his skin like cold sweat.

As it is, however, they tread on through crumbled streets and houses, slithering over broken sidewalks and smeared curses that follow them in big letters.

His jacket, his bag, everything weighs a ton in fatigue and faltering migraines.

It doesn't take more than a second to see the door of the tiny house open. They haven't even breached the porch when it flies open and stays that way until Thomas and Maven have dragged themselves up and off into the light eradicating from the cracks and windows.

Thomas' mother wears a faded knitted sweater and some skirt in a pattern that may have been nice and popular ten years ago. Her hair is staged in so many shades of grey and brown wavering, it looks like a choice and not a sign of age.

You can't be happy with her, can you? Did she ever...I don't know, do anything really, really motherly? No one cares more for a kid than their mom, trying to keep it out of harm.

"Tommy, your hair," is her greeting, with withered fingers combing through the brown mess.

Thomas accepts the touch with faithful patience and raised eyebrows. "My hair is fine? Iris takes me to get it done when it is really bad."

"You're both way too thin. Are you eating at all?"

"Why is that always the first thing you ask? You know my metabolism, you're my mom."

"Sure. But I don't see you anymore these days." She finally lets go with a last gentle nudge. "You're right for dinner. Just us and your little sister."

Thomas looks at her from under the combed back hair. "No dad, huh."

She doesn't bat an eye. "Overtime and the traffic. He won't be here before late night."

Maven just stands awkwardly on the porch and waits for the exchange to end. He doesn't anticipate the gratitude expressed into any physical display of affection for him either until he receives a hug too.

"It's good to see you too." Her arms are very soft and she is very thin herself under the knitted shirt. "Thank you. I really appreciate everything you do. I know it isn't easy."

"We need to talk about some things." The papers in the bag weigh a ton. The feeling of uneasiness coils in his bones under a friendly touch. "There have been some accusations and some..new information brought up. Not necessarily helpful."

"We get to it." Her eyes are very warm. "Just stay a bit. You look tired too."

He holds the strap of his bag like a safety cord. "A little."

"That's enough for me. Now where are you thinking you are going, say hello to your sister and help us do the dishes if I have to feed you again, Thomas E-"

Thomas' baby sister not sparkling pink this time. In a rancid shirt that is faded in green colors and adorned with images of a unicorn flaking off, too long and big, with loose strings hanging from the hem, she looks even smaller than she is. Her hair is braided neatly, with too many hair clips attached.

"Sup, Squishy. Cool hairclips."

"My friend gave them to me." Maven just slowly retreats and melts into the exterior to leave them be. "They glow in the dark."

"Cool. You wanna have help?"

She hands over a towel.

Packing his things after dinner, he only leaves some of the papers sprawled on the table in the living room.

"Let him stay here again for a few days. He's not...He is not doing good."

"Violence makes people retreat in shells. It's not new." She gently taps the table in front of them with her pen. "He saw his friend get killed. What would happen if you saw your family or friends get hurt?"

"I usually do that myself," he answers, eyes and ears fixed on the tact the pen strikes on the old scratched wood. "I'm not a particularly good person, if all the stories haven't made it clear."

"I disagree. You're so young, it'd be foolish to assume you are perfect, Maven." The penn stops and her brown eyes are on him again in something warm. "But I'm always happy to have him back. He's been through a rough time."

"Thank you for having me."

"Aren't you staying?"

"Not today." He tries to smile at her as curteous as possible. "But thank you. You're a kind person."

Side effects from pills are dizziness, worse symptoms of your brain raging on in depression, headaches...the list is endless. Kindness has the side effect of making him morose and permeable. Arriving late in the night, usually every light is extinguished and everything is silent. Now though, he has company as soon as he steps in up from the elevator and the cool outside breeze.

She sits in the mere flicker of light, the remainder of a splintering cone. Like a searchlight, a stray ray of light reaches up to the split open steps into the room. Her eyes flicker open with the same intensity, obviously waking up from a slumber. He unceremoniously shuts the door with a loud thud. As the locks close, it feels like a trap, a jail scene of own volition, just another ring for another confrontation.

"Did you stay up the whole night?"

"I called you."

Accusatory tones, and if they were music, then he would know them. Because his life's moral was just a faded reprise with added elements, integrated from other orchestras playing their own.

He breathes low. Half of him expects a cloud of breezing air to show up in front of his mouth, it is cold here, not only the metaphorical kind. "I don't answer my phone anymore when I know it's you."

He shouldn't talk to her. Not like this, not tonight, but every talk with his family is a closed caption in grey morning dew, and it seems easier to speak truths with lights out, so no one sees that it is real. Stiff and tense, he sits next to her. Any warmth or comfort is erased by now.

"Remember, I used to sit like this with you sometimes when you were sick or had those awful nightmares as a child." She straightens her crumbled stiff cardigan. Her hair is dangling loosely over her shoulder in blond and slight grey. Barely visible under her attempt to hide it.

For a second the memories swim, and she is a beacon of words and big, pale hands that make him question himself. It pierces the doubt and tells him to throw it away, to stop being weak.

Stop crying.

You can do better.

That's embarrassing, Maven.

Faster, better, you are smart, you have to show more effort. Or you fail miserably- Do you want to be a failure? Your father will never love you. You're nothing to them. But you're everything to me.

You don't need them.

I told you they would hurt you.

They don't matter.

You don't need them.

He shifts away and tries to stop his billowing anger and frustration, but also the dread that surfaces at the sheer loaded canon of childhood memories. It burns through his hands in fists, his neck straining, his shoulders dropping and drawing back.

"That's not how I remember it.I remember nightmares. And I remember kicking off in my bed, sometimes I woke up Cal, but his room was on the other end of the hall, so he wouldn't always notice if I didn't go to him. And I went to you, in the middle of the night, because I was scared and you were my mother, and I thought maybe you would help."

A block of thoughts grows between them, and for not the first time it is a sensory sensation to know exactly how both of them process this. It isn't new , it isn't anything. The shivering accusations, the bittersweet memories, the nightmares of a scared child and a person that's not yet fully formed to understand how wrong some things are.

Her reasoning and bargaining are looking away from him. For just a moment.

"I tried to help. I stayed with you and sacrificed my night's sleep. Just because you were scared. Of things that weren't even real."

"I was a child, you could have assured me they weren't real. I don't remember you holding me to do that. You just sat and watched, or pushed me back under the blanket, and sometimes you scoffed at me like I couldn't behave at the dinner table. And when I asked you to leave a light on, you told me it was a waste."

Their eyes drift off, orbiting around the empty room.

"In my defense, you were a slow child, you had a spectrum of bad tendencies, and I had no idea how to handle your inabilities at first." Her hands push past his fist and curl around it, not forceful, a small glimpse of something that feels like love or care, but is poisoned by a whole other deed and reasoning. "But I figured it out. Then I knew you would turn out perfect if someone gave you a little push here and there. I made you better."

Her fingers squeeze a little more, and they constrict his own for a moment. They're the same hands, the same build, the same structure in the bones. He closes his other hand around it and holds on. For an absurd long moment it could be like before. He can feel it seep in his bones. If he doesn't let go now, he can just turn back and live blissfully. Or he could, if he didn't know that something about that was wrong, and if he hadn't made promises and progress.

"I believe they call it enabling, mother." He presses his eyelids together, the world is a flash of white in black behind it for a moment. Then he lets go of her hand. "You were enabling all my bad symptoms and habits. I'm not fine. I have problems. You're a part of them. I'm not a child anymore. I can go wherever I want to. I can do whatever I want to."

"Then why aren't you?"

Why are you still here? Why do you come back? Threats , threats, but they loose merit when you repeat them.

I'm everything you have left as family.

No. Not true.

"I'm packing together. I don't think it's good for either Thomas or me to be here. This isn't a home for anyone anyway."

"So what?" her voice is unnoticably sharper, more strained. "You live your little fantasy life where you fix everything and keep that rat with you, cleaning up his mistakes? Where do you want to go? What are you going to live from? Will you just throw your advantages away? You had dreams once, Maven, what are they now?"

"None of your business, really. Good night."

It is satisfying to keep having the last word.